An Inappropriate Response

In a time of great economic turmoil and uncertainty it would seem that when a group of people save taxpayers some money, this might be a considered a good thing. One might even consider a “thank you” in order. Instead, on Friday, one county council member called this savings “bulls**t.” As we say in the classroom, that’s an inappropriate response.

In fact, there’s an assertion that we’ve been hiding something as teachers over the past few years. Indeed we have. We’ve been hiding:

• the fact that we’re teaching more children in our classes, who due to the economic climate carry an ever increasing set of needs, that we as educators have a moral obligation to try and meet – and we do so with fewer and fewer resources in our classrooms
• the fact that federal and state accountability levels continue to rise each and every year – the bar gets higher and higher each and every year
• the fact that the number of assessments for children has risen dramatically, and that grading and planning have now become a significant part of every teacher’s evening and weekend activities
• that we’ve given up raises for 2-3 years, and many of us have taken second jobs, simply to pay our bills

During this time, we have continued to do right by children, and do the right thing for our community. We have diligently and without interruption met our obligation to what is arguably the best school system in the nation, and we’ve been part of saving over $300 million dollars over these past three years. We’ve done so collaboratively with our school system, as opposed to the confrontational approach used by the council with county employees.

Make no mistake. Public schools are the bedrock of an effective democracy. Highly committed educators, who toil in classrooms and at home, giving of their time and expertise, staff our schools. We do this because we care deeply about our community and more importantly, about our children. It’s sad that at the end of a school year, the message that we as teachers get from our county council is filled with anger and confrontation. It would have been nice to hear “thank you” for the tireless work we undertook with 142,000 children in our care, and the personal sacrifices we have again made this year.