[...] Superintendent to Fire Entire HS Staff [...]

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I HAD to comment. I remember Gallo from when she was the “Church Lady” at the church I grew up in, 30 years ago, in Cranston, RI. She used to harass me about missing CCD (when I was SEVEN!). As an adult, AND a high school teacher, I find her tactics to be both insulting and draconian. I really cannot fathom how this woman, and her fire and brimstone ways, is still running amok. However, instead of just bullying children, she is now bullying teaching professionals who work in arguably one of the most difficult, and under-funded school systems in the entire state of R.I. When will her evil reign end ?????

Collective bargaining is one of the most effective ways of fighting the abuses of the administrators. Sure, there are some individuals who reap the benefits without earning their pay, but without unity workers have little power.

Working in a low-performing school is extremely hard because there are so many factors, other than curriculum and teaching, that affect students’ test performances. I’ve heard plenty of stories from my bright and idealist friends who volunteered to teach for low performing schools for the Teach for America proogram and then went on to teach in schools where the students came from home environments that emphasized education. It seems pretty clear to me that the superintendent is making a scapegoat out of teachers, or else why would she fire all of them rather than specifically select those that are inept? Also, from what I read from the article, the teachers are not against the changes that the superintendent is asking. What they want, however, is to be compensated for the extra work required to meet those challenges. Sounds reasonable to me.

Jenny… without collective bargaining, teachers could (and have) be fired for: teaching evolution, expressing an opinion at a faculty meeting, refusing to offer free tutoring to students, because someone else was cheaper, for being pregnant (this was one of the main reasons teacher unions formed – it used to be that women were fired or told to take a two year leave as soon as the school discovered they were pregnant).

As far as the salaries go, public-school teachers are paid on a scale basis, based on years in and advanced degrees. By that fact, you can assume that anyone making $70K in Central Falls has been working as a teacher for MANY years (probably upwards of 20 years) and may also have a graduate degree to boot. Why SHOULDN’T these people be making $70K annually with that degree of experience under their belts? The bottom line is that Gallo is trying to fix this problem by coming down hard on the teachers, without acknowledging other factors and trying to work WITH the teachers, instead of punishing them.

Ron, sounds like you have a jerk for an employer if those are your only choices. Maybe you should think about joining a union. I remember when working Americans took pride in having labor unions defend their interests. But divide and conquer has been a successful tactic to help the owners and managers weaken the power of workers. You seem to take a kind of masochistic pride in your inability to stand up to your employer, and direct your anger not at your employer, but to other workers who have organized to have some collective power.

Scorpio, you fail to grasp that Ron appears to be directing his anger at the wrong target. I may empathize with his powerlessness as a worker who cannot control much of his fate (his reality), but he’s the one attacking other workers who are daring to make a stand. Ron is, in effect, a tool of the managers in this instance. He may have to jump if he wants to keep his job, but if he really supports workers rights, he should cheer those who have the power to refuse to jump. Which situation is more likely to help people like Ron in the future: workers generally support other workers in their attempts to bargain collectively, or workers scream for for other workers heads to roll because they asked for better working conditions?

I think, if the results are as poor as this school’s, all staff must be ready to either do what it takes to improve it or leave. Sorry, but it is clear that a school with a 50% dropout rate has some people there not doing their job. With the at-will employment some of y’all seem to dislike so much, those teachers could be paid well, they could be paid for their tutoring, and the others could be told to take a hike or take the pay they actually deserved.

And I feel for the superintendant. The choices for her were to continue with the status quo, somehow squeeze money from a poor school district (how, I wonder) to pay teachers to actually succeed at the job they were hired to do, or start over. The first was unacceptable, and the second may well have been impossible. I certainly hope the teachers who were effective and willing are able to get their jobs back, but I really think the superintendant is being unfairly maligned.

A couple of thoughts as a teacher:

First off all, to the point of compensation: Teachers are paid for 9 months of work over a 12 month scale, we do not have a “free” and paid summer, but rather are unpaid for that time with our paychecks scaled over the year so we don’t go broke during July. The only holidays I have had in years are Federal ones. Students might get additional days but teachers do not in most districts and continue to work those days. We have a 40 hour paid week that in actuality for those of us that do our jobs correctly is closer to a 60-80 hour week, with those additional hours all unpaid, as teachers receive next to no overtime pay. I finished qualifying for overtime back in October and have basically been working for free for an additional 20+ hours a week since then and I do so knowing I need to in order to do my job properly.

To put it in perspective, teachers are tasked with training and preparing future generations, have work hours that mirror an on-call nurse or doctor, and are paid less than a manager at McDonalds unless we have a PhD and a decade of experience.

To the topic of the article – This administrator had a tough choice: push for overwhelming changes that are NEEDED if this district is going to get on track, or start over with a new staff that is willing to do it. Her ideas for sweeping changes not only sound reasonable, they are fairly close to what many districts in need are already doing, including my own. Yes, we have an issue with finding the time to manage all of the changes, but that these changes are needed is not in question. It’s sad that these teachers pushed the issue to the point of being fired. They should have dealt with this differently, fought for compensation for the extra time needed, but completely saying no isn’t really an option, not when we deal with the future of our students. Yes, I do believe parents and students have a heavy part of the burden in setting their students up for academic success and it’s obvious that many parents and students aren’t taking that burden seriously, but teachers have a responsibility to always improve their practice for the betterment of their students and communities.

“If the system in which they were allowed to fail so miserably doesn’t change, they will continue to fail.” This is the point the superintendent is trying to make. These teachers aren’t willing to do their part in improving the system, but perhaps the next batch will.