[Editor’s Note: The President of the Teachers Union sent the following message to his members following last evening’s School Board meeting in Council Chambers.]
Friends –
First, a big “thanks” to those teachers who spoke at the School Board meeting Tuesday night.
I spoke early in the meeting and then took my flu home to bed – but was watching on TV and applauding Vivian Chinelli, Pam Greenstein, Chelsea Schneider, Roberta Sergant and Christina Paul as they stood in front of the Board and spoke from the heart about their commitment to Culver City students and their concern about non-competitive compensation.
As I have said many times, boards start tuning out the union president fairly early in their terms – but really do listen when other teachers show up at meetings and share concerns. Fortunately, I'm old enough not to take it personally when other teachers get more of a response out of the Board than I do!
After the teachers spoke, Board members followed up with their own expressions of concern about our sub-standard salaries. As we head into bargaining next week, I can't tell you how much this means for our team. We're – finally – starting to change the conversation.
Board members, prospective Board candidates and the community are starting to see that it is a formula-for-failure to pay our most important employees near the bottom of the 47 districts in L.A. County. Our proposal calls for CCUSD to agree to a five-year plan to move our salaries to the median.
It pains me to say that the median is our goal. For a district with National Blue Ribbon Schools, California Distinguished Schools, a California “School to Watch,” a California “Model Continuation School” and a nationally recognized language immersion school, we should be aiming to be the highest-paid district in the county. After we get to the median, then we'll shoot for the top.
But for now we've started to change the conversation. That's step one.
Thanks again teachers for taking the time and showing the courage to speak up.
Mr. Mielke, President of the Teachers Union, may be contacted at davidmielke@ccusd.org
