Teaching and the Crisis in Ramona
April 15, 2013
Lately,
everywhere I go in the community I run into people who want to know if
the teachers in Ramona are planning to go on strike soon. I’ve decided
to dedicate this blog to two decidedly Un-kindergarten topics: the
teaching profession and my personal opinion about what has happened and
will happen here in Ramona. I hope that those in my community will pass
along some of these ideas, thoughts, questions to their friends and
will ask other teachers and parents their own opinions so that things
can be resolved in Ramona schools soon.
What’s going in in Ramona
Like every school in California, my district has had financial
difficulties over the past 5 years or so. These difficulties have
really come to a head this year in Ramona for two significant reasons:
1)
Ramona has had 10 straight years of declining enrollment. This means
that for 10 years in a row there has been less students than the year
before. As the economy has gotten harder, people simply can’t afford to
live so far away from a city. Since schools in our country are paid
per student, you can see how this creates a financial disaster for
declining schools.
2)
About 8 years ago there was a bond measure on ballots in Ramona that if
passed would allow two new schools to be built. The bond didn’t pass
but the school board and district administration went ahead and built
the schools anyway. This year Ramona has to start paying off that bill
-- a whopping $34 million that has to come from somewhere.
So
as a whole bunch of teachers (me included) got laid off and/or
reassigned last summer, Ramona staff was preparing for salary cuts.
Everyone knew cuts were coming, but the major parties couldn’t decide
on how much. The first people to settle were the classified workers who
took pay cuts and furlough days. Their deal also included a “me too”
clause meaning that if teachers took less money, some of their salaries
would be reimbursed (talk about creating animosity within staffs). The
administrators also took an initial pay cut, but then ended up being
compensated with weeks of paid vacation time to lessen the blow (our
Superintendent ended up getting a salary raise too--which has garnered
plenty of public criticism). So with two of the three unions settled,
the pressure has been on the teachers all year long.
In
the fall the union negotiators (all teachers who volunteer to work this
stuff through) proposed that teachers take a 4.5% paycut. The 4.5%
would come out of different things including benefits and furlough days.
The district’s numbers were much more severe. They wanted a 8.5% cut
for this year, and then a 9% for the next two years. The total impact
on teachers would be a 27% pay decrease taken in medical, furlough,
pay-cuts, retirement, etc. With the gap being so drastic a lot of
negotiation was in store. In the fall Ramona voters also failed to pass
a proposition that would pay off the loan and improve school facilities
(I mentioned the moldy ceiling didn’t I?), thus leaving the financial
burden to fall on employees.
So
for months the teachers and the district have been meeting to work on a
settlement. Unfortunately the district, truly believing themselves
financially justified, has been virtually unwilling to budge. They also
have been seemingly unwilling to pursue other financial options.
Supposedly when some teachers presented a win-win retirement settlement
one board member responded “hell no” to the question of whether or not
they’d consider it.
Thus,
with all attempts to negotiate proven futile the board and the union
had to present their case to a three party in what is called “fact
finding.” The fact finder’s report is public record so I don’t need to
expand on it too much. Last week the report and recommendations were
given to the two parties. There is nothing binding in the report, only
suggestions. In a nutshell, the fact finder recommended that teachers
take about a 5% cut and that all negotiations for other years not be
part of the settlement since the state has not yet released the budget
for next year or specified how much money will be given from Prop 30
being passed. Aside from a couple of minor things (like not accepting
medical retroactive pay that would decimate paychecks), the teachers
basically accepted the fact finder’s report (afterall the 5%
recommendation is basically what the teachers have proposed all along).
Today
the teachers union reps and the district reps met again and the
district declared they would not accept the report. In fact the last
two times the two sides have met the district’s proposals have been even
higher than their fall figures!!! This means the district can now
impose whatever paycut they deem necessary. This means the teachers may
be forced to either lose a third of their salary or entertain a strike
(which is all of their salary). It’s an awful situation for everyone
involved, one that makes me nauseous just thinking about it.
From
my perspective, I think I could endure whatever financial hardships are
imposed if I knew that the community and parents were on my side. One
of the worst things that has happened this year is the poisoning of
public opinions, making out teachers to be selfish and unrelenting. The
Superintendent has sent home letters to every single family, has put in
ads in papers looking for subs in case of strikes, as shown up at
gatherings such as back-to-school night to push teacher salary cuts, has
turned the district website into his own political forum and has
written letters to the paper almost every single month to explain his
views. It’s a really bad feeling to know that I work so hard every
single day, really truly trying my hardest to provide a good education
for all my students, and then to think that parents are dissatisfied.
It’s been a truly awkward and unsettling year.
So
what happens now? I don’t know. I expect that tomorrow night the
board will announce their refusal to accept their fact finder's report
and will lay out some ridiculous salary imposition that unfairly puts
the district’s problems on the teachers themselves. And then what? I
don’t know? The teachers accept our fate and start looking for
additional employment (I’m looking for summer work already) or chose to
strike and put our families and homes at risk. It’s an awful situation
and I can only pray that somehow all 250 teachers and their families
will survive. I hope that parents will support us and will make their
support known. And above all I hope that the kids, my own darling
Kindergartener included, will not be imposed up and will come out of
this unscathed.
What it’s like to be a Teacher
When
I became a certified teacher a decade ago some of my professors
cautioned that we new teachers are entering an entirely different career
than all those who came before us. Not only has the rigor and
expectations of education changed drastically, but the public opinion of
teachers has decreased significantly as well. Whereas once teaching
was considered a noble calling, Americans now have very low opinions of
educators. In fairness, it’s not just teachers that Americans doubt.
It’s been several generations since American children were raised to
respect their elders; now we are taught to get a second opinion on any
medical advice, to seek legal council on any personal wrong, and to
question and even doubt anything that might be delivered in a classroom.
We live in a critical, cynical society and many public professions
feel the effects of those sentiments all the time.
Ironically,
as the public opinion of teachers has decreased, the workload has
significantly increased. Every single year my classroom has gotten more
and more filled with students. This year I have 39 6th graders at a
time--packed together in a trailer. Sometimes having so many students
doesn’t matter so much. For instance, when we’re outside playing, 39
isn’t so different than 29. But when it comes to doing things kids
don’t want to do (like the majority of school assignments, for instance)
big classes become very difficult. Having a third more students in a
class means a third more meetings, a third more grading, a third more
emails, a third more discipline problems, you get the idea.
Other
factors contribute to teacher workload. For instance, in the wake of
the Pennsylvania shootings last year, schools are really tightening up
security measures and teacher trainers. Did you know teachers are
actually being trained in how to tell parents if their child has died at
school, and how to deal with the press in an emergency, and how to
explain to our families that in the case of a crisis our role is to
prioritize our students over our children? Did you know that teachers
have to clean their own classrooms now (you don’t even want to know
about the mold that drips from my ceiling whenever it rains)? Did you
know that teachers are required to answer any email they receive from a
parent no matter how tedious or insulting it might be?
Being
is a teacher is so much more difficult now than ever before, and yet
most of us still would rather be at our job than most others. We love
the variety of our days, the impact we can make, the conversations we
have each day. And of course we love that we get to work with creative,
funny, smart kids for a living. So here in Ramona we teachers don’t
want the public to think that our jobs are horrible or that we deserve
to be paid more than others. But we also don’t want people to think us
undeserving.
All
year long in the Ramona Sentinel people have been complaining about how
little teachers work. I think this is a big misconception. Sure we
are not at school during holidays and the summer weeks, but it is
totally inaccurate to say that we don’t work the equivalent of a 12
month, full-time job. Our hours are just spread out differently than
the normal 9-5 job. I did some basic calculations on my own this week
and discovered this: in the average year I don’t get paid for about 704
hours that I work for my class. These hours are made up of things like
responding to emails, grading papers, fundraising, lesson planning,
parent meetings, etc. There are teachers who work much longer days than
I do, and some that may not work quite as much, but I think you can see
that 700 hours divided by the 12 weeks I don’t have students in the
classroom still works out to just as much hours as any salary employee
in my salary range. And we aren’t even going to discuss the
out-of-pocket monies teachers spend in their classrooms (I’m up near
$900 this year). All in all, while I don’t think it’s right for
teachers to assume that their jobs are worse than anyone else’s, it’s
also not fair for people to accus
What in the world will we do to survive? What will I do? The amount I will lose is the equivalent to 5 months mortgage payment. It’s the entire amount I have saved up to pay my bills for the summer. This cut means having to spend the next month frantically searching for a summer job. This cut means no birthday parties this year, no swimming lessons or soccer. I don’t even know how to manage traveling for my only sister’s wedding. I feel a deep pain of worry in my chest that at the moment I don’t know how to erase.
And yet, I know that I must keep going on. I must keep doing the best I can because too many people rely on me each day. So what is my plan for what to do next? Well, it’s the same it’s been all year: I’m going to live like a kindergartener one day at a time. When Aaron asks in the morning, as he did today, “Mommy, I paint?” I’m going to scoot aside the lunch boxes, quickly sign whatever papers I have, put away the laundry until later and say, “sure, Honey, let’s paint.” When Ethan overlooks my exhausted face and exclaims (again experienced today), “It seems like a good day for ice cream. Let’s get some ice cream,” I’m going to say “Ok” as often as possible. I’m going to say my prayers, eat my meals, read my books, and keep living. And I’m going to keep teaching too--because it’s what I do. I I couldn’t stop even if I tried.
