My name is Susan Clark and I teach art at Murray High School and have also taught art at Washington and Vista High.
Amanda needs a band-aid.Javier needs safety pins to fix the hem of his pants.He also wants to know where he can get airbrush supplies and do I have an extra 6B pencil because he wants to draw at home. Valente doesn’t want to wreck his shirt do I have an apron. Rosalva needs a rubber band for her hair and Mariana wants to know if I have a throat lozenge. Carlos wonders if I have a sewing machine at home because his brother tore his favorite Black Sabbath t-shirt and it’s irreplaceable.Eileen asks me about going to beauty school because she has a flair for fashion and Brandon needs some hand lotion.Joey wants to show me his logo he designed, and do I think he could do that for a living?Would he need to take classes at Palomar college?“Dylan you have really been improving, let me write your Dad a note commending you.”“Alex, don’t give up on this, I know this part is hard, but you need this assignment to get credits.Let me give you some extra help.” ” Brian, I’m concerned about you falling asleep in class, What time are you going to bed?” These are the caring adult connections that are so important for children.And I haven’t even mentioned my curriculum and the help the students all need daily on an individual basis. And these are my 17-year-olds.Imagine a class of 38 4th graders, or 40 unruly 8th graders! We can put a child in front of a computer to work on a math program so his test scores can improve, but it takes one-on-one time with student and teacher to make a real difference in their lives.In a high school or middle school 50 minute class, we need to take attendance and teach the daily lesson. With a class of 34 that leaves maybe 30 seconds or less per student of face to face time.Many of our students are so needy of adult attention that often other students will have days at a time with no individual time with the teacher.I can only imagine how much harder it would be with more than 34.
In my art classes, more students means more supplies for me to purchase, more time for me to prepare materials, more time to grade projects.There is little or no money for supplies, so I have to fundraise for materials to teach my curriculum or buy out of my own pocket.I would be spending more time preparing and spending more of my own money, so am I getting more compensation for that? No.Here is the rub: my salary is most likely getting cut.If class size is increased it means More work, More spending my own money and Less compensation.But the worst is that the students’ quality of education will be sacrificed.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Good evening everyone and thank you all for joining in a celebration of the marriage of Vista Unified School Board and their Teachers.
The Secret to 30 Years of Teaching
There was once a school board and teacher who had been married for more than 30 years. They had shared everything. They had talked about everything. They kept no secrets from each other -- except that the teacher had a shoebox in the top drawer of her desk that she cautioned her school board never to open or ask about.
For all those years, the school board had never thought about the box, but one day this teacher grew very sick and the doctors said she might not recover. In trying to sort out their affairs, the school board took out the shoebox and brought it to their teacher’s bedside. She agreed it was time the school board should know exactly what was in the box. When the school board opened it, they found one pair of knit socks and a stack of money totaling over $25,000.
"When we were to be married," the teacher said, explaining the contents of the box, "my colleagues told me the secret of a happy marriage was to never argue. They told me if I ever got angry with the school board, I should just keep quiet and knit a pair of socks."
The school board was so moved, they had to fight back tears. Only one pair of socks was in the box. The teacher had only been angry with them one time in all those years of marriage! The school board nearly burst with pride.
"Well," the school board said, "that certainly explains the socks, but what about all this money? Where did it come from?"
"Oh," the teacher said, "that's the money I made from selling all the socks."
In case you missed the point…we are not about to just keep quiet. We are here to argue for our families, our profession, our livelihood and we’re tired of knitting socks.
by Jim Ryan ____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Good Evening,
My name is Sheryl Bushey-Anello, and I am a teacher at Rancho Minerva.
On December 8, I stood, with my colleagues, in the gym of Vista Magnet and listened as Dr Bales congratulated us on raising the test scores of our students. Dr. Bales said you were all proud of our efforts.
We were proud too.
These test scores didn’t increase by fortune or by accident but by the dedication, time, and hard work of our teachers and administration, and by the hard work of our students and their parents who supported them. Our site administrators know that and acknowledge our efforts and our successes often and we feel validated and respected by them.
I ask you, Dr. Bales, and you, our school board members -- what validation did you give us?
Oh yes, you had us come forward and you gave us these certificates – our names bunched together like so many cattle – not caring enough even to take the time to print a separate certificate for each teacher who had worked so hard to make YOU look good.
You then asked us to come to you to shake your hands, as if in homage, and all the while, you knew that the very next day, you would use those very same hands to slap us in the face by declaring Impasse.
As I sat down I looked at each of you, I thought, “How can you, Dr. Bales, and you, the Board, stand there and smile at all of us when you have every intention of declaring Impasse and cutting away any security we have in our jobs? How can you hypocritically give us kudos, when tomorrow you will be telling us how worthless we are by declaring Impasse?”
Dr. Bales, I wanted to ask you that night, and will do so now, knowing our budget crisis, how can you, in good conscience, refuse to step up as the leader for which you are being paid such an exorbitant salary? How can you justify being unwilling to take the same 2% pay cut you are demanding of us?
This Impasse is not just about solving our financial problems. The Impasse is not an attempt to create a budget that is fair to all and that seeks to resolve the crisis in which we find ourselves.
This Impasse is a power play on the part of the Board and the District. It is an effort to “put those teachers down in their places” as you have often tried before.
This is evidenced by your demands that you be allowed to strip teachers of any power and abolish site-governance, but along with cutting the teachers’ power, you are also cutting the power of the classified staff, and, even more, you are denying the parents and students who are currently on those governance teams any power or input as well. This is NOT RIGHT.
It is further substantiated by your demands that administration be allowed to transfer teachers at their whim, further jeopardizing our job security and our students’ progress. This is NOT RIGHT.
Those items have nothing to do with solving our money problems and everything to do putting teachers down where it is obvious you think we should be.
You all know this to be true and you all know what you are doing is not the right thing to do. To continue this Impasse, to demand from us that which our own superintendent is unwilling to give, to take so much more than you know is prudent, is not right.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said,
Quote: “Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher of consensus but a molder of consensus.On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Isitright?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him itisright.” End Quote.
I implore each of you to be a genuine leader. Listen to your conscience and do what is right.