NEW UPDATE: ‘Comparing School Rankings (and salaries) Of SMCISD Superintendents’
The San Marcos Corridor News received numerous inquiries regarding an article we ran on September 13, 2015 titled ‘Comparing School Rankings (and salaries) Of SMCISD Superintendents.’
The first inquiry we received was from Superintendent Eads’ office. The SMCISD district office disclosed to us the salary for Dr. Shafer they had on file.
Unfortunately, it is never advisable for Corridor News or anyone for that matter, to assume what people tell you is factual. Our job is to get the accurate and factual information from the correct and proper source.
The salary data that San Marcos Corridor News published was directly off The Texas Tribunes website, a link to Tribunes page was included at the bottom of our article, and for the last couple of years The Texas Tribune has reported salary data on Texas government employee salaries.
We reached out to John Jordan, Editorial Administrator, from The Texas Tribune concerning the inquiries we were receiving questioning the accuracy of their data and the inquiries.
“We received the data from an open records request we sent to the Texas Education Agency (TEA.) We do not manipulate any of those numbers, and they come directly from the TEA. If they aren’t accurate, then the TEA has given us wrong information, but I would be interested in seeing the information they send to you,” remarked Jordan.
We visited the website of the Texas Education Agency or as most call them the “TEA”, to give you a better idea on who they are and what they do, and we included the link directly to the site. http://tea.texas.gov/
About TEA
The Texas Education Agency is the state agency that oversees primary and secondary public education. It is headed by the commissioner of education. The mission of TEA is to provide leadership, guidance and resources to help schools meet the educational needs of all students.
Agency Finances
Public education is a big business in Texas. Billions of dollars flow through the agency and are distributed to our more than 1,200 school districts and charters. The agency’s finances from our legislative appropriations request to our check book register are all available for public review.
On September 16, San Marcos Corridor News sent a public information request to the TEA to verify the data in question.
On Friday, October 1, 2015, we received the following information and we have included the chain of emails between San Marcos Corridor News and the TEA.
You will see there is a significant contradiction in the “contract salary” between Dr. Shafer and Mr. Eads; one can only draw their own conclusions as to why.
Corridor News certainly cannot and will not assume why one of SMCISD governing bodies, the Texas Education Agency, and Mr. Eads district office has such a difference in dollar amounts.
One might surmise that maybe the TEA never received the correct information from SMCISD originally, or maybe one might theorize that Dr. Shafer’s salary from January through June was never given to the TEA to begin with.
Therefore, let us boil this down right now and give you, our readers’ the factual, accurate, and trusted news.
We will never exaggerate the facts or the fiction, whether we like or do not like the truth, or like or dislike a person.
In reality, when one plays by unscrupulous ethics, no one wins.
However, we do appreciate the fact our readers will call us on the carpet when there is the belief we are wrong, and we will always do our very best to get and report the most accurate facts available to us at that moment.
No one person or news media outlet is perfect and when we make a mistake — and from time to time, we will, — we will work quickly to fully address the error, correcting it within the story. If you find an error, email info@SMCorridorNews.com.
Melissa Jewett, Publisher
Printable PDF — Public Information Request Emails and TEA’s Salary Data
Previous Comments:
Ted: There is no data here. It appears to be attached to the email.
Melissa Jewett: The data that you see right above the comments where it lists the year on the left and the accountability rating on the right is the data. It also lists the names and base-pay salary.
If it is missing on your end, you might want to try a different browser, or let me know and I will email it to you.
Also, just above the email, is a link to a PDF of the email and data page.
Thank you for reading.
Ted: Hmm. Must have been an issue with my connection, I only got the first page to load. Thanks.
