Thursday, Feb. 05, 2004
The vote's tomorrow, posted at 8:07 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com Tomorrow morning, the teacher's union will be voting for one of the following options:1. At least 8 days of furlough, meaning we won't get paid for those days we work.
2. A 6-7% paycut.
3. Layoffs of up to 1200 teachers.
4. None are acceptable.
I will be casting my vote for the furloughs. But it's a testy issue. Many of my colleagues feel that doing so will make it seem as if the teachers are supporting the furloughs - caving in - when we've already been forced to shoulder much of the financial burden already. First we had 700 staff laid off right before Thanksgiving. We were denied our sick pay refund from last year. We've been buying our own materials (or at least more than our fair share) all year. This wasn't our mistake and we're being asked to concede thousands of dollars of salary for it. (If I vote for either, we're talking in the area of $2500 I'll lose.)
Teachers are understandably angry and scared. My vote for furloughs is one out of fear more than anger. I fear for my job and my colleagues' jobs. But others will vote out of anger, and I cannot blame them. Voting for none of the above will push the CEO's hand to ask the school board for 1200 layoffs, unless she's bluffing.
Today, all teachers were called down for an emergency meeting, and we watched a tape of the CEO explaining all the options. She explained why some options won't work and that these are the only ones. She looked terrible. I think the guilt weighs heavily. She inherited the problem; she didn't create it. Still, I understand the anger of my colleagues who say, "Well, if we just laid her off, we'd save $200,000."
I'm sure tomorrow morning will be tumultuous. I'll probably just go in, cast my vote, and hightail it out of there. Most people I know are voting for Option 4, and say that others just don't "have the guts" to do it. And, in my case, it's true. I don't have the guts to risk my job and the job of my colleagues right now. But I'll be paying $2,500 for it, if all goes well.
This is a sad, sorry state of affairs. I hate this sense of powerlessness.