WON'T BACK DOWN

April Griffin was threatened with physical removal from the October 21st meeting. It starts about 1 hr. 25 min. into the meeting.

She was requesting a negotiated exception to the recently adopted travel guidelines. Apparently Jennifer Faliero wasn't in the mood to listen, gaveled her down for not making her point, threatened to have the Sergeant at Arms (Chief Freebird) remove her, then let her continue. It really was a well considered point she was making.

I kept thinking this is exactly how we felt when the superintendent took our conference away and in general how dissent is addressed.
We give more grace to the State Fair chair when he wants a school holiday so the kids have the time to throw money at the vendors. Jennifer really likes that gavel, especially when she's intellectually against the wall.

Later on April made a point about her treatment and Jennifer calico got snitty and said something about April not liking to be told no. Later she opened the door to capitulating on the new field-trip policy. Talk about irony.

Well Jenn if you treated a student or parent so shoddily your sweet ass would be in the unemployment line or at AbuCobb. April hit the bulls eye and I quietly smiled when she inferred she now knows how we feel when we speak out. Remember Doug Erwin April! We do.

You owe it to yourself to watch it.
The Trib checks in.

Ms. Faliero: please step down.

(Note who was missing.)

SEEDZ of DOUBT

The deadline was October 20 @ 1:00PM

29.5% of teachers even bothered to vote.
27.6% of teachers voted "yes".
3 out of 4 teachers let "the other guy" decide.

Next time you are pissed about the superintendent, your salary, benefits, or working conditions: YOU BE "THE OTHER GUY"!

From The Gradebook

Hillsborough CTA ratifies contract

UPDATE: We've received word from the CTA that the vote tallies reported earlier (now in the jump) are not right. Here's the e-mail we just got:

The Election Committee both regrets and is pleased to inform you there was a reporting error in the teacher ratification results. The correct numbers are:
Total number of teacher ballots returned: 4,546
Total number voting YES: 4,256
Total number voting NO: 290
Approval percentage: 94%

The Committee members apologize for any concern this may have caused members of the bargaining unit and can only attribute the error to the lateness of the hour.

The School Board still meets at 3 p.m. to take up the employee raises.

Here's the original post:

Well, Hillsborough teachers and support personnel. Looks like your raise is on its way to approval.

Rosemary Ax of the HCTA Election Committee e-mailed the Gradebook the final vote tally just before midnight, and asked that we put out the word "since everyone wants to know."

Here's her report:

The CTA Election Committee reports that ballots were mailed to 15,376 teachers and 3,869 ESP. There were a total of 60 invalid ballots returned, most of which were sent in with no preference marked. Teachers returned 1,346 valid ballots with 1,056 voting YES and 290 voting NO, for an approval of 78%. ESP returned 1548 valid ballots with 1502 voting YES and 46 voting NO, for an approval of 97%.

The School Board meets at 3 p.m. today, and is expected to sign off on the deal, too. The raises including back pay then would come to employees as soon as practical.

**********************************************************************************

Now, can we release the official salary schedule? Last year it was up on the web September 27th.

Show us the money, please.

TELL HER NO!

I voted NO.

First, the more experienced teachers that provided me guidance and support are getting shafted. Somebody is going to get pissed enough to file a class action suit. Age discrimination comes to mind.

Second, I won't vote until I have a complete picture. The salary scale is still unavailable. You would think that someone in power would publish our salary scale. That way we can see how we are being given a 2% salary increase yet our "new" health care program will cost us more than that.

Third, it is expected that we are too tepid, timid, and weak to do anything BUT vote for it - "silent zombies" was the expression. Have we ever been given the actual vote COUNT?

Fourth, we are taken for granted by our district administration and association, THAT my friends is the deal breaker!

Mary Ellen? NO!
Yvonne? NO!

ANOTHER PIG IN A POKE?

Why should we approve a contract with no salary scale to refer to? How come neither CTA or the district has released what they expect to pay us?

I'm not sure we should approve ANYTHING at this point. Maybe you can convince me.

Let's talk. Comments welcome.