I am a teacher in the Kent School District, and I can tell you unequivocally that the district has been blatantly manipulating you, the community of Kent. They have posted “in the interest of being transparent” the negotiation updates on their webpage, but omit to tell the whole story: That the Kent School District will have a surplus of between $21-25 million (last year is was $18.5 million, and this year the community thinks it’s $21 million) of taxpayer money in a RECESSION. Did you know that Kent is heavier in administrators than other districts? Did you know that the ratio of administrators to teachers is LESS than the ratio of teacher to students in that district? This is why teachers are angry. We want the district to reprioritize how they spend their money and we want them to put it into the classroom where it belongs. By the way, the district offered a compensation increase, but they attached so many unpalatable strings to the offer that the teachers had to turn it down. The district kind of “forgot” to tell the community that their oh-so-generous offer had some nasty conditions to it. They were manipulating the public to think that the teachers were being greedy.
Having said all that, though, compensation is actually only the third most important item on our list. I’m not ready to strike over teacher pay. That’s not what will send me out to the picket line if this doesn’t get resolved. The other reason why teachers are upset is in regard to the use of our time and our workload (class size is a huge part of that). I have 3-4 mandatory meetings a week that my principal requires me to go to, and maybe ONE of them actually has something to do with what I teach. I have to tell my students that I am not available to work with them individually because I have a meeting. That hurts my kids! They need access to their teachers. They need teachers that have adequate time to plan effective lessons so we can get those test scores up. When you fill my time with unnecessary meetings or overload me with new programs or curricula without adequate planning time, it hurts my kids! When the district rolled out a laptop for every single 7th grader last year I had two days to learn how to use them and implement them into my curriculum. Two days! I needed on-going training and resources, and I got a piece-mealed 2 day workshop instead. I also got to waste a full hour of instructional time once a month in order to do a mandatory compliance check to make sure my students were using the laptops appropriately while at home. How does that raise test scores? How does that help my students learn? It doesn’t!
Suzanne Green
Federal Way
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