VOTE TO WORK. . .

Do 400 teachers lose their jobs? Vote still out

Well today we voted on whether we wanted to keep our jobs or not.  As you know we were pink slipped again this year.  You might think, “Hey this happened last year and you were OK”.  However this year the ‘UNION’ and school district have told us on a daily basis that the economy is terrible and we can “really expect to lose people this time”.  What is that?  They tried to freak everyone out last year and now tell us it is for real this time.  Ummm, why do I have to pay $90 a month to the UNION?   Oh yes, a years worth of anxiety and uncertainty.

So today the teachers in the district voted to take a salary rollback.  Basically we were supposed to receive a raise next year and we wont.  Shell and I were coming into big jumps.  The rollback is for 2 years and will cost Shell and I about 14K.  That feels like a lot but I have a different out look on it.  I want to keep my job and there are a lot of people facing much worse scenarios then us.

Back to the vote.  If it passes, we keep most of the teachers that were laid off and the teachers show that in unity they took personal cuts to keep fellow teachers employed as well as class sizes as low as possible.  If it does not pass, well it means that the majority of teachers who knew their positions were secure decided that they would prefer to have much higher class sizes than to take a 2.7% salary reduction. 

The ones that really get me are the teachers that were pink slipped and will vote against the rollback.  They are taking the gamble that they will be one of the persons hired back because the district was not truthful in how many people really needed laid off in the end. To gamble wrong means you have no job come June 12.  I was talking to someone the other day and he said something that was so true.  Basically, if you can weather this financial storm out you can go through pretty much anything.  This is the worse economy in 80 years!  I think playing it conservative and sacrificing for the whole is noble. 

My gut tells me it does not pass.  Either way I will blog about it and let you know!

UPDATE: Results delayed as there was verified tampering with the results!  Yikes. . . aren’t teachers supposed to be role models for not cheating??  We won't know until Wednesday now:-(