Teachers at the breaking point
I AM teacher of 21 years in Greensboro, N.C., where I belong to my local North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE) and Guilford County Association of Educators.
In North Carolina it is illegal to have unions. As a result, both students and teachers suffer great injustices.
Today, I was sent an e-mail by the administration that answered a question about our paychecks. We, as a staff, were shocked at the reply.
Basically, having been changed from a year-round, 12-month school to a 10-month school, we will not receive paychecks in July or August.
I have been on a 12-month pay schedule for most of my career. That is to say that I have allowed the school system to take a portion of my pay each month so that I could have a salary for 12 months.
In addition to the already low salaries in this state (we're playing catch-up from the 1980s, when teachers' salaries were frozen for 11 years), our longevity pay will not be sent this year because of the economic crisis. To make matters even worse, the state decided not to pay teachers for master degrees that they have earned, but that weren't in their teaching fields. What more could they do to us, you might ask?
I am tired of taking it, as are the colleagues that I met with this evening to discuss these issues and find a way to find some income for the summer. We are meeting with the local administration and our NCAE uniserve director, but how much can we be punched? We have several classrooms that have 28, 29 and 30 students. We have 99 percent of our students on free and reduced lunch, and qualify for Title I. We are already a skeleton staff.
In the meantime, the local school board just voted to hire four associate superintendents to decentralize and cluster schools in our district.
We can't take it anymore. Most of us are the heads of households, but live on credit to pay our grocery bills, medical, dental and prescriptions.
What is left of our teachers and our schools? The morale is the lowest I have ever experienced and we see no hope in sight.
Can anyone out there offer us some ideas about how to organize and fight back as these New York City teachers have ("Defending NYC public schools")?
Anonymous, Greensboro, N.C.
