They say it’s the little things that matter, let’s find out.
The District partnered with the Jacksonville Public
Education Fund to kick off an event at City Hall to honor teachers.
From the Times Union:
School
district and city officials gathered in City Hall’s atrium Thursday to launch a
year-long campaign to collectively thank teachers.
The
program, sponsored by the Jacksonville Public Education Fund, is an effort to
encourage the public and many of the region’s top leaders to think about how
teachers touched their lives and their community, said Trey Csar, president of
the public education fund, which researches and supports public education.
There
is a traveling art exhibit, which includes an interactive kiosk resembling a
massive coffee table book. In it, readers can touch the pages and watch videos
of Jacksonville’s leaders describing a special teacher’s impact on them.
The
installation will remain at City Hall through Monday and then travel throughout
the county, Csar said.
A
major goal is to encourage at least 100,000 people to tweet about their
teachers over the next 12 months, using the hashtag #JaxThanksATeacher and
tagging @JaxPEF.
Or, people can express themselves and hear about teachers on the website
TeachersAreMore.org.
Teacher
appreciation is important, Csar said, because Duval County loses about half the
new teachers it hires within five to seven years. Nationally, a growing teacher
shortage is expected to worsen because the numbers of college students majoring
in education is plunging.
Sounds great right? I mean I could argue that JPEF is not a
pro teacher organization but there they are partnering with the district and
the city to celebrate teachers, it’s great, sigh, except.
Except they had it at noon and didn’t invite any teachers.
That’s right they had a celebration of teachers without any teachers when teachers could not attend even if they were invited.
Wouldn’t it have been nice to at least have teachers attend?
Csar is right, teacher appreciation is important, in lieu of a raise anyways, and perhaps in the future we should include teachers in any celebrations of them.
You know how you could really celebrate teachers? How about by voting for representatives who want to support teachers and public education rather than dismantle it like many of Duvals' do now. Fant, Bean, Fischer, and Byrd are some of the worst of the worst. If you really want to appreciate teachers vote them out.
Jacksonville right...
Can't invite teachers--you never know what those crazy people will say or do. Is that why JPEF stopped having teacher roundtables? Too many of us showing up but not toeing the line? I know I encouraged many people to go and say what they really think. Maybe they had a few ambassadors there--those screened shills that they made sure would say what they were told to ...
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