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Teachers, tell us what you think

By PAUL C. TASH
Published May 21, 2006

My parents were teachers; Dad also taught night school to help make ends meet. My wife, Karyn, teaches at a Pinellas County high school where our older daughter graduated and where our younger one will be a senior next year. I am a product of public education, from kindergarten in Indiana through law school in Scotland.

So for me, our stories last week hit a particular nerve. In a random survey, we asked public school teachers on both sides of Tampa Bay how things look to them. The results weren't pretty, especially in Pinellas County.

I read the results to say many teachers are feeling squeezed from all sides: by unruly students, by local administrators and state education bureaucrats, and by personal expenses that grow even faster than raises.

Now we want to go beyond the statistics and hear directly from more teachers. We solicit your stories, good and bad, that help explain those poll results and provide a better sense of what life is like as a public school teacher in the Tampa Bay area today.

If you prefer paper, please send your letters to Letters to the Editor, Attention: Teachers, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731. They can be sent by fax to 727 893-8675 or through our Web site at: www.sptimes.com/letters. If you've moved on to e-mail, our address is teachers@sptimes.com.

Please be as specific as possible. We promise to read every letter, to publish a collection in the newspaper that represents the larger patterns, and to publish even more on our Web site. All letters should include the writer's name, address and phone number.

In closing, I'll recall the lessons of Lois Claus and Fran Smith, two of my English teachers at Andrew Jackson High School in South Bend, Ind. Simple, declarative sentences work best. And shorter is almost always better.

Paul C. Tash Editor

[Last modified May 21, 2006, 08:22:29]