APS board ratifies contract with teachers

The Journal reports this morning that the APS School Board voted Wednesday night to ratify the district's contract with teachers and provide them a 1% raise.

To ease the sting of a 1% raise, "the teachers union contract also included some new, non-monetary provisions. For example, it includes,

a provision that the district superintendent will have sack lunch meetings with teachers."

Albuquerque Teachers Federation President Ellen Bernstein said;

“We can’t do what we need to do for the employees in contract negotiations, because we get no money from the state."

Come on, the guy's willing to have sack lunches with teachers.  What more could they ask for, I mean really?

Brooks goes through a lot of machinations to appear to be listening.  If it's not holding input meetings or riding by schools on a bus tour, it's sack lunches with a handful of teachers.

Brooks has been at this for 38 years; three years as a teacher in an elementary school classroom and 35 years as an administrator.
He knows, or should know it all; there is no new left to learn.

He can't come out of any of these experiences claiming he learned anything new, because the next question is; how is it that he didn't know that already?

If Brooks cared to hear what teachers really think, he would respect their combined 100,000 years of current and ongoing teaching experience by offering them a full blown survey, link, and the opportunity to speak up without fear of retaliation.

Seriously, can you honestly imagine a teacher at a sack lunch, telling Winston Brooks (an alleged misogynist and bully with a number of pending lawsuits over his anger management issues, link) that;

her job sucks because the administration (from her principal to the Superintendent) cannot, or will not, deal with student discipline issues and especially chronically disruptive students?

There was a time when the teachers union fought for a seat at the table where decisions are made.

Now they're settling for a seat a table
where sack lunches are served.




photos Mark Bralley