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Parent tells Ithaca school board to hold superintendent accountable, prioritize teacher pay in budget
Summary
At the Ithaca City School District Board of Education meeting April 29, parent Wes Pan urged the board to hold the superintendent accountable for teacher pay and to rework the budget to prioritize classroom staff rather than raise taxes.
Wes Pan, a taxpayer and parent of two district students, told the Ithaca City School District Board of Education on April 29 he is “struggling with the idea of voting yes on this budget” and urged the board to hold the superintendent accountable and prioritize teacher pay.
Pan said he follows negotiations with the Ithaca Teachers Association and disputed public statements he said cast responsibility back and forth between the superintendent and the board. “I hear the superintendent say he’s not authorized to increase the teacher salaries above 4%... and then I hear the board say it’s not their role,” Pan said. “This goes round and round, and the finger pointing seems to be a bad‑faith negotiation in my opinion.”
Pan called attention to district staffing and retention figures and more than once pressed the board to review how money is being used. He said five district administrators’ combined compensation represented roughly $1 million and asked the board to consider reallocating funds so teachers could be “comparable to surrounding districts.”
The parent cited a districtwide teacher tenure rate of about 53% and contrasted that with a reported state average of about 83%, saying the lower rate “tells me you’re not doing enough to retain great educators.” He listed several schools with high turnover and warned that declining school quality harms families, property values and the community.
Pan urged the board not to raise taxes but to “rework the budget” and “prioritize these teachers in the never ending construction projects,” saying, “You have three years to fix this before my child enters middle school.”
Board members responded briefly after Pan’s remarks. One board member said they believed there had been “numerous mischaracterizations and false data” in the public comment but declined to review them because the commenter had left the room. Another board member directed the public to curriculum committee meetings for information about work under way to support schools labeled as needing improvement.
No formal action was taken by the board in response to the public comment; the remarks were part of the public‑comment portion of the meeting.
