Five Days and Counting
Home again, this time from the beach. People, I've got five days of vacation left before we report for pre-planning. This week, the governor came out and said, "whoops! we've got a $900 million deficit. Teachers need to take 3 furlough days!" And my response is, "whoops! I've got a signed contract that doesn't say anything about the governor forcing me to take 3 furlough days because the state can't add." That's what you get when you elect a veterinarian governor. And don't get me wrong, because I love vets. I don't like stupid ones. But here's the deal: this is the same governor who was elected because of the educator bloc; he had our backs for years - he even gave us $100 gift cards at the beginning of every school year- but for him to think he could break our contracts? I'd like to know what his school teacher mama thinks.
Amazingly enough, the county isn't forcing the issue. They have $100 million in reserve - and we didn't have paper or toner for the copying we couldn't do last year - and are spending $10 million to keep all of us employed. Imagine - they are looking like the good guys. But like I always say, who knows what they have in store for us.
Labels: summer edition
posted by teachergirl at 8:46 AM
4 Comments:
We have a $300 million deficit, thanks to an "accounting error." You know what? When I make an accounting error, I can't hold the state employees hostage.
We had 10 hours of furlough and a .5% pay cut. I'm waiting for more fun. This year's the-only-thing-that-keeps-it-from-being-mandatory-is-a-little-legal-technicality professional development (otherwise known as "summer learning camp," in the way that "pre-owned" means "used to within an inch of its life"), for which we used to receive a meager stipend, now goes unpaid. Instead, we get to use those days in trade for work days. Well, you know the deal with work days. YOU NEED THEM, most of the time. And those work days also tend to be what is used for furloughs. So I sense - and I could be wrong - that I'm going to get screwed.
So let's raise a cyber toast to a fabulous school year, teach! I've got another three weeks (not including the aforementioned "summer learning camp"), but I'm also stuck in the jaws of hell into mid-June. Back in the day, when I was in school, we went from the Tuesday after Labor Day until Memorial Day. And we turned out fine. Didn't we?
Is there a such thing as furlough in teaching? Teachers are always working when they are off the clock. And don't we have to get in a certain number of instructional days to meet federal/state guidelines for instruction? What this sounds like is they want people to work without pay. Or maybe I'm overanalyzing the situation.
3 days of furlough is zip compared to what is going on here. Our Sup keeps saying we've only got enough money to keep our doors open until October. They said November last year, but we never closed. I don't know what we are doing this year. EVERYTHING is up in the air.
Thank goodness your county has a little extra dough to offset what the state is doing.
Eek! I guess I've got it made!
Would you like to join us here? The school board suggested 40 furlough days. When questioned they said well of course the teachers will work, they just won't get paid. We can't afford to hire subs and the state requires a certain number of school days.
When the union said 'no thank you' the mayor came up with another idea. Let's do split sessions. Some will go in the morning and some will go in the afternoon. We can close some buildings and lay off lots of teachers. Seems she thinks that the same teachers will work both sessions. The union president just went 'don't think so'.
We don't start until Aug 1 so there is lots of time to come up with more insanity. My husband says opening the morning paper is like the circus is in town and the act in the center ring keeps changing.
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