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.