Re: Teacher poll doesn't explain contract vote, Thomas Tobin's article on the Pinellas County teacher contract, June 10.
Published June 15, 2004
I'm a Pinellas County school teacher and I have some comments after reading Mr. Tobin's article.
To Jade Moore of the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association: Telling us that the county has no money for raises is an excuse that sounds like something coming from a School Board employee, not the representative of the teachers! Pinellas teachers are fed up! You came to the conclusion that the nonunion members voted down the contract. You may be right, but ask yourself why we don't belong to your association. Many of us couldn't afford it before, and could never afford it after being asked to take a pay cut in the recently proposed contract. (Raise + Step - Health Care = negative increase.) Step up to the plate and win some of your membership back!
To School Board members: You have been getting our blood, sweat and tears for too long while paying us peanuts! How much money have you wasted over the past decade? (Superintendent Howard Hinesley's raise, a fingerprint system, school choice, full-size school buses transporting six students, etc.) Do you really want to hire and retain the best teachers? Respect us! Treat us with dignity! Pay us accordingly! And put the proposed referendum on the November ballot.
To community members: No, teaching is not a part-time job. We put in countless hours outside of the classroom. Many of us are the primary income earners in our households. None of us expected to be rich when we took the job. How many other college educated professionals regularly have second, even third jobs to make ends meet? Support your children's teachers!
To my fellow teachers: Stand strong! Do not accept less than we deserve. So we work without a contract until they get it right, big deal. We are right in this fight.
-- W. Andrew Shaw, Clearwater
Money and respect are needed
Re: Why Pinellas teachers voted down their contract.
I provide the health care for my family so I know that under this contract I would be making less money next year - $92.00 every two weeks will be increased to $147.00. Since I am on a higher step, I would get a small "raise" that would not cover the insurance increase beginning in December. As for working without a contract, that contract did not protect us when the district tacked on two unpaid "training" days. It does not protect employees from autocratic administrators who berate and belittle employees and create a hostile working environment. If the administrator does this in private, it does not violate the contract.
The district continues to pile more paperwork on teachers; either the teacher stops teaching to complete the work or does it on his or her own time, without compensation. If the teachers really worked to the contract, we'd probably save a forest the size of Vermont! The teachers would still teach, the students would still learn and paper would be saved. As for training, most of it involves how to fill out paperwork!
Yes, we need more money, but we also need the autonomy to do our jobs. Pinellas County has dedicated teachers who accomplish amazing things every day in the face of materials shortages, uninvolved parents and lack of respect from the administration and the community.
A doctor once asked me who was more important, a doctor or a teacher. I replied that without teachers, there would be no doctors. And without money and respect, soon there will be no more teachers.
-- Nancy Schubart, Treasure Island
Be honest about insurance costs
Re: Teacher poll doesn't explain contract vote.
Under the recently rejected teacher contract, teachers who need to provide health insurance for themselves or their families, have repeatedly been told by their union leadership that they indeed are receiving a salary increase even though 75 percent of the increased cost of health insurance is passed on to the employees.
The Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association is able to make this disingenuous claim since the nominal salary increase the teachers would see starts in July while the insurance increase wouldn't start until December. So by isolating an annual time period which starts in July, the PCTA can state that even though most teachers have only seen an increase of a few pennies, at least they saw an increase.
I believe a more honest approach would be to inform teachers of their annual salary increase along with their annual increased premium expenses. Next year a teacher with 17 years of experience will see a $900 annual increase before taxes starting in July. That same teacher will see annual insurance cost increases starting in December of $400, $700 or $1,100 depending on whether he insures only himself, himself and a spouse, or a family. Clearly teachers who are raising families and have their own children in our schools are not seeing a raise and the other teachers are only seeing an increase of pennies a day.
It is time for the School Board, the PCTA and the people of Pinellas County to decide what kind of educational system they want. Having your children educated by a group of people scrambling and scraping to barely make a living is clearly less than ideal. I don't want that for my children. Do you want it for yours?
-- Steven Murphy, Tarpon Springs
Good for doctors, good for lawyers, too
The June 8 article about lawyers pushing three constitutional amendments concerning doctors and health care was very interesting (Lawyers push to get amendments on ballot). The amendments would deny medical licenses to doctors with three malpractice judgments, open up doctors' disciplinary records to the public and require doctors to charge all patients the same fee for the same services. These all appear to be admirable measures.
But, quite frankly, I don't know why the doctors don't come up with three identical and equally admirable constitutional amendments for lawyers to adhere to. Three sustained complaints and the lawyer loses his license. Open to the public all the complaints against each lawyer and the results of the investigations. Lawyers must charge each person the same amount.
If, as lawyers suggest, doctors are ruining the health care of Florida, a case could also be made that the lawyers are ruining the economy of Florida. Since both our health and economy are vitally important, maybe both groups should be equally regulated.
-- Patrick Seery, Sun City Center
Give the kids something to think about
Re: Lincoln: the measure of modern leadership, June 9.
I have no doubt that Bill Maxwell, Arthur Schlesinger, Alan Dershowitz and Walter Cronkite feel that the book Why Lincoln Matters "uses the wisdom of the 16th president to address issues in the world today." But in Bill Maxwell's column he did not include any examples.
What letter grade would a high school student get for a book report that only said, "It was a good book because it was a good book that tells it like it is, plus these other guys think so too."?
Where is the analysis? Where is the connection?
Which "ideas and values" did Lincoln practice that John Kerry does and George Bush does not?
Maxwell is better than that. Maybe he should return to his other passion, our youth. What did Lincoln say and do that could be used by our future leaders? What would give our youth a yardstick with which to become critical of modern leaders rather than merely cynical?
These kids all have coins in their pockets that they put into game machines each day instead of news vending machines. Why is that?
What could Bill Maxwell write (at least) weekly, or better yet daily, that would cause these kids to pull out those coins to read, pass around and discuss? Maybe even help them appreciate the difference between critical and cynical.
Answer that and the St. Petersburg Times will be miles ahead of what any other major metro paper in this country is doing to promote literacy, self-esteem and interpersonal harmony.
-- Fred Jacobsen, Lithia
The widening income gap
A free and democratic government supposedly has built-in correctives to make up for the uneven beginnings in life. Victims of racial discrimination and poverty are supposed to have room enough to maneuver their way into the middle and upper class. It has not worked out. The gaps between those who have and those who have not are widening and, as a result, the whole nation is suffering.
The power to change lies in the hands of the Congress, the president and the corporate community. But unless there is a surge of decency and fairness emanating from the public will, the gap will continue to spread.
-- John Ingram, St. Petersburg
Do-it-yourself job destruction
When are we going to learn the error of our ways? We no longer care about our fellow man. What am I talking about?
I am talking about jobs - specifically, the jobs being lost. My biggest qualm is with Home Depot, but others are doing this as well. The problem? These "do-it-yourself" checkout lines. The only difference from lines with a human being is the perceived notion of getting done faster. Home Depot purposefully reduced the numbers of human cashiers to "train" customers to use this new technology.
Listen, people, when you go on these lines, you are promoting the loss of jobs here in America. The woman in the photo on the front page of the June 5 Business section seems to like this method of checking out. Well, what if it was her husband, brother, sister, etc., who lost his or her job to this machine? Would she still be using this checkout method?
Bankers, too, promote the use of automated teller machines. They say it makes life easier. Hello? Do they not realize that if everybody uses the ATMs, the tellers will be out of jobs? I'm all for having machines making our lives easier, but not at the expense of human well-being.
Please, people, wake up before it's too late.
-- Robert H. Stoehrer, Port Richey
Wishing for safer roads
Re: The highway with eyes . . . and a phone number, June 10.
First they tell us not to use our cell phones while driving. Now they encourage it with a new way to see what's ahead of you in traffic. What happened before cell phones? I guess you just had to wait and see as well as take care of business or speak to someone when you were not driving your car.
I come from England where it is against the law to use a cell phone while driving. I only wish they would enact that here.
I was just getting out of my car at the grocery store the other day when I heard a crunch and saw my car move slightly. It was an elderly woman in the car in front of my parking spot, phone to ear who said, "Sorry, but I mistook drive for reverse." I know I am getting off the original topic, but in England we have another law. At 70 years of age, people are encouraged to give up their drivers' licenses, and if they do not, they are tested annually: eye test, written test and road test. When they give up their license they are given a pass for free public transport for life. Granted the British do have a much better public transport system. Think of how much safer our roads would be.
-- Marilyn Peach, St. Pete Beach
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