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Saturday, February 25, 2023

Teachers, Superintendent Greene does not have your back.

 One of the most laughable things Greene said when defending the district's incompetent handling of books was they were doing it to protect teachers. Greene has never had teachers' backs, and let me prove it to you.

Masks, when returning from the pandemic, she fought against using them time and time again. It was only a rare bit of backbone by the school board that made even our tepid mask policy happen.

Pay, when the governor announced his scheme to increase starting pay, he did so by cutting two admittedly flawed programs, but programs that put money into veteran teachers' pockets, meaning many veterans took pay cuts. Then the new system ensured that tenth-year teachers and first-year teachers would have practically the same salary.

Now you might be saying what about the milage rate increase and that is a good thing, but in reality, where it may be two steps forward, it is also one step back. The district sold to the public that the need was so important, it had to be done now, but after it passed, the district said, okay, see you next year. 

Then way back when the district was selling the referendum, I initially didn't want to support it because you couldn't spend that money on salaries, which along with infrastructure was also a pretty major problem. Millage money you can spend on anything, sales tax money you can't.

I could also make the argument the millage increase was self-serving as DCPS is hemorrhaging teachers and her leadership hasn't been drawing replacements in, so throwing money at the problem is probably the only solution she could come up with.

A representative from the district told me we were spending 500k a month on emergency maintenance, and once the referendum passed, that money could go to other things like teacher salaries, in an effort to get me to support it, which I did partly based on that conversation and then, nothing happened, for the next two years. It was nothing but lip service. Now don't get me wrong, the referendum was and is uber important, but taking care of the staff, at least in my mind, is more so.

Pediohiles and groomers, for a year now, teachers have been called groomers by a segment of the public, sorry influential segment of the public, and Greene has, as far as I can tell, never said a word. She has never gone; that's stupid; our teachers are great, and to accuse them of something like this is just plain wrong. What an easy lift for Greene but one she couldn't bother to do.

The governor last spring also said teachers were trying to get students to switch genders, and again rather than Greene talk about how ridiculous that is and stand up for teachers, she just shrugged her shoulders. Leadership matters, and we have had zilch from her. 

Finally, there is Amy Donofrio and Brian Covey, two teachers who were sacrificed by Greene for standing up for their students. Both of them should still have their jobs, and firing them is probably going to cost the district north of a half million.

Greene doesn't have teachers' backs; we are nothing but easily replaceable cogs to her; well, make that formerly easily replaceable.   

How couldn't we be doing better?



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