Here are couple of email replies from parents of NWCS to some of the member of the 22 parent group ( I doubt that all the original 22 parents agree with them).
"Dear Mr/Ms Li,
Thank you for your volunteer work at NWCS, as what many others did.
Yes, the administrative stuff prepare the pay checks for the teacher. Yes, they copy the materials, Yes, they prepare the contest and prepare trophies and certificates. Yes, they find a replacement when a teacher is ill. However, these are their jobs. These are their responsibilities. These are what they are paid for. They are not doing us a favor. They get the salary for it. No matter how well they have done their work, it is not an excuse for anyone among them not to follow the rule. The school can operate no matter which one leaves.
OK, I believe the vice-principal have answered many phone calls regarding the summer program. That is because she is vice-principal. That is because someone else didn't answer and let her answer. Anyway, she and the other admin members are in the school's payroll and receiving money for doing their jobs. If she has done much beyond the contract requirement, that is because she does so volunteerily and no one forced her to do it.
I don't know how you count the working hours. And, many parents (including you) did the volunteer work and their pay is $0 per hour, well below WA's minimum hourly wage. If she feels her salary is unfair, why didn't she leave? No one forced her to stay at NWCS!
Kennedy's words of blind trust have been criticized by many scholars and the other people, and his this sentence was part of the cause why the US got involved in the Vietnam war. We parents have the responsibility to supervise the school oeration and Kennedy's words cannot be used to let us give up this responsibility. If we parents and society as a whole do not ask what NWCS can do for the students but just ask what we can do for NWCS, then, why we should do for the school? Why the school should exist? Am I the school's slave?
From L Chen"
"I’m not anonymous, I usually even have my whole signature in my email. Here I also add my phone numbers.
I didn’t write the email you referred, but I agree some of points there.
1. We hired the administrative staffs to do the job. If they work to our satisfactory level, we thank them. However, they are NOT do a favor to the school. I believe it’s quite obvious.
2. People are selfish by nature. We parents need to have a mechanism to supervise and monitor the administrative staffs to make sure they do the jobs and spend the money we paid on the education of our children - I believe this is what many parents are looking for.
What do you think of these two points?
And again, welcome everyone to the forum to discuss further: http://nwcsparents.8.forumer.com/index.php
Charles Ma"
“It is sad to see that some of the parents including some board members forget the priority from time to time.
Personally I see it might be a victory to Simon's ego but certainly a loss to NWCS. The fact that Zhou Lin is forced to offer apology again, regardless it is justified or not, proves that the current administration is ready to close their chapter.
As a parent, I am sincerely grateful that the current administration resists all the pressure/interference and keeps the whole school running till the last day of the school year. That is a big favor to all of us.
A worried parent,
Shen Jun
”
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18 comments:
One of the mail which L Chen and Charle replied to.
"Yes, teachers are taking care of the kids. But admin takes care of teachers and the kids. Just name a few: who prepare the pay cheques for teachers? Who does the copies for the teachers to hand out their teaching materials? Who is taking care of writing contest now - make trophy, prepare the certificate of awards? Who finds a replacement if a teacher is sick? Admin.
Regarding the summer program, please ask the previous board members to get the fact before asking the admin. The summer program is a different contract and that is nothing to do with the admin supporting the school semester. By the way, Weiqi answered about one hundred of phones calls regarding the summer program this year so far for free. Why? Because she still care for this school and care for the kids even though the words like “the admin is working for money”, or “vice principal’s pay is over 9 times more than what for teachers” from the board member to anonymous email hurt her very much. Let’s me tell everyone the truth, her hourly pay is much less than many teachers. Her hourly pay is way below WA’s minimum wage if you count the total hours she spent for this school.
On 5/5 membership meeting, I remember there was one slide showed the enrollment changes: from 800 something enrollments two years ago to over 1200 enrollments this semester. Is this not a significant increase?
Please do something for this school if everyone really cares for this school. As president Kennedy said once: “… ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.” I change a little bit here: “ask not what this school can do for you - ask what you can do for this school.” There are many needs from this school: I (as the coordinator for parent on duty patrol. By the way, I don’t get any penny from the school for this coordination.) need volunteers for parent patrol every week. 90% of the time I don’t have enough volunteers. The school website needs many improvements, in my opinion.
Mingqi Li"
I am so sorry that the vice principal has to work so hard. I can understand why she is so bitter. She basically did all Zhoulin’s work. Zhoulin get all the credit and salary. Did Zhoulin hire them with our money to do her work? Can anyone of you tell me what we need Zhoulin for? Show and tell?
L Chen说得好，如果学校的事情全靠家长义工的话拿我们付那么多学费干吗？难道我们都是你们的奴隶,有责任养活Admin?
去年我也是我们班家长的coordinater， 今年我们班每次需要人我都去了。 每次都是自愿的， 而且很开心。我觉得自己有多大的公益心就做多少事，千万别难为自己。 家长们要是把校长,admin的事情都办了，把老师的活也包了，那我们不就不用交学费了， 她们会干吗？！撵都撵不走还说“do school a big favor”, 哈哈...真正的黑色幽默。
Li说得对，学校的网站的确需要改进，而且急需改进。如果我们能在那里发表自己的看法，这个网站还会存在吗？！
对了，建立这个网站的家长也是自愿的，也是不拿一分钱啊！
Haha, the focal point was shifted to Vice Principal no matter what the topic is. Don't forget the controversy is about Principal.
I am glad to read the discussion and argument have become more serious and sophisticated, even Kennedy's words popped up.
I bet amongst School's parents, there are a lot of energetic warriors who can make things bigger than just eliminating a mediocre principal.
I have been requested to do something for her presidential election by Hillary's campaign team, why don't we group together to support her as power from Chinese community?
Hillary or Principal of NWCS? Who is greater?
The problem is this mediocre gal has drawn too much attention from this group of outstanding aces. She must be removed first, then we probably can be headed for biggie.
Agree that BOD meeting should be open with advance announcement. Also when BOD decides to ask/hire/invite some people outside the board to do things vital to NWCS like "leading the effort to get our Open Hearing logistics together", announcement should made BEFORE their work with brief explanation about why they are chosen and whether they are paid or not, certainly NOT AFTERFACT. This at least would eliminate legitimacy problems caused by secrecy.
Many people have been volunteering in NWCS. Some are visible (like June Hu, some of 22 concerned parents, and others). But majority of them are invisible. However if it means you have more say about how to govern the NWCS because you volunteer more or just in merely more visible way, your MOTIVATION of volunteerism become questionable. In my eyes, that TAINTs the spirit of volunteerism.
Another thing we should look at is the payroll list. I do think payroll list should be PUBLICIZED every half year. Information should include name with simple explanation about what position he/she holds in NWCS. The exact compensations of any key employees like Principal, Vice Principals, Treasurers etc. should also be publicized. Also BOD should make any contract work (like accounting, cleaning, etc.) public. We used to have information about names of teachers for each class and names of administration members as well as BOD members's names available Online. Why has it stopped for last two years? Can we restore that?
In conclusion, TRANSPARENCY and COMMUICATION are the key issues here. If we make sure transparency of governing NWCS and constant commuication with total members of NWCS, it would help to eliminate any misunderstanding, so called "22 concerned parents" issue and "throwing tantrum" behavior.
There is a email calling for "some tangible proposals". In summary, I give my proposals:
1. BOD meeting should be open with ADVANCED announcement.
2. Payroll list (with names and exact compensations for key employees) should be publicized.
In the end, I thank every teacher/staff for his/her deligent work to teach our kids and all volunteers to keep NWCS going.
I don't remember to see any place saying "the admin is working for money”, or “vice principal’s pay is over 9 times more than what for teachers. only Principal's salary is questionable one. How come VP and Admin get into this? Is that some kind of conspiracy here?
Another "concerned parent"
Li Mingqi is the VP Lin Weiqi's husband.
Do the board know what % of the school operation money was paid to the teachers? How many teachers do we have righht now?
请大家注意一件怪事儿，舆论都在遣责周琳，事情因她乱发电子邮件而起，四个月拒交细账，暑期光拿钱（上万元）不干活儿等。周琳对此避而不答，而是指使vp 和admins大吐苦水，大诉冤屈，令人莫名其妙！他们所说的"the admin is working for money”, or “vice principal’s pay is over 9 times more than what for teachers.”是从哪儿听来的？？我们怎么没听说？
提请这些全力支持周琳的人注意了，请静心回忆一下，当你忍不住想站出来发言时，是否从某人那儿听到了什么？
哈哈，上当啦！赶快醒醒！
利用你们的人太卑鄙了！！
Nancy's reply
Hi Mingqi and All,
Board is doing the internal audit for teacher's and admin team compensation now. So far, we haven't released any result from our audit. Please let me know where you heard " "the admin is working for money", or "vice principal's pay is over 9 times more than what for teachers". Please provide the evidence. If you have been told by someone, name that person. If you received forwarded emails, please send it to Board I have served in Board since last June. I have never ever heard anyone in board said, vice principal make 9 times more than what teachers does. In the Teacher-Board meeting, our board member LonChang had explained what the board have been working on in the past months.
Only principal's salary is significantly higher compare to market rate, vice principal and teacher. We are working hard to close the gap Admin team has done a tremendous job in supporting school. They deserve for what they have been compensated. I also heard a lot of good comments for vice principal, Lin Weiqi and Li Qun.
Well said. Nancy. Teacher and Many Admin are doing a lot of works beyond only saturday. They deserve the recognitions.
The smoking gun is trying to stir our focus. Someone from this school is irresponsibly creating the accusation and is very good at that. Remember the accusation of "Board is trying to low teacher's salary". Seems like the same trick. Got the connection?
Enough to said.
From Mingqi:
"By the way, Weiqi answered about one hundred of phones calls regarding the summer program this year so far for free.".
Mingqi:
I'm curious to know who made this happen? Who was the general manager for our summer program?
Is it the general manager's responsibility to answer these phone calls? Where did these parents get Weiqi's phone number? Was Weiqi a volunteer to do that?
If so, she has nothing to complain. If not, she should NOT do someone else's job. It's that simple.
We heard that the principal just quit the summer general manager position because there are not
many students registered so far for the program and thus she can not make much out of it. Is this true?
所以我非常怀疑这两位斗士真正站在哪一边,一个以往披露了许多校长反对面不可能知道的事情(但这些事情对于搬倒校长并不起作用),另一位建立论坛试图将这里的影响稀释.
哈哈,江湖险恶,坐壁静观吧!
即使是"双重",不失高手本色,佩服啊!好好玩吧!
我想澄清一下，这里没人想搬倒校长。 这个blog的本意是了解事实，大家是想知道的事实。如果事实证明周林根本不合格当校长，那是她自己的错。一个行得正走得直的人没有人会想搬到她。
感谢您提供这个场所让大家畅所欲言.我需要声明,我的目的就是要让校长下台.首先她不够资格当校长已经是不争的事实,但是其本人并不按行规办事,体面退出,而是利用各种手段顶着不走,况且她还有不少走卒.这种情况下,只有利用各种方法搬倒她,才为有效.
I was not paid for what I have done for NWCS, however, I'm happy to serve the community and help the NWCS members whenever needed.I was actually very sad leaving NWCS as I care about school education. I have helped a lot of urgent situations.... As one of parents said, it's job responsibility, no complaints
Mingqi Li said an alarming fact, there are good admin like Weiqi, (btw, not to foget the teachers, board members, PTA and volunters), who did the most or everything for the school.
Let fire Zhou Lin!!!!, and get the good people to run the school!
Mingqi Li is Weiqi Lin's husband and a key member of the 22 special parents. He shamelessly came out to defend his wife (school VP). You and your wife helped create this mess for the school for the past a few months. Don't forget your wife gets paid, yet a lot of volunteer parents who contribute the same amount of time do not. Why are you complaining here? If you are, please ask your wife to resign immediately? BTW, she is not qualified to be in that position anyway. One more point, the school grows to what it is today. Are you saying your wife did a lot of this and should get all the credits? Shame on you. All credits should go to all hardworking teachers and all supporting parents. They are the true HEROES of the school.
Here is the new version of your quote:
"... ask not what principal can do for Weiqi Lin (maybe some extra bonus), ... ask what Weiqi Lin and Mingqi Li can do for principal to turn the school into a turmoil"
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