Frank unloads the many burdens placed upon teacher’s backs by the School Board.
“Talk about a modest proposal. This is it. We don’t want to go backwards relative to inflation and would like to get some additional expense to reflect the fact that class sizes are larger, secondary teachers have more preps, all have more students to teach, there is ever increasing pressure to raise test scores. Our students are needier, we are expected to communicate better and more often with parents, develop new lessons and curriculum, attend more meetings, and on and on and on. Oh, and we also asked that teachers of split classes would get a small increase and a bit more for class sizes in excess of 35, and that there would be an additional pay for teachers at priority schools due to the increase in the number of days worked and additional responsibilities.”
The only problem with this guilt trip is that it points to the wrong culprit. The Union could have fought the Red Plan but Frank Wanner was mute and his teacher were almost as fearful of the DFT as they were of Keith Dixon’s administration. Frank could have stood up to the other unions in town when they hungrily eyed the Red Plan. Frank is not stupid. But he wasn’t one to rock the boat. Even with an Alan Netland who evidently couldn’t bother about teacher union jobs when there were other unions to satisfy.
My blog is full of stories of woe for our teachers. I’ve heard worse many times each day as I’ve gone door to door for the past couple weeks. Frank Wanner bled the District dry for the benefit of senior teachers and Dr. Dixon bought him off to give too much away. Now our teachers find themselves overextended in classes where they can’t teach in schools that are out of control. It hasn’t helped that the current School Board had no idea they were pledging five million classroom dollars annually to big banks for building bonds. The gravy train is over. The ten percent reserve is one year from extinction. There is one thing left to suck up. Its the levies that voters are about to pass judgement on.
What might get the levies passed. The promise of reduced class sizes. According to Art Johnston Frank has already told him he cares not a whit for more teachers. He simply wants the money to go to existing teacher. Never-mind that our hellish classrooms are shortening teachers lives through stress. Frank wants more money for fewer teachers. I wonder what the teacher that a PTA mother told me about today would think about Frank’s priorities. The PTA mom’s daughter felt so sorry for one of her teachers in a rip roaring overcrowded class she had no control over breaking into tears in the chaos. Well heck. Frank will give her more money and she’ll be fine. Professional pride? What’s that compared to higher salary and benefits?
