March 13, 2012
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The Daily News1 Today is a no news is good news day. At least according to the East Side Union High School District. More about that later.
2 Those of you who don’t think the news is controlled should look at the difference of thickness of newspapers from Sunday to Monday.
3 It must be a coincidence that the majority of news seems to happen on Wednesdays and Saturdays, because the Thursday papers always seem fairly fat, as well as the Sunday papers.
4 Or are those just advertisements?
5 Monday papers are almost too light for the delivery people to toss.
6 In many ways, it’s a bit reassuring. If they have to make-up stories to keep us interested in reading, then I guess there are worse things.
7 I especially laugh at the repeat “stories” that we often get online: anything Bachelor or Karashian. Who cares? Or some huge star is caught with an ugly look on their face. Like we’ve never taken a bad picture. Or the slick, revealing dress that some actress wore at some award ceremony.
8 Major stories man.
9 The other side of it is that they are telling me that nothing has happened. We are inventing this to entertain you. We ALMOST got hit by something jumping off the sun last week. I ducked.
10 Are they trying to control the way we think?
11 I’d say I think so, but they haven’t officially told me that yet.
12 They’ve hinted at it.
13 But until it is confirmed, I can’t share that news with you.
14 Moving on, Part the First: No place really to move on, since nothing really happened.
15 Oh, it is said that at the District Board meeting tonight, they are going to offer a “Sunshine” proposal of what they wish to offer us as far as a contract.
16 Will they offer a raise? Nope. Will they offer lower class sizes? Nope. Will they offer the return to a Cost of Living Allowance? Not likely. Will they offer fewer furlough days? Nope. Will they go aggressively after our benefits?
17 Word on the street is that they want to attack that one full force. It’s no mystery on either side. We have been giving in on all those other issues in good faith for years, and now they want to devour our benefits. At least that’s the word on the street.
18 It is an enormous issue, and it goes down tonight at the District Office. If young teachers with babies suddenly find their benefits cut, they will be paying exhorbitant sums for care. If an elderly teacher gets a major illness, they are going to be in a financial crisis.
19 To me, this is an issue. We have worked ridiculously hard, have offered hours of free time to help keep schools running, have gone the extra mile for parents, students, and community for years. We have bargained in good faith, giving up many things in the process.
20 When we gave three them more students per class on the class size issue, my paperload increased substantially. That’s a half a class a day of more paperwork. Adds up after three assignments.
21 They have cut our counseling staff down to two, for almost 2,600 students.
22 Many excellent staff members have been laid off, people I absolutely respect as professionals of the highest order. Our MST counselors have disappeared. I spent out-of-pocket money to provide books for my students, because the bookroom hours became absurd.
23 The schools are running on empty, and still we have devoted staff trying to take care of millions of things, still trying to make it happen despite the exhaustion.
24 It’s not just schools; it’s all businesses. I understand this.
25 Hard to get sympathy on this, but benefits affect people’s families, and they affect them seriously. It isn’t song-and-dance stuff; it’s life-and-death stuff.
26 I am asking any teacher in the East Side Union High School District to think twice about not showing up tonight in ESTA shirts and being heard. We aren’t asking for some condo on the Riviera. We are asking for something we have already agreed to that they want to take away.
27 Today.
28 The Board meeting begins at 4 p.m. in the Board Room 830 N. Capitol Ave in San Jose.
29 Is this critical meeting considered news to the ESUHSD?
30 Nope.
31 They would rather nobody attend, at least by the looks of their website. The meeting is in the upper-right corner of the site, on a rolling calendar with a font size of perhaps eight. And it rolls pretty quickly. I copied it and pasted it on today’s DN. It laid itself over my picture of the ESTA logo. I tried to copy and delete and it wouldn’t delete. It behaved like a virus. I tried copying just the text of this DN to a new entry, and it clung to my text. Well, the idea is that you are seeing their advertising, which is directly from their webpage.
32 Yet it isn’t in any of their headlines on that page.
33 And a mouse in the District told me that benefits will be the last item on the menu tonight, after everyone else moves out of the meeting to get home to their families.
34 That’s the way these guys roll. They’ll drink water and walk in late, glad-hand each other, drink more water, and stall things.
35 But it’s a rattlesnake ready to walk right into all our lives and steal our health benefits. Make no mistake. Fortunately our people will stay and negotiate hard to protect those benefits. It won’t be pretty.
36 We need a show of solidarity, especially between 4 and 7, when the media is likely to drop in.
37 It is time for parents, teachers, and community members to march in support of teachers and classified staff. I have worked at least ten to fifteen hours each weekend this year voluntarily. It was for survival. Many of us have devoted years of volunteer work for the District, and even agreed to the cuts of COLA, of class sizes, of MST counselors, of librarians, of the need for furloughs. We’ve given everything we can, and now they are going to try to take many of our benefits away.
38 Protect our benefits.
39 There is news. It’s that we need parents, teachers, staff, community members, and anyone they can drag with them to show up en masse this afternoon in a show of solidarity.
40 The only way we can protect education is to begin fighting back tonight.
41 Wear black. ESTA members wear ESTA shirts.
42 Bring children; they are affected as well.
43 I know you’re exhausted, but tonight’s meeting is critical.
44 I support many causes.
45 Please come out, even if it is for only an hour. It’s still a voice.
46 Thanks.
47 Peace.
~H~
