Should I stay or should I go (or GO) ?

We are beginning another contentious time in our perpetual negotiations. There was a building rep meeting scheduled by our Madam President that conflicted with the Parent Conference Week for the district's two middle-level schools. Several people urged Madam President to change the date for the building rep meeting. She refused and wouldn't even consider it. "We created this calendar back in August," she said. If YOU had a problem with the date, YOU need to change YOUR schedule!" is what she almost yelled at me after I told her neither I or my building's teachers appreciated her refusal to change the date to a day when building reps from ALL THE SCHOOLS could be in attendance. It was pointed out to her that Mr. Polski3 could NOT change the district scheduled Parent Conference Week. She said nothing. She just glared at me.

Just a note about the building rep meetings; at an average meeting, maybe 2/3's of the schools have some teacher there to represent them. There are often barely enough BR's to vote on anything that needs to be approved or voted down. Usually, one of the "officers" votes as a BR. This Madam President rarely visits her schools. I think she has been to my campus once, and that was because she had to be there to accompany the state vice president who came down to try to talk to the 1/3 of the teachers at my school who have opted to be "agency fee payers," because of their disgust about the local association and the State unions stand on political issues that have no bearing on our salary, benefits or working conditions.

I could go on about how inept this bunch of union "leaders" is, but I don't have time and I don't know if blogspot has the bandwidth for it. Several people has asked me/ urged me to run for President of the local. I don't know. I waver in my thinking about trying that or becoming an agency fee payer myself. In the past ten years, no one for outside of their corrupt union clique has been elected to any local association position. When someone did garner the votes necessary, they called the election "INVALID" and did a "re-vote" which was done "properly" that time. Attempts to change this local association to make it more democratic and inclusive have led to changes in the bylaws to prevent such things as election of negotiators and security for ballot boxes (what would you think about every single ballot from one school that had the same name as a write-in candidate, written in the same hand with the same writing instrument?) I saw it myself. Oh, Madam President loves her summer week in Monterey at the Calif. Teach. Assoc. Presidents Conference and the many meetings in Palm Springs, Las Vegas and Orange County ( all close to what some believe to be good shopping and restaurants....)

What do you think? Should Polski3 run to be President of his local? Or should Polski3 save his sanity and tell the union to F-off and become an agency fee payer?

DO YOU ?

Did you have anything GOOD happen to or for you this week? Please share some good news. I have none.

No, we can't consult a calendar.....!

Does your school have a week of minimum days for teachers to conference with parents? Does your school have district math and writing assessments? Does your school do these two things at the same time? Mine is.

Teacher in our district Murdered

Early this am, a sixth grade teacher at one of our feeder schools on her way to work in her car and was rammed by a truck driven by her husband/longtime boyfriend. He got out of the truck, went to her car, emptied his pistol at her, killing her. He then tried to kill himself but the pistol was empty, so he went back to the truck, reloaded, walked back to the vehicle with his dead wife in it and killed himself. Their ten year old son was there. Say a prayer for this poor boy.