Dear Source:
Respect (ri spekt?) transitive verb: 1. to feel or show honor or esteem for; hold in high regard.
For teachers, it's about respect.
Teachers have earned, and have a right to expect, the respect of the school district and government officials. I have observed a lack of respect for the professional staff. The Virgin Islands requires the professional teaching staff be highly qualified. This thinking belittles the hard work teachers put in to earn their college degrees. It implies that they are not highly qualified now nor were they when they earned their degrees.
Are any other degreed licensed professionals working for the government treated this way? Doctors? Attorneys? Accountants? After years of work, shall we have the District Attorney, Assistant District Attorneys, and Judges take a test to demonstrate they are highly qualified?
This lack of respect is reflected in how the services of teachers are valued. Last Fall, the government concluded a contract with the registered nurses. The teachers do not believe nurses are overpaid, rather that teachers are underpaid. The nursing contract pays a newly graduated registered nurse with a Bachelors degree and with no experience better than a teacher with both a Bachelor's and Master's AND over of twelve years experience.
The teachers recently rejected a proposal that would have changed this to nine years experience. I think a teacher with a master's degree and nine years of experience is much more valuable than this administration appears to be willing to accept. This appears to reflect a lack of respect for value of teachers and teaching.
Teachers are required to submit lesson plans each week to their respective school administrators. But administrators are not required to ensure the lesson plan is carried out by highly qualified substitutes if the teacher is out on personal, medical, other leave, jury duty or staff development training. They are not given the resources necessary. This is a basic lack of respect for the work of the teacher. What is the school district doing to ensure that qualified teaching substitutes are available for every absent teacher every day? In many states, instruction can only be conducted by licensed teachers. In the Virgin Islands, it appears that the government is not interested in adopting, and does not respect, this concept.
Not one teacher, designing an I.D. card for all teachers, would put the teacher's first name on the front of an I.D. badge. Whoever decided to do so on the currently issued ID's has never taught in front of a classroom of children. It's a lack of respect.
In the process of collective bargaining, items are agreed to contractually by a process of give and take. Therefore everything in the teacher's contract was earned by this process.
The teacher's of the Virgin Islands worked for, bargained for, and received class size limits. They did this because they know from experience and hundreds of educational studies that lower class size means a better education for the children. In this enlightened contract provision the Virgin Islands leads the United States.
And in every contract negotiating cycle, the government's representative proposes to remove those limits. If this were adopted, it would negatively affect the students. That is not very respectful to teachers or of what is good for the students.
Almost every teacher in the public schools has money currently owed to them by the government (some from years ago). How can the governments bargain in good faith for a new contract when they have been unable to fulfill the terms of pervious contracts? This is a failure of the Virgin Islands Senate. Is this respectful to teachers?
The governor likes to state the children are the future of the Virgin Islands. Teachers have always believed this to be true. If they did not, they never would have taken a position where their education is not respected, their profession is not respected, their lesson plans are not respected, and their instruction time is not respected. The teachers of the Virgin Island are among the lowest paid in the entire United States.
It is easy to make speeches; it is more difficult to demonstrate what you really believe through positive action. Do any other public employees have has much impact on the future as teachers?
There are some teachers that doubt that even if a contract agreement is reached, the government will be willing or able to fulfill its obligations. They have not met all their obligations under past contracts to date.
It's like I said, it's about respect. What do you think?
Mr. Pollard
La Grande Princess, Christiansted
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