stuartliroff
09-26-2006, 03:43 PM
September 26th, 2006
I am a parent of Burlingame High School student, 10th grade.
This is an Open Letter to Craig Childress, SMUHSDTA President (San Mateo Union High School District Teacher’s Association), to the disenfranchised parents of all of our students, to the students themselves and their chosen and elected representatitves, to the Credentialed Unions (the janitors, the administrators, the certificated personnel), to the teachers, and to Mr. Johnson and his staff.
We have an opportunity to build a coalition in San Mateo and we can solve this budgetary crisis.
The coaltion simply comes about by finding a common cause that most of us can agree on. If we can find that commonality amongst a group or sub-group, then that group can usually convince the minority group to agree with them.
What we have here seems to be a divide between several disparate groups:
1) the administration which has thrown up a lot of info to help convince us that this was a very complex issue;
2) the teachers as representated by their union officials who have decided to contribute to all of this by withdrawing their volunteer activities;
3) the students who don’t seem to be well represented at all by anyone; most of what you hear from them is that they are suffering from the fact that their teachers have decided to abstain from their volunteer activities (remember, we are dealing with mostly 15-18 year olds who are supposedly self-involved youths, but in my experience, after speaking to them, I’ve found them articulate and desirous to find a reasonable solution) so it is natural to pre-suppose that they would be very concerned about how all of this affects them!)
4) the certificated employees who, from my ignorant perspective, seem to be the ones who, in the end, will lose most of the jobs.
However, what we need to realize is that we have all been presented with an opportunity. A coalition based around 1 issue: That Sam Johnson and his staff step down, resign, quit, any way you want to put it. I believe that if the SMUHSDTA President, Craig Childress, got on the phone, he would find out that he could build a coalition and get support from:
The elected PTA reps from each school
The student elected officials who represent each grade for each school
The elected officials of the Teachers Union (and therefore, the majority of the teacheres)
The elected officials of the Certifcated Employees.
My recommendation is for Mr. Childress to put this coalition together, and then to brainstorm a budget with them, cutting a solution which can be presented to the press and at the same time to the Administration at 7pm the 28th at Capuchino High School Auditorium, 1501 Magnolia Drive, San Bruno. It is ok, in my opinion, to simply state to the the press that you have assembled a coaltion which is asking the Admininstration to immediately step down and then to ask for a short amount of additional time to analyze the situation and to propose a reasonable and representative solution.
Respectfully submitted,
Stuart Liroff
–
http://stuart.plaxoed.com
I am a parent of Burlingame High School student, 10th grade.
This is an Open Letter to Craig Childress, SMUHSDTA President (San Mateo Union High School District Teacher’s Association), to the disenfranchised parents of all of our students, to the students themselves and their chosen and elected representatitves, to the Credentialed Unions (the janitors, the administrators, the certificated personnel), to the teachers, and to Mr. Johnson and his staff.
We have an opportunity to build a coalition in San Mateo and we can solve this budgetary crisis.
The coaltion simply comes about by finding a common cause that most of us can agree on. If we can find that commonality amongst a group or sub-group, then that group can usually convince the minority group to agree with them.
What we have here seems to be a divide between several disparate groups:
1) the administration which has thrown up a lot of info to help convince us that this was a very complex issue;
2) the teachers as representated by their union officials who have decided to contribute to all of this by withdrawing their volunteer activities;
3) the students who don’t seem to be well represented at all by anyone; most of what you hear from them is that they are suffering from the fact that their teachers have decided to abstain from their volunteer activities (remember, we are dealing with mostly 15-18 year olds who are supposedly self-involved youths, but in my experience, after speaking to them, I’ve found them articulate and desirous to find a reasonable solution) so it is natural to pre-suppose that they would be very concerned about how all of this affects them!)
4) the certificated employees who, from my ignorant perspective, seem to be the ones who, in the end, will lose most of the jobs.
However, what we need to realize is that we have all been presented with an opportunity. A coalition based around 1 issue: That Sam Johnson and his staff step down, resign, quit, any way you want to put it. I believe that if the SMUHSDTA President, Craig Childress, got on the phone, he would find out that he could build a coalition and get support from:
The elected PTA reps from each school
The student elected officials who represent each grade for each school
The elected officials of the Teachers Union (and therefore, the majority of the teacheres)
The elected officials of the Certifcated Employees.
My recommendation is for Mr. Childress to put this coalition together, and then to brainstorm a budget with them, cutting a solution which can be presented to the press and at the same time to the Administration at 7pm the 28th at Capuchino High School Auditorium, 1501 Magnolia Drive, San Bruno. It is ok, in my opinion, to simply state to the the press that you have assembled a coaltion which is asking the Admininstration to immediately step down and then to ask for a short amount of additional time to analyze the situation and to propose a reasonable and representative solution.
Respectfully submitted,
Stuart Liroff
–
http://stuart.plaxoed.com