Middle School Anger over Temporary Class Size Increases

Seems there was some chatter from hard working middle school teachers about the TEMPORARY increases in class size.

I certainly understand the anger. I taught in middle school for many years. I never could understand why we had far more student contacts than our high school colleagues or why we had an extra class period to prepare for that high school educators did not. Nor could I understand why VUSD teachers including middle school were teaching for an extra 40 plus minutes a day more than teachers did in my former district in the San Joaquin Valley teachers and for almost identical pay. VUSD daily and yearly minutes were well above California minimums. What happened?

I mean I liked the weather here. It was great returning to the place I was born and raised. I liked the better coastal air with less pollution. All that was good, but housing was twice as expensive as Porterville where I had previously worked.

Most strange was that I was teaching a longer day and the pay salary schedule was no better here. Well actually I had less pay since I lost years of experience because of the change in districts and dropped down on the salary schedule from nine years to four years. Longer days, more teaching time, less pay, yeah I paid a lot to move here.

So I get it. More student contacts especially for middle school teachers just seems like piling on.

However, if the contract is voted down by membership than the Memorandum of Understanding goes away. It is the MOUs that limit the class size increases to three years maximum with automatic provisions for reducing them sooner if state increases its funding. The district's offer before the MOUs which contained PERMANENT increases would be the final offer. We would have to take PERMANENT class size increases or strike. Not a great choice. One that we would stand a very good chance of losing. If we did lose a strike, not only are we permanently out our daily pay for each day of strike we would be forced into having PERMANENT class size increases in our contract. That is what the district offered before the Work To Rule job action got us the MOUs . So think hard before you oppose the tentative contract.

So yes, 213 student contacts, 213 report cards, 213 parents who must ALL be contacted for parent conferences, 213 sets of tests to grade, 213 term papers to correct, 213 students to maintain discipline and control over, so teaching and learning can happen--INSANE! There is no way to do that job well not with such an obscene number of students. Heck, 190 was way too many.

Middle School needs some relief in bargaining the next contract. Why can't middle school have the same number of periods as high school? Couldn't that be a goal of bargaining in the future?

Yes, it could. But it will take middle school teachers to show up for Rep Assembly meetings, to go to Executive Board and present why and how this should happen, to lobby the Bargaining Team, and most important make the school board and parents aware of the burden on middle school and its negative effect on classroom learning.

Just one rejoinder, as bad as middle school is, with the large numbers of kids, wild hormones, student defiance of authority, it is not as bad as elementary is right now. At least in middle school teachers have some control over what is taught and when in their classrooms.

In the pressure cooker that is elementary school, teachers are forced to teach in lock step. Every teacher teaching the same thing on the same day. Forced to follow the Joyce Bales pacing guide, forced to test when Joyce Bales says to test, forced to report those test results to Joyce Bales at her timing and command.

It is a far cry from forty years ago when I taught in self contained third and sixth grade classrooms. Back then THE CLASSROOM TEACHER was responsible for when and how lessons were taught, and if those lessons were sufficiently learned or needed re-teaching. In today's stressed out elementary classroom, the distant superintendent makes those decisions. The pace Bales sets is way too fast for students to learn all the concepts especially in math, yet the teachers are held accountable if the students cannot learn at the Bales required pace.

Elementary report cards in VUSD are a nightmare. They are incredibly time consuming and labor intensive. Worse they don't inform the parents, they CONFUSE the parents. Be thankful middle school teachers for your relatively easy to fill in scan tron ABCDF report cards.

Then there are the hours of free time needed to fill out cum folders put in by the never complaining long suffering elementary teachers. Middle school teachers hardly ever see a cum folder, let alone have to spend wasted hours preparing them for no one ever to really look at again.

At the end of the year there are even more hours needed of elementary teacher time to fill out the pink and blue cards used as a smaller cum folder--one card for each student. These cards make dividing up students into classes for next year's teachers easier Hours and hours of unpaid teacher time above and beyond the 7 and one half hour teaching day.

So yes, middle school teachers you got rooked. 213 is too many. 190 is too many. But lots of teachers in VUSD and California are getting rooked. Read about a teacher in Escondido that really got the shaft here. Be glad you have a job at all.

But if you are still angry and you should be, focus on the authors of your pain, the reason why we will have bigger classes next year for less pay--Martin Garrick and the Sacramento Republicans who used the 2/3rds vote requirement to stop every reasonable fix to the California funding crisis. They voted in lockstep. Always in one hundred percent agreement with no dissent. The votes they took were to block reasonable fixes like a Sarah Palin oil production tax on the filthy rich Big Oil corporations that suck oil from under California soil FOR FREE--no taxes. We, Californians, provide Big Oil with roads, electricity and water, but they pay us back NOTHING. California is the third largest producer of oil in the nation but local politician Martin Garrick will not allow us to tax them. In fact he is positively giddy in his joy and glee at cutting more and more services to our California neighbors who happen to be poor, ill, elderly or school children because he will not allow taxes to be collected.

So middle school teachers and all patriotic Californians get out there and start working to defeat every Sacramento Republican in November most especially the leader of the Republican Rat Pack in Sacramento, MARTIN GARRICK.

Last note: When I was a new teacher in VUSD, I was told that middle school had an extra daily class period added, over most other middle schools in the state and over what our high schools teach, because of a former teacher president. He had recommended this unfavorable contract to the membership which included this increase in periods along with a longer number of teaching minutes at elementary and middle school. Unknown to membership at the time, the president was also negotiating for a sweetheart VUSD administrative job for himself. He took that job after the membership voted to accept the contract he recommended. The traitor worked in our district another year or so, then got a higher paying job as an administrator in a nearby district where he was involved in a scandal and lost his job. He applied to come back to VUSD and neither the admin at the time or any teacher was interested in seeing his sorry butt in VUSD ever again. He then tried his hand, unsuccessfully, at real estate and was never heard from again.

The above happened in the early 1980s before I came to VUSD from the San Joaquin Valley. It was in a time just after collective bargaining was allowed. There was little contention or confrontation in those early days. Informal meetings between district and teachers were arranged with little haggling or disagreement. The district told us what they could offer, we accepted. Every one was still in the Meet and Confer mode where teachers always roll over and gratefully accept what they are offered.

After the teachers found out that they had been snookered by the district and that traitor president, a whole new set of Executive Board members and VTA officers was elected. Bargaining became a lot more confrontational. We never rolled over again. From then on we always had a CTA help and advice including a CTA accountant to check the VUSD books to make sure there was no hidden money. The VTA has never been "taken" since. We were not taken this time. We did remarkably well.

The VTA has, however' supported the building of new schools which cost us teachers "raise" money. Bond money never covers the full cost of school construction. Some money always has to come from the General Fund, the same fund that pays teachers and provides for their raises. We knew that sad fact to begin with. We supported the bonds anyway. After all we are here about service. No one becomes a teacher to get rich.

Of course had Jim Gibson and Dr. Stephen Guffanti NOT WASTED between 30 and 50 million dollars of our Prop O bond money with their years of expensive and pointless opposition to building the third high school, the hit to our salaries would not have been so bad.

Summary. Yes the middle school gets shafted on student numbers for a limited time. Yes, we deserve a raise, not a pay cut. Yes, we deserve and should earn a lot more money. But it is not the fault of the VTA Bargaining Team or president Jan O'Reilly, this contract is far better than I thought we would get in this time of Sacramento Republican caused budget cuts.

Most other California school districts are making far larger cuts than this proposed contract calls for. Check out Poway, or Capistrano .

You want someone to be angry at? You want to get the folks who caused the problem. Then find a way to hurt Martin Garrick and the Sacramento Republicans in November. Become a volunteer for anyone running against a Sacramento Republican.

Don't forget Jim Gibson and Dr. Stephen Guffanti either. Jim is up for re-election in November and Guffanti is making noises about running again. They wasted more local tax payer money than any other politicians in VUSD history. They are directly responsible for lack of funds over the last ten years that has dropped our salary schedule in VUSD to 32 out of 37 reporting districts in San Diego County. Volunteer the hours to make sure they do not ever have the office of VUSD school board member again.

Get even in November. Start now. Volunteer to help on a political campaign. Stop the selfish evil ones before they do more damage.