There it was, spelled out for everybody to see, one of the chief reasons why schools cost so much.

“North Kitsap Schools looks at Shuffling its Administrators” was the headline in the daily paper. The school board was meeting to discuss making some changes in its bureaucracy. Two positions that are currently executive director level are to be elevated to assistant superintendent.

With that comes a raise in pay for director of human resources Chris Willits from $105,000 to $120,000 a year. Teaching and learning director Shawn Woodward’s salary will increase from $112,000 to $120,000.

Two more new administrative positions were added. Bremerton High School principal Aaron Leavell was to be hired as director of secondary education and Pearson grade school principal Patricia Moore named director of elementary education. Each to be paid $115,000.

Four positions were slated to be eliminated: executive directors for finance and student support services, the director of assessment and an assistant director of learning services. The board postponed immediate action but was expected to approve the plan by July 9.

It wasn’t too many years ago that most school districts had a superintendent whose only help was a secretary. I remember the outcry when they started hiring business managers.

“Isn’t that YOUR job?” demanded parents of their superintendent.

“Oh, I’m too busy handling matters affecting the kids’ learning,” weaseled the supers.

Today, they have deputy superintendents, assistant superintendents, executive directors, with their own secretaries and perks. The trend is toward two principals for many schools and/or an assistant. And they are outrageously overpaid, bearing out what a wise friend in Olympia once told me. “In public education, the farther away you get from the kids, the more money you make.”

North Kitsap said it was acting on the advice of a management consultant, but I have no doubt the fine hand of the Washington Education Association was in on this bureaucracy growth from the beginning. The more teachers you take out of the classroom and promote to supervisor, the more new teachers you have to hire to take their places. Hence, the more members gained by the WEA.

I recall some years back when a crackerjack mathematics teacher was taken out of the classroom in South Kitsap and made a supervisor. Everyone who knew him and knew of him expressed regret that the kids had suffered the loss of a very gifted teacher, but you really couldn’t blame him. Like when famous bank robber Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks and said, “That’s where the money is,” teachers leaving the classroom to move into administration can say, “That’s where the money is.”

I also recall when Terry Bergeson lost her first race for superintendent of public instruction and needed a job. Central Kitsap School District created a high ranking position with a fat salary for her and tucked her into its bureaucracy until the next election when she won.

Of course, she’s back out of a job now, but I don’t know where she landed if she didn’t just retire.

Think how much money we could save by eliminating or combining all these administrative positions and putting those teachers back in the classroom. Let’s put the superintendents back to work.

Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, WA 98340.