Re “As to What Ms. Paspalis Really Said”
The editor of this newspaper lives in his own little world of words. I guess that is where he feels comfortable. He has made his living as a writer and persuader of words.
Grammatically, Semantically, Syntactically
I, too, would agree the statement that our teachers had not had a raise in five years is structurally accurate, truthful statement. Was it the whole truth?
Less Than Candid
As I have acknowledged many times, our teachers had not received a raise in five years. But School Board President Kathy Paspalis was being less than candid when she left off a pertinent fact – that teacher salaries had increased close to 5 percent through the School District’s Step-and-Column program over that same period while being denied raises.
Her Closing Argument?
As a lawyer, Ms. Paspalis may have thought mentioning this additional compensation would weaken the already soft public support for the School Board's case for its 2 percent retro-active, District-wide raise for teachers. She chose not to volunteer these past annual salary increases publicly. She stopped with a half-truth.
Community members elect candidates because they feel they can be trusted. They are elected because candidates represent themselves as being trustworthy and promise to do their due diligence while on the Board.
The Truth, the Whole Truth
We should not have to interrogate our School Board members publicly to get to the whole picture. When running for office, candidates portray themselves as being forthright and trustworthy. They ask for endorsements to help convince voters of these qualities.
Changes
Once in office, some candidates change. They become less willing to tell the community the whole truth about important matters. They purposely stop short of our once-expected goals by spouting a calculated, popular-sounding half-truth.
The ethicist Michael Josephson may have portrayed it best in one of his weekday radio commentaries:
When my son Justin was in high school, I went to an open house to meet his teachers. I was taken aback when one teacher casually mentioned that she had disciplined my son for cheating on a homework assignment.
I asked my son why he hadn’t told me about this incident. “You didn’t ask,” he said. To say the least, I was disappointed by his reaction. Surely he knew that in relationships of trust, candor – volunteering information you know the other person thinks important – is part of honesty. He said he didn’t. In fact, he was adamant that as long as he had not done anything to affirmatively deceive me, he was being trustworthy.
Not so. Trustworthiness involves a good deal more than not lying. Trusting relationships create high mutual expectations, not only of truthfulness but also of frankness and openness about all-important information.
So parents owe candor to their kids on matters that affect their lives, like plans to move, divorce, or get re-married. And kids owe parents candor on matters concerning their safety and education.
Once candidates are in office, they need to understand they still owe the people their continued candor. They still need to be trustworthy on all important issues brought before them. Among them are the spending of our tax dollars for on-going District expenditures, especially when putting multi-million dollar, multi-decade bond measures on a ballot.
Shades of Gray?
My contention with Ms. Paspalis's echo is the context in which it was said. Was it the whole truth? Her repetition of the Teachers Union slogan suggested a lack of upward movement over the last five years in their compensation. She implied these District employees still were working for the compensation they had received five years ago. True but misleading.
Mr. Laase may be contacted at GMLaase@aol.com
