This morning, after I wrote a large check to my public school in Western Springs so my girls, aged 9 and 7, could stay for 4 days a week for lunch, I thought for the first time, “what was that about?”  Isn’t the school responsible for my kids from 8:40 to 3:30?  I already pay many thousands of dollars a year in property taxes.  Why am I paying several hundred more a year so they can “stay” for lunch several days a week?  And this is not milk money.  It costs me a dollar a day for them to be supervised during that time.  For a parent with two kids who need to stay for lunchtime each day, that’s $35 – $40 a month, or based on days in school, about $350 dollars a year.  This is on top of the hundreds of dollars I pay at the beginning of the year for an array of school “fees.”  (Over $300 last year for my middle school daughter.  But at least she doesn’t cost me an additional “dollar a day” for lunch because hers is a “closed campus.”)

So, I talked to our superintendent.  In all fairness, neither he nor I knew at the time I’d be writing about this.  Anyway, he was very easy to get ahold of and had the answer:  Decades ago, when my elementary school went from a totally open campus for lunch (kids could not stay) to allowing kids to stay, they had to come up with some money to pay supervisors.   The supervisors cost about $150,000 a year in all the schools. In fact, the Superintendent explained that my district was encouraging others to follow suit.

So, the “dollar-a-day” amounts to something of a user fee, I suppose, which normally I’m not opposed to. (Though I’m not at all sure why teachers, who are on the clock during that time, could not rotate through as they do in the middle school and still get their breaktime.)   And I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to it here, if I weren’t already being violated by exorbitant, compulsory, record-high rates of property taxes in Cook County.  But what really got my attention just a little after that conversation?  When I flipped open today’s Chicago Sun-Times to page 8, and found that one retiring school superintendent in Niles made – stand back – $400,000 a last year.  And he wasn’t that unusual.  What?

Yep, Homewood Flossmoor’s School Superintendent’s total package also topped 400K last year, Bloomingdale’s, Matteson’s, Palatine’s and Lyons Township’s were all over or well over 300K, according to the Sun-Times, with several more in the high 200K.  Even the lower income Cicero district Superintendent made a package of $285,000.  Often, these crazily high figures included hefty annuities.  One school official told the Sun-Times, “such annuities have  become more common in part because they can be separated out from the base salary.”  Apparently, it’s often just the base salary which gets quoted when boards of education are asked about pay.   (My own Superintendent’s salary was not listed.)

Meanwhile, the teachers aren’t doing so bad either.  At least one classroom teacher at my elementary school makes over 6 figures, with others more typically in the 50 – 70K range.  And teachers across the area received an average 5 percent pay raise last year.  5 percent!   But actually, the base salary almost doesn’t matter.  Far more important is that the benefits and pensions are gold plated, the work in many suburban areas is easy and rewarding, there is so much time off a year that many teachers take second summer jobs, and most importantly they can’t get fired.   I never want to hear a complaint about a teacher’s salary again – cry me a river, who wouldn’t want that job?  No wonder there is such competition for them.

Now the fact is, I happen to like my school.  (And I want my children to be able to finish their time there without repercussions for their mother writing things like this!)  I do think my kids are getting a good education in my local public schoos.  I find the teachers generally knowledgeable, qualified, attentive and responsive.   I figure the teachers know what they are doing when it comes to teaching my kids, and they don’t need me to get underfoot.

But the staggering, unjustified amount some school officials are making is appalling.  The push for ever higher teacher pay, 5 percent for jobs which define the word “security” because one (essentially) cannot be fired from them and which carry with them benefits the rest of us can only dream about, is also out of bounds.

And when because of such largesse I’m left to come up with some $800 a year for school “fees,” and lunchtime supervision during school days I’m already paying for with taxes, I feel a little taken for a ride.

I know there is no such thing as a free lunch. I’m not sure many of our school officials have learned that same lesson.

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Betsy Hart is a regular contributor to the Chicago Daily Observer.  Read more from Betsy here.