Flashback from the unpublished Drafts, Winter, 2014.
There were a series of posts I was working on as the run-up to the strike got underway. I was asked to refrain or to route them through the messaging / communications team rather than publish 'rogue.' I just saved them and let them collect dust. But negotiations are beginning again, and I am looking at them as a bit of a reminder of what it looked like last time. History, doomed to repeat and what not... So... Here is some dated, obsolete opinion. 1st of ??
My employers at the Medford School District have been very visible in the last couple of days, going out of their way to let our community, my students, and my students' parents be aware that they are doing everything possible to insure education continues with minimal disruption for Medford students. They don't want to, but they must, because, in their words: I and all of my colleagues are quitters. Of course, they are leaving out some nagging details in their full court PR press.
They refuse to take any ownership of how many times they have moved the goal posts. Changing bargaining methods, backpedaling on previously identified common ground, and bringing back counter offers that sometimes change as little as a single phrase in a 19 article document with over 180 specific elements of difference, most of which were not in contention last spring, but were as the revised rules of the game were unveiled last summer.
One thing that particularly galls me is the District has announced a plan to pull three days off of the instructional calendar to transition to consolidated buildings staffed by replacement educators, the compensation for whom will run more than $100,000 each day, rather than simply take a seat at the negotiation table and settle a fair contract. If you factor in costs to lodging those coming from out of town, reimbursing them to commute to and from their home towns each weekend, as well as costs to provide the promised security at each of the open schools (about half of the facilities in the district, under the stated plan), and authorized overtime for necessary classified staff, the total climbs to nearly $600,000 a week. This doesn't even take into account several one time expenditures: over $4000 for a full page ad in the Mail Tribune, as part of an ongoing PR push that is aiming at tearing down teachers who've put in years of service and sacrifice; ads in out-of-town media to recruit replacements; multiple district-wide mailings to communicate the plans for this crisis. A crisis entirely within the District's power to avert.
Ongoing attempts at bargaining over the past eight months has seen the teachers make offers and counter offers and the District team dig in their heels on a multitude of issues unrelated to compensation, yet they come repeatedly before the families of Medford with statements on Facebook, in the media, and in public meetings how much money we are tuning down and about how we are refusing to talk about issues that they deem important. The intent is clear: equate educators with greed at every opportunity while disregarding any input from the trained teachers in the room about how the contract being discussed will impact actual education. And all the while, they are intending to pour a half million dollars at a problem of their creation. In the first week.
There is a very simple way out of this. Avoid sending over $100,000 dollars a day to replacement educators from elsewhere. It's a simple way out. Avoid needing a security presence at each campus. Very simple. Avoid having students with a need for consistency in their environment face the prospect of being in a different building at a different time of day being taught by people they do not know with a price tag of half a million dollars by the end of next week. Avoid all of that by simply coming to the negotiation table and putting these resources toward a solution that preserves the calendar, schedule, and a staff already trained and up to speed. We are familiar with our buildings, community, student population and the educational needs of each classroom: lesson plans, learning targets, and means of assessment. No days would be lost, no security will be hired, no hotel rooms will be paid for. The people their children will see on Thursday will be the same ones they saw on Wednesday. In the same rooms, on the same schedule.
There were a series of posts I was working on as the run-up to the strike got underway. I was asked to refrain or to route them through the messaging / communications team rather than publish 'rogue.' I just saved them and let them collect dust. But negotiations are beginning again, and I am looking at them as a bit of a reminder of what it looked like last time. History, doomed to repeat and what not... So... Here is some dated, obsolete opinion. 1st of ??
My employers at the Medford School District have been very visible in the last couple of days, going out of their way to let our community, my students, and my students' parents be aware that they are doing everything possible to insure education continues with minimal disruption for Medford students. They don't want to, but they must, because, in their words: I and all of my colleagues are quitters. Of course, they are leaving out some nagging details in their full court PR press.
They refuse to take any ownership of how many times they have moved the goal posts. Changing bargaining methods, backpedaling on previously identified common ground, and bringing back counter offers that sometimes change as little as a single phrase in a 19 article document with over 180 specific elements of difference, most of which were not in contention last spring, but were as the revised rules of the game were unveiled last summer.
One thing that particularly galls me is the District has announced a plan to pull three days off of the instructional calendar to transition to consolidated buildings staffed by replacement educators, the compensation for whom will run more than $100,000 each day, rather than simply take a seat at the negotiation table and settle a fair contract. If you factor in costs to lodging those coming from out of town, reimbursing them to commute to and from their home towns each weekend, as well as costs to provide the promised security at each of the open schools (about half of the facilities in the district, under the stated plan), and authorized overtime for necessary classified staff, the total climbs to nearly $600,000 a week. This doesn't even take into account several one time expenditures: over $4000 for a full page ad in the Mail Tribune, as part of an ongoing PR push that is aiming at tearing down teachers who've put in years of service and sacrifice; ads in out-of-town media to recruit replacements; multiple district-wide mailings to communicate the plans for this crisis. A crisis entirely within the District's power to avert.
Ongoing attempts at bargaining over the past eight months has seen the teachers make offers and counter offers and the District team dig in their heels on a multitude of issues unrelated to compensation, yet they come repeatedly before the families of Medford with statements on Facebook, in the media, and in public meetings how much money we are tuning down and about how we are refusing to talk about issues that they deem important. The intent is clear: equate educators with greed at every opportunity while disregarding any input from the trained teachers in the room about how the contract being discussed will impact actual education. And all the while, they are intending to pour a half million dollars at a problem of their creation. In the first week.
There is a very simple way out of this. Avoid sending over $100,000 dollars a day to replacement educators from elsewhere. It's a simple way out. Avoid needing a security presence at each campus. Very simple. Avoid having students with a need for consistency in their environment face the prospect of being in a different building at a different time of day being taught by people they do not know with a price tag of half a million dollars by the end of next week. Avoid all of that by simply coming to the negotiation table and putting these resources toward a solution that preserves the calendar, schedule, and a staff already trained and up to speed. We are familiar with our buildings, community, student population and the educational needs of each classroom: lesson plans, learning targets, and means of assessment. No days would be lost, no security will be hired, no hotel rooms will be paid for. The people their children will see on Thursday will be the same ones they saw on Wednesday. In the same rooms, on the same schedule.
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