A waste of tax payer's money

When I was a young parent, and even a classroom teacher, I admit I never truly focused on how school districts waste money. As I got older, became a turn key trainer and earned my administrator's license the long awaited bulb turned on. It wasn't teachers' salaries nor benefits that were the financial "bogey men" as politicians would like us to believe. It was duplication of services, poor management of supplies and legal expenses that could be nipped at the bud, but weren't. 

I took the time, as a senior citizen, retired teacher/leader and parent of children who attended this school district, to attend a PO meeting at Osborn to listen to the current superintendent. He told us how well the high school students are doing, that we're number one in the state and 24th in the country. And, I thought, "Yes, we've been doing well for years, our students have gone to some of the most prestigious colleges and all without ever hearing the term, 'common core curriculum'"  Their teachers have served them well, have spent hours of their own time and school time for professional development and have also known about "best practices." And, here's the rub. Best practices does not include high stakes testing. As a matter of fact, the only people who are benefitting from this testing are companies such as Pearson and InBloom. As far as benefitting students, that train left the station long ago. And, all it has done is make good teachers paranoid, mediocre teachers afraid to ask for help and insecure administrators bullies.  Too boot, parents are afraid to speak up for fear of retribution and so are teachers. This is not a healthy environment for anyone. I can honestly say I miss teaching kids; I don''t miss this kind of environment. It should come with a health warning!
 
No one will ever truly know what happened in classrooms during last spring's testing. It is fraught with conjecture and perceptions of children. We still don't have a handle on what coaching looks like nor sounds like. As a matter of fact, no one can point to a proctor's manual of the test that was produced by Pearson for a test that showed the lowest test scores, state-wide, in years. Understandably, the law states that personnel issues can't be discussed publicly. So, the community has come up with their own version. I guess any "truth" is better than none. We have a collection of "what my child said,"  "what I think my child said," and "I heard this at the super market."  And with it all, four professionals' lives hang in the balance and tax payers are paying for eight salaries instead of four.  They have been treated with little respect, have had to ask permission to attend meetings in their own children's buildings and have been relegated to a rubber room to do menial work that I predict will go un-used.  We call that "busy work". 

The Board and the Superintendent will come to this community pleading to pass the budget with certainly a 50% confidence vote and more to waive the cap. They will point to non funded mandates, the cap and the costs of teacher salaries/benefits. They will want the community to forget that more than 400,000 of tax payers' money has been used for this folly. They will ask the community to forget that this poorly handled situation has kept experienced people out of the classroom and has kept their lives on hold  If, heaven forbid, one of these teachers had perpetrated a violent crime, the legal system would've been expected to follow clear cut guide lines. This seems like a creative process, and an expensive one at that.

The public and politicians have had a field day with teacher bashing. Our jobs have been called part time and in some arenas teachers have been treated worse than hired help. By way of social media we have been tried and executed by way of materials that parents think are factual. We should all realize that because it's "out there" it isn't fact. We've all been in classrooms, so we tend to believe it's an easy job that  anyone can do. Here's the inside scoop:  Not necessarily so.

To the parents and teachers who continue to remain silent and are waiting to see how this plays out:  Your silence is not golden. Today it's these four teachers and tomorrow it will be others. This board and their superintendents need to get the clear and definitive message: Fish or cut bait. The subs have already been assured of jobs until June. What does that tell you?


Many of the residents of this city can't afford this kind of wastefulness. I know I'm one of them.  Stop waiting for the next person to speak up. Now it's your turn. 


Shelley Karlen