As I sit in my sun room with a nice breeze blowing at my back I’m recalling the grim school board meeting we endured last night. I just read the air brushed story about it in the Trib today. It makes me wistful about the loss of human decency. The Duluth Civility police have all but smothered it out of our School Board.
The Trib’s story does one service. It points out the massive, and irresponsible increase in benefits that the Dixon School Board is giving teachers. Six percent! And I thought BP had a bad leak. And its doing this with an unprecedented one year left on the contact. What the hell are they thinking with so much uncertainty about the District’s and the State’s financial future hanging in the air? This is simply a way for Dr. Dixon to get a troublesome problem out of the way, regardless the cost, so he can continue the Red Plan steamroller. No wonder Faribault was glad to see the back of him.
“Cost of living” wails the Superintendent in the story as he did last night repeatedly suggesting that the public owes it to teachers to reward them for the onerous job of taking care of our kids. And it will surely get more onerous if, as Tom Kasper predicts, this contract costs another 30 teaching jobs in the not-so-long-run.
Kasper voted with the other two outsiders against the contract even though he has frequently strayed into the majority circle on the increasingly inevitible majority votes for new construction contracts. Someone noted last night that City employees have essentially had their wages frozen for about three years. That would include City Gardner Tom Kasper.
Frank Wanner told the Trib that this giveaway contract is a demonstration of how closely the teachers and administration are working together. So, Frank, admits his own complicity in the District’s continuing death spiral. Frank has been a sharp tongue for ten years and not much more. He managed to miss most of the highly trumpeted Red Plan meetings at the beginning of the Red Plan Odyssey and has remained just as clueless ever since. I guess he’s a captive of the Central Labor Body.
As one of the most senior teachers Frank will be one of the diminishing number of winners in this catastrophe. One of the previous superintendents once told me of the many ways Frank gamed the system to milk as much out of the District as possible for his own pay. The old fox hasn’t changed and I’m sure he’s collecting from the union too. A fellow I sing in the church choir with told me that Frank had become a neighbor and gushed about how likable Frank was. Its true. He is but I’m getting very wary of nice guys these days. Nice guyness is such a useful character trait for swindlers.
Oh and cost of living? Let’s get real. COLA’s are pretty flat these days unless you’re unemployed as another thirty teachers will soon learn first hand.
The low point of the meeting took place as Art Johnston suggested waiting a year on the contract to see what the future held for the District. Art is an inelegant speaker (I’m being diplomatic) but Tim (shut off the mike, walk out on the speaker) Grover had a hissy fit and sputtered that Johnston was “grandstanding.” Apparently the three dissenters all refused to attend a closed meeting to learn the details of the contract agreement. I suspect that there is more to this story than Tim let’s on. Gary Glass said, last night that he was on the negotiations committee and had been left out of the loop on the negotiations. If that is so I can’t blame him for skipping out on a session to be find out what had been decided in his absence.
Tim’s grandstanding cock-n-bull was incredibly hipocritical. I heard him say much the same thing as Tom Kasper when we were negotiating a contract in 1997. I think Tim may have been the sole vote that year against the contract saying that we couldn’t afford it and that year we were a year late not a year early in settling.
Last night I had to endure the swimming coach and new apostle of making our teacher’s happy, Judy Punyko-we need an eight lane pool at East Jr. High-Seliga, tell us how happy our teachers are that we are no longer bickering with them over contracts.
Judy is absolutely right. The teacher’s union president Frank Wanner has been peeking out of Dr. Dixon’s pocket to guide the Superintendent to the Red Plan’s promised land for three years. What a change. Back in the Dark Ages Frank liked nothing better than to sneak up on a superintendent and kick him in the pants. Now he’s sniffing one’s underwear.
