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Tim Sisson Speech
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I come to you this evening as a private citizen who also happens to be a Vacaville teacher.
I feel like the guy who got picked to tell the emperor he wasn’t wearing any clothes. Even with tact, the emperor will be offended. If you will not heed the truths I speak, we will all walk away as losers.
School district Administrators and school board members have many constituencies
You work hard to meet the expectations or needs of regulatory agencies, electors, parents, and students.
You may note that I left teachers off that list.
Why would I do that? Experience.
I have taught in this district for 12 years and in that time it has become apparent that district leaders believe teachers are the one group that it is safe to ignore.
We don’t sue when we are unhappy or disrespected.
Our votes, even collectively, won’t necessarily keep anyone from winning or losing a race.
We are altruistic people who work hard for our students and won’t let the fact that we are undervalued by you impact our student’s learning.
We are easy to discount, but I must fault you for thinking it is either a right or ethical thing to do.
Kids don’t get educated because administrators do their jobs well, any more than generals win wars.
The education battle for student’s hearts and minds takes place in the classroom, every day.
It is a most unwise emperor, general, administrator, or board member who assumes undervalued workers will just keep doing the good job they do because it is their nature to do so.
How might you ask, have you failed to take care of teachers?
At any time, I’ll be glad to cite personal experiences where principals actually told me I was “just a teacher.”
Or, tell you about a past VUSD Director of Personnel who pink slipped me in front of my students. These things, and others, though disturbing at best, are not what I want to talk about.
Here it is.
I have a Masters degree, am in the far right 75 hour column and have been working for you for 12 years. My spouse has the identical qualifications except this is her 14th year working for you.
Compared to the average salary in many of our surrounding districts--
EACH of us has been penalized, on average, over $5000 dollars a year by working for Vacaville Unified. That is the average difference between what we make and what we would make in other county districts. (Fairfield, Davis, Dixon, Benicia, Napa and Vanden used for comparison)
In the 20 year careers each of us expects to serve in this district it adds up to $101,802 dollars each.
Over $200,000 dollars! What was I thinking! You see, I did the math before I started working for you.
I’ve also done the math for a 25 year career: a loss of $138,900 on average for each of us!
I turned down other offers, telling myself that such an obvious inequity could not exist for long.
I naively thought the people who sat in your seats previously and that you who sit in them now would be the kind of leaders who would not let such an obvious injustice last for very long.
You found a way to fix it for administrators last year. If you won’t do the same for teachers, this injustice will continue, through our retirement years until death. We all hope you will do the right thing.
We Vacaville teachers and the community of Vacaville need the salary schedule fixed.
That means, this year, you say and write down that you are committed to rectifying this black eye on your leadership.
I don’t expect you can do it all this year, in two years, or maybe even in three years.
If you continue to think of us as “just teachers” and act as if we are perpetually replaceable, what has already begun to happen will become cast in stone.
Without competitive salaries, as we experienced teachers leave or retire, this district will only reinforce its present status--a training ground for young teachers to get a start and then leave for greener pastures.
Test scores will go down because students will continually learn from less experienced teachers.
That is, in all honesty, the present status of education in this district.
When you are done doing the job you do, without some very overdue changes, your legacy will be to have presided over the final dismantling of what was once a district where leaders were touted for taking good care of their people.
That reputation, no longer deserved, is why I chose to work for you.
Teachers neither need nor want a salary fight every year in order to feel respected. We would all welcome a return to the respectful working relationships that once personified this district.
I hope you can find a way to make it happen for this district.
Board members, don’t take NO for an answer.
Ask the leaders in almost all of the surrounding districts how they do what Vacaville Unified does not.
Thank you for your time, I know you cannot respond to what I have said now in any meaningful way, but I trust you will start down the road of making a commitment to your teachers this year. |
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