Teacher World

I received a forwarded message through my email regarding a new Wisconsin teachers’ handbook which sounded so unbelievable to me that, at first, I thought it must be a hoax. So I did some research and found, much to my amazement, that not only is it true, but somehow I missed this story at the end of August, and maybe you did, too. So, here is a tragic story that teaches a valuable lesson: How unfairly teachers can be treated when collective bargaining goes out the window.

At a hugely attended meeting in New Berlin, Wisconsin, on August 29, the school board of the New Berlin school district voted unanimously to approve a new employee handbook which took effect this year. It was the second public meeting to discuss the passage of this handbook, since the initial meeting became so raucous that police had to be called in.

This second meeting of the school board was more controlled (probably the appearance of police cars with lights flashing all over the parking lot helped to subdue the crowd a little) but it was still charged with emotion, as districts all over the state have been adopting new handbooks spelling out wages, work rules, and benefits, now that collective bargaining is a thing of the past.

The crowd that gathered represented the two factions in this heated issue: teachers and union supporters who were concerned that the harsh rules will negatively affect their work and the reputation of the district as a whole and those in the community who support Governor Walker and want to see lower taxes.

Education Association President Diane Lazewki said that the changes proposed by New Berlin were further-reaching than the handbooks being adopted in other districts in their state. She said, “I would be surprised to see any other handbook as punitive as ours.”

So, is the new handbook punitive? Well, before I go any further, let me share some of the handbook’s more surprising mandates, from the email I received:

* Workdays for elementary will increase by 60 minutes and Secondary by 30 minutes
* Staff must be available to students before and after student schedules for at least 30 minutes per day
* You can be required to work an additional unpaid 15 hours; no more than 3 hours a week
* No pay for subbing during your preps; Principals can assign you to sub
* Certified staff hours are 1520 per year full time (190 days for this year only)
* The 2012-13 school year starts on August 15th and runs until June 15th
* You may be required to start as early as 6:15 AM and end as late as 5:00 PM
* You may be required to attend in-service or other training, outside your regular work schedule
* Next year, if we do not change the political landscape, pay will be based on performance; pay is insured this year because of the NBEA agreement.
*  You are not allowed to drop any licensure without the superintendent’s approval
* Dress Code: Skirts below knee, no sweatshirts, no jeans, no large logos, no open shirts, etc.
*  Be dismissed for having students as friends on Facebook
* Jury Duty: regular pay, but you must show documentation to the district that you’ve tried to change the jury duty time to July and August
* Evaluations: Done yearly without notice
*  Collaborative time twice weekly for 2 hours a week.
* You must report all traffic incidents (except speeding) or any tickets you have received to the District within 3 days or face dismissal even if it occurs during your time off
* Take away all microwaves, refrigerators, and coffeemakers, even though each administrator and the District have these items.
* 4 initial sick days and earn l day per month based on good attendance
* However those who have accumulated over 45 days will not be awarded any days until they have used enough days to fall below the 45 day cap.
*  Long term disability reduced from 90% of pay to 60% of pay. If ill or have had surgery and do not have any sick time built up, you will be short pay. You will also have to pay your insurance premium during any disability leave.
*  No days will be added to sick bank, which will be discontinued after this year, erasing any safety net for those who become critically ill.
* Resign before first day of school, you must pay $200 plus board contributions of benefits (insurance).
* Resigns after the first day school, $2000 plus benefits payments if not 60 days notice given

Sound a little punitive to you?

Art Marguardt, New Berlin School Board member, said that the board and the administration had spent extensive time on the handbook and denied that they were trying to be punitive. He said that the atmosphere has changed in Wisconsin from the unions having their way to the elected representatives now having the dominant voice. That’s “hard for some people to swallow,” he said.

Leslie Potter, who is a teacher at New Berlin West, told the board that the new rules would require that she work more hours but would limit the time she spends with her students and expressed concern that it eliminated any reference to prep time for teachers. “The school board says that they value collaboration,” she added. “We request that they approach this handbook in the same manner.”

After teachers had their say, a community member spoke up, saying that he represented the 5.5 million taxpayers in the state who approved of Walker and were in favor of what he was doing. While many in the auditorium broke into applause, teachers and union supporters sat silently, and eventually they walked out before the man was done speaking.

The bottom line is this: the New Berlin school board unanimously accepted this new handbook, and it sends a chillingly, clear message to teachers everywhere about what may be coming to their state in the future.

My state of Ohio is another state like Wisconsin, whose governor has pushed for a bill to end collective bargaining. Our unions fought back, and the state has one more chance to keep what is happening in Wisconsin from happening in Ohio. I appeal to those of you who live in Ohio to vote no on Issue 2 this November, and spread the word to others to do the same.

I don’t care how you try to spin the facts; this new handbook sounds punitive, and it certainly will do nothing to improve the morale of the teachers who work in that district or the quality of instruction that the students will receive.

Changes in Teaching, teacher evaluations, Teacher's Unions, Teacher-World's Blog collective bargaining, extended school day, extended school year, New Berlin, teacher handbook, Wisconsin

Well, the anticipated glitch has now frozen any movement forward on Wisconsin’s new budget repair law even though it was signed into law by Governor Scott Walker two weeks ago. Of course, Walker said, according to a spokeswoman, that he was confident that the initiative would eventually prevail in the court system.

As threatened, after only a two hour notice was given by Republicans for a vote on this budget repair bill, Wisconsin Senate Democrats filed a complaint with the Dane County district attorney. In their complaint they claimed the Republicans in the Senate violated Wisconsin’s open meetings law by failing to give a 24-hour public notice of the meeting it held on March 9, in spite of state Representative Peter Barca’s objection.

The ruling on Friday, by Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi, called for a temporary restraining order which halted the budget repair law designed to diminish the union’s power of most public employees. Her order demanded that Secretary of State Douglas LaFollette was to refrain from publishing the new law “until further order of the court.”

In Judge Sumi’s written decision, she made the following analogy to help explain her ruling: “Those few of you who may have seen the Super Bowl know that there was a much-photographed guy with a cheesehead, and it said ‘owner’ on it. And of course, we all know what that refers to, the fact that the Green Bay Packers are publicly owned. It’s a heartwarming moment to see that, but in fact, it states that we in Wisconsin own our government. We own it. And we own it in three ways.

We own it by the vote. We own it by the duty to provide open and public access to records, so that the activities of government can be monitored. And we own it in that we are entitled by law to free and open access to government meetings, and especially governmental meetings that lead to the resolution of very highly conflicted and controversial matters.”

Secretary-treasurer of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, Stephanie Bloomingdale, was pleased by the ruling. “In Wisconsin, we have a democracy, and rules need to be followed. No one is above the law, including Scott Walker,” Bloomingdale said. “This is definitely a move in the right direction for working people in Wisconsin to uphold worker rights and also to uphold democracy in Wisconsin and America.”

While Democrats are hopeful that this ruling might bring the demise of this new law, Democrat Senator Jon Erpenbach stated, “I would hope the Republicans would take this as an opportunity to sit down with Democrats and negotiate a proposal we could all get behind.”

Indeed, so many of us in other states, like Ohio, with similar controversial bills still to be decided would hope for the same thing, because Wisconsin is leading the way in this drama, which has us all watching and waiting to find out what will happen next. Although, I think most of us already assume that this latest decision will just slow the inevitable down a little bit.

Funding Education, Teacher's Unions, Teacher-World's Blog budget repair law, collective bargaining, Governor Scott Walker, Judge Maryann Sumi, Wisconsin

Well, by now you have read the news about the vote taken in the wee hours of the morning today in Wisconsin; a fitting twisted ending to a despicably twisted bill.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I know Democrats have been using delay tactics to try to put off this vote, and we knew that the three days of filibustering they engaged in to try to continue to delay the vote would eventually prove to be ineffective. But I was truly hoping that cooler heads would prevail during this delay; that Governor Scott Walker and his Republican cohorts would be moved by all of the protests they have listened to for days both in their state and in others around our nation who are calling for an anti-union bill, and they might tweak this bill enough that it would be more palpable for those of us who are in the public sector.

Perhaps a compromise to increase our pension and health care contributions while maintaining our rights to collective bargaining would have been better received. How about a promise to delay the vote until a real plan was in place addressing how the void created by the loss of collective bargaining will be filled; how salaries will be both effected and determined, what will be the new guidelines for evaluation and will those guidelines be solely based on state test scores and a value-added model, how will reduction in force be handled, and the myriad questions and concerns those of us in education are experiencing right now? Having the plan in place before the vote was taken might have calmed our fears or at least given us a clearer picture of what lies ahead and how this legislation will affect us personally.

So, with all of the tension, fears, and drama, to read the actual account describing how the vote was taken in Wisconsin just adds to my outrage, and I’m sure to the outrage of others as well.

Here is how Julie Kent of ClevelandLeader described it: “Just after 1 am, Republicans cut off debate on the financial bill, and quickly called for a vote. In the confusion, approximately one-third of the lawmakers, including 25 Democrats, two Republicans and one independent, did not get a chance to vote on the bill at all. Democrats reportedly “exploded” in furor when they realized that the vote had been open only for just a few moments. Nevertheless, it passed 51-17. The debates over Walker’s bill had gone on for 60 hours, and 15 Democrats were still waiting to speak when the vote began. Speaker Pro Tem Bill Kramer, a Republican, opened the roll and closed it within seconds. Only 13 of the 38 Democrats managed to vote in time.”

Clearly the Republican representatives were anxious to get on with the vote now that the Democrats were in the room, and I am sure they were sick of listening to the Democrats drone on and on in an obvious attempt to disrupt the voting. But Republicans obviously had the majority here and should have been able to pass this bill once the voting was announced. For decency’s sake, give everyone a chance to go on record with their vote rather than cramming it down everyone’s throat.

This was nothing less than railroading, which sends a clear warning to those of us in the public sector of how we will be treated in this unfair and unreasonable political arena in which we have become the sacrificial lambs on the altar of the national debt.

Now, we lambs wait nervously and anxiously for this legislation to go to Wisconsin’s senate for a vote; another uphill climb for Republicans as the Democratic senators are holed up in Illinois in the Democrats’ continued attempt to squash this bill.

Teacher-World's Blog Anti-Union bill, Democrats public sector, Governor Scott Walker, Republicans, Wisconsin

All eyes are on Wisconsin right now, as it leads the way in this horrific battle to begin to regain control of our nation’s huge budget deficits at the expense of public employees and their unions. And if what is happening in Wisconsin is a sign of what is likely to come, I, like many other public employees, am becoming fearful of my future and my ability to retire any time in the future.

After nearly a week of protests in Madison, Wisconsin, with 70,000 protesters chanting, beating drums, debating, and voicing their fears and concerns, Republican lawmakers in this state remain apparently unmoved. And on Saturday, supporters of Governor Scott Walker, who is pushing for a measure that would force government workers to contribute more to their health care and pension costs and which would largely eliminate collective bargaining rights, showed up to support his plan, although their numbers were significantly less. 

Republicans claim these concessions are necessary in order to deal with Wisconsin’s projected $3.6 billion budget deficit and to avoid layoffs of government workers. Other states have joined in for the same reason.

Democrats offered on Saturday, to agree to parts of Governor Walker’s proposal, but maintained that workers should retain their rights to negotiate through their unions. Senate-Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, said that the GOP will not accept this offer, and also claimed that the restrictions on collective bargaining are necessary in order to give local governments and the state the flexibility they need to balance budgets after cuts are announced next month.

In Ohio, Governor John Kasich wants to restrict union rights for state workers and workers in townships, cities, counties, school districts and publicly funded universities, due to an estimated $8 billion deficit. In general, his suggested legislation would eliminate salary schedules, a plan which has received support from local tea party leader Ted Lyons from Troy, Ohio.

But other states, like Michigan, are progressing more moderately in the hopes of avoiding the controversy this legislation has prompted in so many states around the nation. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder also wants savings from public employee costs; however, he is not pushing to abolish collective bargaining rights. He does want all government employees to pay 20 percent of their health care premiums, but he is trying to work with the unions in his state. “As a practical matter, we’re asking for $180 million in concessions, and we know we need to go bargain for that,” Snyder told reporters Thursday after delivering his 2011-12 budget proposal. “We want to do that thoughtfully in partnership with our employees. We’re not here to create threats.”

How is it possible that we, who are in education, who are paid so little for what we do, and who spend so much out of pocket to supplement the materials and resources needed to successfully do our jobs, are one of the targeted groups to help bail out our nation’s debt? Most teachers I know work at least two jobs to make ends meet because our salaries are so low compared to those who are in the private sector.

So, why do we stay in education? Because we have a calling; we have a love of teaching and the children we teach. And so, we put up with the salary and supplement it in other ways so that we can afford to continue in the profession we love. If this legislation passes, we will be told to make further monetary sacrifices, and to make matters worse, we will have no one to stand up for us; no one to make sure that our rights are being protected. With no guidelines in place to control how cuts will be made, what would keep school districts from cutting employees at the top of the pay scale to help off-set budget deficits? Further, is it likely that our already meager salaries might be cut to decrease school deficits, making our ability to retire after 30-35 years of service a distant dream?

With Republicans holding the majority in Congress, it is becoming increasingly clear what the future holds for those of us in the public sector. I just hope and pray that we can ride out this latest storm.

Teacher's Unions, Teacher-World's Blog Governor Kasich, Governor Rick Snyder, Governor Scott Walker, public workers, SB5, Scott Fitzgerald, unions, Wisconsin

What tragic news out of Wisconsin Monday and Tuesday! I’m sure you have already heard by now of the tragedy in Marinette, a city of about 12,000 people which lies about 50 miles north of Green Bay on the border of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where sophomore Samuel Hengel shot himself after holding a class of high school students and their teacher hostage for about six and a half hours. It has got to be one of the most unusual school hostage situations we have ever heard about.

If you read or listened to coverage of this strange story, Samuel did not come into class with the weapons but left to go to the restroom and returned with a duffel bag containing two guns and ammunition. Zach Campbell, a hostage who was interviewed, reported that Samuel began this nightmare event by shooting at the projector as the class was watching a movie in the dark. He reported that at no time did Samuel shoot at any students although he did fire other shots. Zach said he appeared depressed and yet the students maintained a conversation with him during this stand-off where they discussed hunting and fishing. Apparently Samuel was laughing and chatting, and Zach said he didn’t think that Samuel meant to hurt anyone.

Another unusual piece to this puzzle was that Samuel let a girl leave after her mother tried to call her and was unable to get through. And later, Zach asked if he could use the bathroom, and Samuel let him go. It was at this point that Zach escaped to be followed a little later by four more students who asked to use the bathroom as well. It sure doesn’t sound like this young man planned to harm his fellow classmates, which leads you to wonder what the heck his plan was, if he even had one.

How tragic that this boy killed himself when the police battered down the door after more random shots were fired! But thankfully, no one else was hurt and all of the students and the teacher who had been held for so many hours got out safely. Now the tough question will need to be answered: What made Samuel crack in such a dreadful way? Was this tragedy the result of bullying or harassment at school? Or did Samuel’s break from reality have roots in problems at home or something psychological? Some terrible questions will have to be asked and answered which will cause more pain for the students and families of the city of Marinette. And the residual effects of being held hostage and fearing for your life will require much counseling and healing.

I’m sure all of our thoughts and prayers go out to this community. We can only hope that swift answers will come and with those answers, healing may occur.

Teacher-World's Blog Marinette, Samuel Hengel, school shooting, Wisconsin