SEA Approves Contract
Seattle Schools will open its doors tomorrow to all its schools for our nearly 50,000 students.
Welcome back, kids.
Welcome back, kids.
Tuesday Open Thread
The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested. It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio. (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
Comments
Although I was disappointed at the outcome, I was more disappointed, embarrassed actually, at the behavior of teachers when various speakers we're voicing their opinions at the microphone. I have no doubt they would not put up with similar rude behavior from their students.
Sped Staffer
Another Teacher
Teacher
I believe what you say but my radar is always up when people say "but the rules were followed."
a paper ballot would have been a strategic move, a message to the district. I think egos got in the way.
Anyway, I look forward to seeing the kiddos tomorrow.
noyeller
Handling a loud union hall (for the night) is more difficult than even a classroom, but honestly this "classroom" wasn't always well handled.
There's clearly a lot of mounting frustration with JSC, primarily a lot pre-dating Banda, so what I see coming out of this is a campaign that will start soon to deal with the next contract. (sorry)
With all the McCleary money coming this blog too will be all over the JSC in terms of getting those $$ out to the schools and not rebuilding JSC empires. I got the sense that a lot who voted like me for the contract did so because where we're at it's good enough for now and we know we're not ready for a big fight... but we will be for the 2-years from now fight if there's any threat of McCleary getting squandered. Unless the district gets a lot more committed to supporting teachers and support staff (especially) that will be the big fight I'm even willing to support.
Yes, sorry, it will not be fun going through this again in 2 years but at least it will be a 5-year contract (per plan).
Yet Another
And what's with our union President? Does he know anything? Why did he have to defer to others on stage to answer more than 75% of the questions? Isn't it his job to know the answer to things? What's going to happen when Glenn heads to Federal Way? The VP was even less knowledgable as demonstrated by her commenting about things at the wrong "Robert's Rule" time. I have a bad feeling that today's contract will be the highlight of the next several years.
SPED Staffer
? McCleary $ coming??
Ah, sorry. Nope. Texas had a similar 'McCleary' case, and, 20 years later.... Waiting for godot would be more fruitful.
Sorry. Don't mean to burst any bubbles. There ain't no dough in the kitty, that's all.
And, JSCEE has had cuts and has gone lean, BUT, they've also BULKED up 30-fold for their $110k (excluding cost of benefits) ranks over the last 8 years. Think back to the pre-Ed Directors, pre-'super's cabinet', pre-everybody's-an-assistant-super days...
-flying unicorns
Still Sad that we avoid best practices here in Seattle,
Signed- professional in the classroom
A voice vote sounds medieval and far from what I would expect from college educated professionals.
While it's true a paper ballot would have proved that, the same people who are crying foul over the visual count would have claimed the paper ballot results were rigged as well.
And SEA is being transparent with the close vote - on the FB page it says the vote was about 60/40.
Given that so many of us voted to approve so that we could start school and do our job for families and students, and yet disagree with some issues in this contract, I hope teachers across the district get more active in pressuring the district to design effective ways to look at data, effective assessments, to give our paras a livable wage and more opportunity for career advancement, and most importantly, a caseload for ESAs that allows them to do their job well.
SeaTeach
--UpNorth
I also did not like the way Knapp handled the meeting. He was rude to many speakers and didn't have the knowledge to answer several questions. I'm not sure what he was trying to portray with his behavior but he seemed uninterested in getting us the answers we deserved before voting. He seemed "over it" and annoyed with his members.
It's not the way that it works but when my union leaders present a tentative agreement or a district proposal after bargaining, I want them to present the facts in a neutral manner. A stated opinion even would be okay. but they should stop at that.
I don't pay them 80ish bucks a month for them to try to convince me how to vote.
and I don't like being pushed to approve a contract because the bargaining team worked so hard. I know they did and appreciate it greatly. Its not a reason to approve the contract though.
noyeller
non-believer
I thought the entire thing was on the up and up. I thought our colleagues were often immature and impatient. Jonathan did just fine. The team knew their stuff and I felt like our membership was in good hands.
It's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback.
Voted no also
non-believer
I like to there is truth in advertising.
Let me begin by saying, I am not against Unions. Not at all. I support unions. But what I am against is a badly run union. A union that is at war with itself. A union which should favor its teachers more than its management.
That's not what we have in Seattle. What kind of union takes a terrible contract, votes to approve it, and then complains about the way it is treated, until they vote for the next terrible contract?
Sometimes you have to teach people how to treat you. The Seattle teacher's union has not figured this out.
They deserve the treatment that they receive and by ratifying weak and insufficient contracts.
When there was word of a strike, it was obvious that the public was behind them. We, the public, would love for the District to be shown that you can't push teacher's around.
This was a chance for the teacher's union to gain some credibility, some legitimacy, some support. But they caved.
In the future, maybe some good PR would include striking for the kids. Smaller class sizes, summer school, effective staffing -things that actually affect children's lives.
Instead, it looks like they sold out the children for a 2-4% raise.