Union-speak translated. You teachers!!!

Union-speak translated. 

You teachers should be grateful for anything we were able to work out for you. After all, you “already” received the final payment from that three-year settlement, even though you had to wait years for a measly $500 step increase that is nowhere commensurate to your increased workload. So what if it had nothing to do with the Governor’s allocation and occurred well before it was a glimmer in his eye? We are going to throw it in your faces first line, first paragraph because we can.

You teachers should be grateful that we were able to get you $2090, not as the raise touted by all of the media and politicians, but as a one-time “supplement.” This supplement is so much  better than a raise because DCPS just cannot afford to increase teacher’s salary schedule and we must do everything we can to be sure they can use that money for all of those new administrative jobs being added daily for twice the amount of one teacher’s salary. Although we cannot explain this, believe us when we say that your raise, now supplement, is better because now you can pay in more money to the FRS system that even Jeb Bush could not destroy with his first job post-Governor as the investment manager for an unnamed investment firm that recommended FRS system invest in bundled mortgages. We all know how lucrative those investments were, at least to Bush and the investment houses. So what if one consequence was that we all have to contribute 3%. Bush and his buddies needed that money to pay for their kids elite private school educations.

You teachers need to be team players and share that raise/supplement with all of those Psychologists, Academic Coaches, Instructional Specialists, and other personnel who already make more money than you do while having to manage maybe one student for a few minutes a day, while you are juggling 30+ per class for three ninety-minute periods a day. Plus, those coaches and specialists are there to make your job easier. 

They deserve a cut from your raise. It takes great effort to sit in the back of your last period class, yawning and sipping from a coffee mug, messaging on a cell phone that we aren’t allowed to have near our bodies, and simultaneously  taking notes chastising you for not arousing and engaging those thirty plus exhausted students. So what if those students spent their day in fun” Intensive Math and Intensive Reading electives, followed by a core class in the same subject and now are your core class? A highly effective teacher would know how to work this magic. One of these days, if you give them even more of your raise, they might show you how to do it.

By the way, as an aside that we hope you will overlook, you need to share your “supplement” with those Charter schools in our District that are trying to take over by pretending they are public institutions rather than for-profit entities because the State says so. We can’t have their salaries increased so that the owners/shareholders get less profit, now can we?  Our fingers are crossed, hoping that you won’t even think to inquire whether the amount allocated to Duval included a head count for those teachers, which we know is most unlikely, as you are there to share with all.

You teachers need to be mindful of the future. How do you expect to get another measly $500 step some year in the future  if the salary schedule includes the $2500 raise you were supposed to get?  And you wonder why our students Math FCAT scores are below average?  Do not forget the amazing deal you get on that basic health insurance policy, even if it is mandatory and you have no choice to use a spouse’s or look for a different policy. If you do not ratify this great deal, you are going to jeopardize that great mandatory benefit for a raise.

Good thing we are around to protect you.