More Coffee, Please

I get accused of being too negative. I will point out the Board raised the minimum number of credits to graduate, (thanks to Dr. Kaplan for making all our gratitude public) and they are following up on AP classes. This makes me feel bad, as I really wanted to teach AP Language this year, but maybe that’s something that can be arranged.

Wait! I know…build onto the building a separate (but connected) facility so MC² can be on the Monadnock campus, and then share skills. Not only would it improve the building (so our kids can graduate from an accredited school) but it would also demonstrate the kind of commitment to the program which will let kids take a chance on something which might provide for them better.

Hmmm….

Today’s newspaper was filled with news about the budget problems…too bad it was for the Keene School District.

Don’t get me wrong. Keene has its problems—and every one of them mirrors what’s going on in the Monadnock District. The same group of tight-fisted, anti-education scrooges that moved into the Monadnock School district have their friends in our neighboring community. The Coalition of New Hampshire Taxpayers, the Monadnock Taxpayer’s Association, the Keene Free Press, the Keene Taxpayer’s Association, and the Free State Party are all in bed together, and none of them are interested in anything other than their pockets. Until the voters wake up and realize this we’re going to be fighting a war to make sure our kids are succesful. These are people with an agenda, and they’re much more fanatical about it than the average person who is simply trying to get on with life.

But there was a sense of morbid amusement at some of the article’s comments about what the Keene district would be giving up since it was operating on a default budget:

This year, back-to-school in the Keene School District will mean fewer field trips for Keene High School students, fewer workshops for teachers and one less art teacher at Keene Middle School.

At the high school, it will mean sports teams have to raise money for supplies, such as soccer balls, goalie gloves and end-of-season awards; a pared-down peer-mediation program; and one less custodian.

And district-wide, there will be equipment and supplies, all due for replacement, that will be postponed, and new software and furniture purchases pushed off for some schools.

It’s a new school year, and the start of the district working under a budget that’s $1.6 million less than what school officials had proposed for the 2007-08 year.

Try operating for two years with a default budget. Losing an English teacher was no fun at all. Field trips haven’t existed for quite some time. We don’t have peer-mediation.

And one less custodian? Our building has rooms with bad air quality, science labs that wouldn’t pass an OSHA inspection, and is a school which won’t be accredited in a year. Yikes.

I feel bad for my Keene fellows. They need an involved population as much as we do, and more importantly, so do their kids. It may look like ink on a page, but for a student, it’s success or failure in life.

I’m wondering what will happen next year when the MRSD school board will need to decide whether or not to continue MC²? I would hate to think they would discontinue one of the best elements of the district, and I hope that those like Jon Kenyon who have supported the school continue to do so. They helped quite a bit recently when they allowed out of district students to come into the district (paying tuition, of course).

But I would highlight Dr. Dassau’s remarks:

K. Dassau commented that the Board approved another teacher for MC2 but students are reluctant to enroll in the program because they are not sure what will happen to MC2.

No kidding. The district needs to commit to something everyone who sees it admires, and we need to do a better job of getting the word out to our kids. I don’t want another one of my kids looking at me and questioning, “Isn’t MC² for the dumb kids?”

Nope. It’s for almost every kid—probably everyone not in my honors class.¹

Apparently I wasn’t the only one who felt the need to tear my hair out with the latest school board actions. My friend Paul Teitelman wrote an excellent letter to the Sentinel lambasting the decision to file against the MDEA.

School Officials Blew It

In response to the recent front page Keene Sentinel article “District files complaint against union,” I have to wonder, assuming the accuracy of stated facts, what continues to motivate this body of decision makers as it moves forward into yet another school year.

Imagine the heightened ire and disappointment it just engendered in its teachers, who no doubt are gearing up with the excitement and anticipation of another year of working with the youth of its community.

Common sense, among other evident and lucid deliberation, would lead anyone familiar with the ongoing issues relevant to contract negotiation, and sensitive to the climate in which these negotiations proceed, would understand the folly of this action.

To ask workers to isolate one facet of what is part of a complete negotiation without looking at it within the context of an entire negotiation would be both irresponsible and unintelligent.

…

More maddening, however, than this pre-school-year provocation, is the way in which union President Cheryl Kahn is maligned.

One has to wonder what induced this, and who in this case is motivated by “bad faith and malice.”

Having sat through union meetings where the above-mentioned issue arose, I can say with full confidence that Kahn never acted in any way other than professionally.

…

How in the world could attorney Apple or anyone else assume to know what was in her mind when she facilitated this meeting? At what point is this kind of behavior going to stop? An organization that relies on a group of workers to be its heart and soul needs to think twice, think lucidly and work with, not against, those very workers.

By attacking its well-respected leader, it cannot hope to engender confidence and good will. I can only hope that as this new academic year begins, smarter heads will prevail.

And all God’s people said…Amen.

Continuing my survey of the opinion page of the Sentinel…

I would like to take a moment and express my sincere gratitude to all the teachers, administrators, staff, parents and students that I have had the privilege of interacting with over the past six years as a teacher at Keene High School.

It is with mixed emotions that I have chosen to leave Keene High School and accept another teaching position outside of School Administrative Unit 29.

This decision was not easy for me nor for my family. Ultimately, my decision to leave was based on economics and providing more financial security for my family.

I have closely followed the ongoing debate regarding the proposed teacher contracts and I’m sad to say that I have started to lose faith in this community’s commitment to education. I find the ongoing campaign of misinformation by a select few to be both insulting and disrespectful to the hardworking professional educators and families of our community.

I live in Keene, my children attend Keene schools, and my wife is also an educator in the district. I love this community more than I can express, but I can no longer afford to live and work here as a teacher. That is why I am leaving what I thought would be the only teaching job I would ever have.

I have accepted another teaching position in what I consider to be a more supportive New Hampshire community.

My new position will pay me 59 percent more than what I would have made this fall had I remained at Keene High School…

This from Craig Charles. I don’t know Mr. Charles, but feel like I do, and I find the same feelings in my own heart. It’s a sad thing to look around at other school districts and realize that by being willing to leave home, there would be a $15,000 pay raise waiting. The same issues that are being felt in Keene have been going on longer in Monadnock, and we’ve lost teachers because of it.²

And another… (Boy, I wish Monadnock could get this kind of support from the community…)

Can you read this? That is because someone taught you how.

My bet is that it is was a teacher.

I know I personally learned how from the dedicated teachers at Fuller School in Keene. While reading The Keene Sentinel, on a recent visit to my former home town, I was appalled to read that some of the citizens are actually opposing the teacher pay raise.

I wish I could show such surprise that I would use the word “actually.” It’s too much the norm here.

As a middle school teacher in Midlothian, Va., we are paid on a step system. Without a step system new teachers would earn as much as teachers with years of experience. I can’t believe that any educated person thinks this makes sense. I have been teaching for nine years.

This year I will earn $5,100 more than my mother, a Keene school teacher, who has been teaching a year longer than I have.

Being frozen on a step is no fun. I did the math.

Our new teachers earn $2,500 more than my mother with her 10 years of experience.

That is absurd. Not only do Virginia teachers get paid more, but our cost of living is significantly less. (You can view our teacher scale here.)

This is Monadnock’s:

Ouch.

In this day and age teachers are not only expected to teach but also to be a nurse, a psychiatrist, a maid, a judge, a jury, a coach, and, in a lot of cases, a parent. Anyone who thinks teaching is an easy job should give it a try sometime.

Statistics say you will be gone within five years.

Those truly devoted to the profession who do stay often take on a second job to make ends meet.

You mean the one I’m typing this at right now? Again, I don’t know the writer, but I wish I could buy her a cup of coffee. She’s speaking the truth, and it’s getting harder to find.

1 I need to make sure I clarify this. The reason why kids are in an honors class is not because they are smarter than any other kid, or because they have a gift. They’re in that room because they (usually) have study skills, own their work, are polite to their peers, advocate for themselves and others, communicate well, cooperate with others, and demonstrate responsibility for their own learning—plus a host of other character skills. There are a host of kids at MRHS who don’t have these skills but do have plenty of brains, and they sit in a College Prep class and become jerks who make those around them miserable. These are the real skills schools should be teaching, and those that already have them wouldn’t need a program like MC². That being said, I can think of four or five kids in my honors course who could have worked on these skills and benefitted from MC².

2 I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that the woodworking teacher from two years ago left specifically because of the contract issues. He was an Outstanding Technology Education Teacher of New Hampshire award winner. The kid’s loss, as usual.

Gregarious

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