Let Them Eat Cake

Please excuse my long absence. I need an extended break from the craziness of the school world! But I’m refreshed and back. As you probably read in the paper, not much has changed. I was hoping that after our first session with the federal mediators we could start to try to cooperate. Silly me. I thought we could start focusing on the education of children. But instead we continue to focus on who can outdo whom. Did I really think I would be elected to serve as VP? No. I was nominated to prove a point. You see two of us have been dealing with being shut out for a year now. They do it under the auspices of a majority. Yet they do not care they are shutting out the voting public majority. If you’ve been to any of the board meetings I think you would notice one thing about the five of us individually. There is only one member who continually keeps the focus on education, testing scores, and student achievement. She was appointed to the Cuyahoga Falls Foundation committee! What a slap in the face. I knew the triumvirate would never elect her president of the board even though she would have been the best pick. Their original pick for president and the reasons were unacceptable to me. My vote for board president is not going to be based on politics. Someone needing a title because they are up for re-election this year is not sound reasoning. Since I knew common sense would never prevail, a 5-0 vote was promised for the current president (lesser of two evils) and our education person as VP. But it became apparent that was not going to happen. My pick for VP declined my offer to nominate and offered to nominate me instead. What the heck, I had to try! I strongly feel the taxpayer majority deserves a voice on the board. But politics prevailed and winner takes all by a margin of one. I found the whole scene a comical waste of time. It was known going in who it would be. We should have skipped the formalities and just sworn them in when we walked in. Could’ve shaved 15 minutes off the meeting.
Now let’s touch on a few hot button (pardon the pun) issues. Cell phones first. Driving home from Bolich, I watch my friends’ daughter text message a 3-paragraph dialogue in 10 seconds flat. Keep in mind you non-text message users, each number on your phone stands for 3 or 4 different letters. “S” for instance requires 4 pushes of #7 on your phones and the actual #7 takes 5 pushes! Kids can text faster than an executive secretary can type. In fact Madam Kellie predicts that future keyboards will resemble a phone number pad more than our familiar keyboards. And everyone will type one handed. Eventually people will only type with their thumbs. I was told a story Wednesday night of a kid who texted 28 messages back and forth with his girlfriend during class, phone under the desk because he can do it with his eyes closed. I’m actually getting proficient at it and I’ve only done it about ten times. Everyone is fretting what to do. As usual I have the solution but no one will listen. We have the ability to block transmission in the classroom. Now I’m no techie, but I do know that if I go into secure areas, my cell is rendered useless. Scramble the signals, or whatever it is that these computer guru’s do that I know nothing about, but do know is available.
And thanks to the Beacon Journal, let’s talk about retire/rehire, or more commonly referred to as double dipping. There are two schools of thought on this one. First is the “it’s saving the taxpayer money” argument. You as a taxpayer will no longer pay for insurance benefits, (I wonder about the $1000 payment for not taking our insurance though), and perhaps a slight decrease in pay. This side will also point out the years of experience you are getting for the money. While this side has some merits the other side counter attacks with cries of how unfair it is. And to a point I agree. If you are a productive employee hoping to apply for that job when it is available, what is your incentive to stay if retirees are keeping their positions? And although a state pension is money the retiree earned, most taxpayers do not have this option after retiring and it leaves a bad taste in the voters’ mouth. It gives the appearance of a good ole boy system. It also eliminates young fresh professionals from bringing new ideas to a system. And they generally come in at a lower pay rate too. And the new person would generally buy a house in the neighborhood and start contributing to the local economy.
What’s your thoughts on these issues?