They're citing Darien and Fairfield?!? Are they really trying to compare Stratford to those towns? C'mon, you can pay the next superintendant $500,000.00, it still won't make any difference in test scores here.

Since we have a budget crisis every year, maybe they should make less. Do I really want to know that while we are threatened with school closures, loss of specials in elementary schools, and threats of pay-to play sports that the person in charge of this is making almost 4 times the town average? Maybe it should be an incentive type package....You manage to stay in budget for a year , you get a bonus. You actually visit one of the schools you get a bonus. Maybe it would equal $200k, but at least I would feel like they were doing their job.

My error Jason, but you did cite Bob David as calling it utopic to think that a super could be found for 200K. My guess is that after another "nationwide search" Mike Feeney will be offered the job.

Here are a few comments posted on the Stratford Patch Facebook page. They answer the question posed in the article's headline/poll:

Rich Tomas: "Ummm...Given that we may have to close a school......no"

Matt DeBernardo: "tie their compensation directly to metrics. start them at a lower base with the ability to make over $200 with stellar performance."

Michelle Douglas: "Sure! As long as they eliminate all of the support staff and this person answers his/her own phone & writes his/her own letters, etc. $200k is maybe reasonable for the entire office...MAYBE. I do think they should have to pass all of the final exams that their students have to take."

http://www.facebook.com/StratfordPatch

So the superintendent makes more than our Mayor??? Really??? And the Mayor runs the town. And we want to increase that salary?? House prices in this town have dropped and many people are out of jobs. Many people do not even get raises these days and our taxes just keep going up and up. For the right person this could be a huge pay raise, if the Board of Ed looks and finds the right person

The higher the position in in the education system, these less the benefit realized. A sup't with a dozen assistants, vice assistants, principals, vice principals etc does little of real valve. I personally know of a principal at an elementary school in the valley that spent his days surfing the Corvette auto chat rooms. After I contacted the BoE he ceased mashing my business from his office computer. Factually he never had purchased or even called my business - but left a trail to his BoE office computer. PS 35 years ago I taught in Bpt. I saw close up how the executive branch of the school system - did virtually nothing at fabulous pay.

Why don't we use that money to attract TEACHERS who are ENTHUSIASTIC about teaching?? At times I regret buying a home in Stratford. My taxes are very high and the quality of my kids' education is not reflective of such a tax rate.

Nobody in the educational field deserves anywhere near this kind of money until student performance levels dramatically increase. It's time to break up the gravy train
for these pseudo-educational fatcats who have no answers for our pathethic school systems.

This is what happens when money is blindly thrown at the ed system in the hopes that the kids learn something. Test scores not up to par? Throw it more money! We all know it works marvelously in Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford, they get more money than all the other cities and STILL have horrid results. Maybe if we hire Dr. Highforehead to run the system it will be better! Pay him $300,000.00 a year because that's what some other town might pay.

It all comes down to two parent involvement, support of the children, setting rules, and making sure work gets done in collaboration with an effective teacher.

Too much money is already soaked up at the top and too little gets down to the kids. Lower the salaries of all these high-priced supers. And the Mayor doesn't need a 22% raise either!

IDEA legislation has turned our schools into psychiatric hospitals, probation detention centers, tax shelters, and software purchasing outlets. It's no wonder they have staffed the schools with armed police. Is it a shock that they want to staff the "Gate Keeper" of such an industry with someone paid so well? I would think that would be a given in the INDUSTRY needed to be preserved. Sad.

Why not hire a firm to shadow the school superintendant to see what they actually do?
I think it would be most enlightening.
Is it like most executive education positions?
Is it protected by the school wall of salary justification secrecy?
Do many in the organization aspire to the position - so all in the lower positions support & justify it?
We paid almost $200K plus perks to the last super - what did she do to improve efficiency or scores?
I have no problems paying a top salary - but shouldn't come with something more than the status quo and school closing threats?

I would like to see the next superintendent be a non-educator, a non-attorney, a non-psychologist, a non-technocrat. I would like to see the next superintendent to possibly have expertise in bird watching maybe. To borrow from the Stratford Patch’s Jason Bagley, I would like someone with the ability to spot various species and “create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent." You see, only someone with the patience and dedication of a bird watcher is wise enough to sit and learn, remain somewhat motionless, understand that they haven’t seen everything, and have a heightened awareness that there are big bird and little bird and that sometimes the big ones feed upon the vulnerabilities of the smaller more defenseless ones. This sort of person would be less likely to manipulate the environment – changing things and moving things around; thus, making the more vulnerable of our species helpless to the bob and swoop of a predator. I would pay a bird watcher 200K.

Whatever it would take to get Guy Stella back as Superintendent.

I would do it for a salary of $1.00 annually. Then I will take a bonus of 50% on every dollar I can cut the budget by. However, only half of that bonus will go to me, the second half will go back to the kids in the form of books, computers, band or sports equipment, etc. Actually toward the kids.

Unfortunately that kind of compensation program cannot be developed because the state regulations require that a town/city spend no less on education than they did in the previous year. It is a never ending gravy train set up by the unions.

So, the new superintendent needs to make what Irene makes as a retiree PLUS the over $95000 the BOE is giving her? I knew this would be at issue when the BOE hired her back. No, the Stratford superintendent should not make anywhere near what Darien and Fairfield make. Stratford is not a Fairfield and until it begins to devote more monies to the instructional program for all students, realizing an increase in both texts and instructional supplies, the superintendent should be around $120000 .