Union, District Both to Blame
Union, District Both to Blame
Editor,
As a 20-plus year veteran teacher at San Benito High School I felt compelled to respond to your front-page story about the teacher’s union suing the district. It is my opinion that both sides are really to blame for the whole situation. Again, it’s my opinion, that the current contract impasse is a direct result of the mistake made by both sides in ratifying the last contract with so much to still be negotiated. To my knowledge I was the only staff member who did not vote to ratify the contract, and trustee Evelyn Muro the only board member to not ratify it. Our reasons were similar.
First, the contract was not finished. There were no less than eight major points that were to be negotiated at a later date, including the issue of working hours. Second, the contract may or may not have put the district in a deficit budget. At any rate, we are now on our third schedule in three years. To say that the schedules were unilaterally implemented by the district is not quite accurate. For at least two years there has been a committee of staff members who have been working on schedules. In fact two members of my department have been actively involved. Staff members were sent out to other schools to observe advisory periods and a scheduling recommendation was made to the staff and administration by this committee. True, the district gave it the go-ahead, but staff was definitely involved in the process. But what has never been done by either the CTA or the district is to put different schedules to a vote of the staff. There were e-mail polls, and people went to informal question-and-answer sessions, but never was a choice of a few schedules put to a vote.
On the specific topic of the new advisory period, it is important to note, it is a class. I have 27 students that I am responsible for. I take roll every day and check that the students have the proper materials. I had to prepare my classroom, gather materials for the silent reading period, teach specific lessons, and I have to enforce the school discipline policies. There is no question that the advisory period is work. In most businesses and industry, if your workload is increased you generally receive some type of compensation for this. I volunteered to teach a freshman advisory period and we were told that the student ratio would be lower than the advisory classes for the upperclassmen. At most, freshman advisory periods were to have 24 students. To make a personal connection with each student, 27 is pushing the envelope. Yet despite all of this I like the advisory period. As a football coach I have done an after-school study hall for the past 17 years, and know firsthand that is does work.
What makes this whole contract mess a really sad situation is that is will deflect valuable resources away from where they are needed most: the school and the students. With a 30 percent failure rate for freshman English last year, obviously something must be done. And as a person who has been to the school board no less than 13 times in the past four years to discuss the need for improved facilities, the entire process of trying to upgrade, enlarge and improve facilities has come to a complete halt. Even if a bond issue was passed tomorrow it would be a least seven years before a student sat in a desk of a new school. San Benito High School won’t last two more years if the facilities here are not upgraded. I urge you, the parents of the students and the community in general, to convince both parties involved to remember what is most important, student safety, student achievement and maximizing student options upon graduation.
Randy Logue
P.E. Department Chair
San Benito H.S.
