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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 5, 1979)
eacher pay increase waits approval By LOUIE ARTHUR Battalion Staff Bryan teachers will receive an 8 percent average sal ary increase if the school board approves the raise at their July 9 meeting. The proposed plan to revise the current pay schedule would also provide a 6 to 8 percent increase for all school district personnel. The Bryan school board’s personnel committee, com posed of trustees B.F. Vance Jr., Dr. Tom King and Tom Borski, unanimously approved the plan at the committee meeting June 28. The new plan would be the first update made in the pay schedule in six years. Under the new plan, a teacher with a bachelor’s de gree and five years experience in the school district would receive $600 yearly in pay increments — an increase of $300 over the present $300 in increments a year. A teacher’s base salary is funded by state money. Local funds contribute 10 percent to teacher salaries. The new plan would also mean that more teachers would receive “merit pay” — the Bryan school district’s reward system for outstanding teachers. At present, 20 percent of the teachers receive the annual $600 merit pay addition to their salary. Under the proposed plan, 25 percent would receive the bonus during the first year of the plan and 30 percent the second year. Another new concept is the “merit retention incre ment” program. This program would be included in the third year of a teacher’s employment. Under the program, a teacher who has received merit pay four times would receive $600 in addition to the $600 merit pay. Thereafter, every year that teacher receives merit pay, he would also get the $600 merit retention increment. “It’s a way to reward those teachers who are our best teachers, and it’s a way to keep them in the district,” Bryan director of personnel, C.B. McGowe, told the committee. “At the same time, it doesn’t allow a teacher to qualify for the merit retention and then sit back and ride out the rest of his career. “It will be very difficult to administer,” McGowen continued. “There will be an incredible amount of rec ord keeping but we feel it will be worth it. It’s not right to treat all teachers alike, because they’re not.” John Rouse, president of the Bryan Classroom Teachers Association, said most of the teachers he has talked to are satisfied with the pay hike but “we’d all like to see more.” “Some of the teachers are not pleased that the school board has chosen to stay with the merit pay system,” Rouse said. “It’s really hard to administer it without observing the teachers every day. “The school board is composed of business types who use merit pay in their businesses,” Rouse commented. “It works well for them so they think it should also apply to teachers. But you can’t judge a teacher like a bricklayer - by how many bricks he has produced in a day. It’s much more esoteric and harder to get your hands on.” Rouse said some of the teachers who did not get the merit pay but felt they should have claimed that fa voritism was used in the decision but that he hoped this was not the case. “On paper they have the specific criteria,” Rouse said. “The building principal selects the teachers who receive the pay. The problem is that he either doesn’t have or doesn’t take the time needed to make the selec tion.” B.F. Vance Jr., chairman of the committee, said the school board will probably pass the plan. Answering the complaints about the merit system, Vance said: “Those who choose them (the teachers who receive merit pay) might not observe them but they know what’s going on. I have two teenage children and they can tell who the best teachers are.” “I’m sure that there is some personality conflict in volved,” Vance continued. “Some teachers get it who don’t deserve it and some don’t who should, but all in all I think it’s very worthwhile. It rewards those who have total dedication to their teaching.” If the plan is passed at Monday’s school board meet ing, it will go into effect at the beginning of the fall semester. The Battalion SSfry*."- ’ ,7 g team, i st base, Thursday, July 5, 1979 College Station, Texas News Dept. 845-2611 Business Dept. 845-2611 Weather Mostly cloudy skies with a chance of afternoon thundershowers. Higs in the low 90’s and a low of 74 with winds S.SE. at 10-15 mph. 40% chance of rain. Outlook for the weekend — partly cloudy and hot with a chance of showers. umper wheat crops rotting p because of rail car shortage other, May o make the fths United Press International ynardsaidM®PERRYTON, Texas — The grain piling Lake Mills.I® on streets in the Texas Panhandle is •s officials r: Brea toning to destroy farmers’ chances of landy HendiiRhing in on their first good crop with good say whatwRces in recent years. itois lt P arl WThe wheat has been piled — unpro- > do not wa: gfrted — on the ground in Perry ton and r-year coi apj,,,, p an handle cities because of an acute Artage of railroad hopper cars, said Ken- id free ageniiRjj Men, owner of Equity Elevators, insas Citysw®,., . ... , ... . . . the camp d. I 11 s just worse. We re piling (wheat) on i . Te kstreets all over town,” Allen said, add- ^ K that wheat farmers are only about half ray toward harvesting this year’s bountiful £5) Ijp. Nearly a million bushels have been Rmped on streets in Perry ton, he said. /fill .RBefore harvest is complete, he pre- ^ fdkted, “several million” more bushels will be outside grain bins because of rail car shortages. Allen said there is no way to cover wheat stored outdoors. “About all you can do is get a good spot that drains and do a lot of praying that you don’t have abnormal rains and that you get transportation soon,” he said. Allen said his own problem is com pounded this harvest because he was un able to procure enough hoppers last season to move all the previously harvested grain. He is candid in his dissatisfaction with Santa Fe Railway and hints at a conspiracy. Allen says he has conducted a “letter conversation” with John S. Reed, the line’s chairman of the board in Chicago, but without satisfaction. He said Reed ac knowledged in a telegram that the Panhan dle area was short about 385 railroad cars as of Feb. 1. However, Allen says his com pany alone was short 855 ordered cars on Feb. 1. “I think (Reed) is certainly a high integ rity man and I don’t mean to imply that he’s lying. But I’m sure someone furnished him these figures and someone’s trying a real bigcoverup,” the businessman said. “I just think it’s a crying shame that the chairman of the board of Santa Fe can’t have accurate information furnished to him.” A Santa Fe spokesman, who declined to be identified, responded Tuesday from Chicago. “True, there is a grain car shortage. No one has been getting as many cars as they might want, including Mr. Allen. How ever, we have been distributing cars on an equitable basis and he has been getting his fair share right along with everyone else,” Batt. Clements wants new allotments United Press International AUSTIN — Gov. Bill Clements wants ■asoline stations to remain open on feekends and is considering giving them certain quantities of extra fuel only if they promise not to sell it during the week. 3 In related energy action Tuesday, Cle ments also ordered two more Dallas-area (jounties added to the state’s odd-even gasoline allocation program, i The governor also said it would be at feast another week before an additional 5 percent of Texas’ gasoline supplies can be Shifted from rural to urban areas to ease Ing lines at service stations, f; Clements and his chief energy adviser, Ed Vetter, said they hoped to have the new allocation plan in effect by the weekend of : July 14-15. i! “Let me make it clear this is not going to add one drop of gasoline to the market. What we re doing is trying to equalize the misery,” Vetter said. Clements said Rockwell and Kaufman counties would be added to the odd-even day gas allocation program effective Thurs day, bringing the number of counties under that system to 14. All are in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston metropoli tan areas. Clements told reporters at an im promptu news conference he was consider ing an addition to his gasoline allocation plan to require stations to remain open dur ing the weekend in order to qualify for additional fuel supplies under the program to re-allocate gasoline from rural to urban areas. “Apparently in at least some sections of metropolitan areas stations are selling their allocations during the week, and shutting down tight on weekends,” the governor said. The Department of Energy Monday au thorized the nation’s governors to draw 5 percent of the available gasoline supplies from rural areas, and distribute it among metropolitan areas where supplies have been shortest. Clements said he had suggested such a move more than two weeks ago, and criticized the Department of Energy for not implementing it immediately. “We re trying to figure out how to put it into these markets and do it in an equitable way and get some of these stations open on a broader base on the weekends,” Cle ments said. “We’re thinking in terms of pushing down through the system a certain amount of gasoline that must be sold on the weekends, otherwise they don’t get it.” y/7 in ■ i 1 Admission: 4 kisses Michelle DeMare, a senior physical education the other residents of 408 charge a fee of four kisses major from Houston, plans on having her own fir- for admission to a barbecue they’re having, works for the Fourth of July holiday. Michelle and Battalion photo by Lynn Blanco the spokesman said. In the meantime, says Allen, the farmers of his region face a financial bath following a bumper harvest. “Our farmers have had some bad crops the last few years and some bad prices and now they raise a pretty good crop and get some decent prices. But if you can’t get it to market you can’t sell it,” he said. He predicted the wheat “could just set here and spoil.” Allen also criticized the Interstate Commerce Commission which he said had been notified of his problem. “The ICC hasn’t done much. I’m not sure they can. I’m not a lawyer, but if they can’t I would sure wonder, for Godsakes, what the taxpayers are keeping the ICC for. They don’t say they won’t do anything, but they don’t say they will,” he said. The grain car shortage was anticipated by Santa Fe officials in June and shortages have been reported this summer at Amarillo and near Abilene, where wheat also was dumped on the street. In June, Santa Fe vice president J.R. Fitzgerald of Amarillo said the problem would continue in future harvests. He at tributed the shortages to a continued “heavy export movement of grain” and a difficult winter that caused delays in re turning cars to lines from off-line points. Delays also occurred because of torrential floods in the South, Fitzgerald said. Medical class to train, live at Temple TEMPLE—Texas A&M University’s first class of 32 medical students will arrive in Temple Friday for the start of two years of clinical training, marking another mile stone in the history of the state’s youngest college of medicine. The third-year students, following a full day of orientation Friday and a weekend of moving into specially remodeled housing at the Veterans Administration Hospital begin their first week Monday at the VA hospital, Scott and White Hospital and at veterans facilities in Waco and Marlin. Texas A&M will admit its third group of 32 students this fall. The group arriving at the Temple campus Friday is the first to reach the two-year clinical training phase of the medical education. Texas A&M’s College of Medicine is charged with training primary care physi- (See related story, p.8) cians, those in such fields as family and internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics, general psychiatry and geriatrics. Under the university’s accelerated entry program, medical students may apply dur ing their sophomore year, then undergo two years of predominantly classroom work at College Station followed by the clinical training here an in surrounding com munities. While at the College Station campus, the students receive “exam room” learning under a special program invovling mroe thanf our dozen physicians in the Brazos Valley. Working with the patients of these doctors, they receive early exposure to working up case histories and practicing bedside manner — important skills that wll be used as they begin their in-depth clinical training here. The Texas A&M College of Medicine was established in 1976 with a $17 million grant from the Veterans Administration de signed to increase the number of primary care doctors. At the orientation Friday, to be held in the recently remodeled student center on the VA campus, the third-year class will hear a variety of topics from student policies to risk management and dis cussions of available nursing and pharmacy faclities. Battalion photo by Clay Cockrill ‘Oh, say can you see This year’s Fourth of July proved to be a rather quiet one on the Texas A&M campus with classes out and all offices closed. But Old Glory flew as usual in front of the Academic Building allowing us to reflect on where we were 203 years ago, or maybe more importantly, where we are today. Mobil tankers accused of not delivering gasoline United Press International WASHINGTON — Two Mobil Oil Corp. tankers have been accused of return ing to Texas from a recent Florida delivery with 10 times as much undelivered gasoline as the company claims. Mobil executives said Tuesday the two ships, the Mobil Aero and the Mobil Fuel, sailed back to the company’s Beaumont, Texas, refinery after unloading all but about 1 percent of their oil at three Florida depots in early May. But officials of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union, whose members were manning the ships, said 10 times as much undelivered gasoline went back to the refinery. Both Mobil and the union, with which it is having a dispute, said the ships could not unload all their cargo because the depots’ tanks were full. Union officials cited the incident to raise questions about the sincerity of the oil in dustry’s efforts to deal with the gasoline shortage. A union member, who asked not to be identified, said crewmen who went ashore in Florida were surprised to see long gas lines and some service stations closed for lack of gas while the ships were there. “There they were trying to discharge cargo and the tanks were full,” the seaman said. “They were actually amazed to find long lines and some of the stations closed.” William Broderick, Mobil’s traffic man ager, said the badly needed gasoline went undelivered because of a quirk in the sup ply line. He said slowdowns caused by excess tanker capacity or lack of product to deliver “sometimes happen seasonally, coming out of the heating season.” Mobil, one of the nation’s largest gasoline suppliers, operates seven re fineries and 145 terminals. Broderick likened the slowdown to Grand Central Station: “If a couple of trains are late, the people back up on the plat form,” he said. But Dr. Frank Collins, a consultant to the union, said he thought the slowdown and the problem Mobil experienced in un loading its gasoline tankers was contrived. He also said he thought the oil refiners must be deliberately operating below capacity because imports are higher than last year.