Make education a priority, teachers say
From our weekly issue dated January 12, 2011
At 7 p.m. tonight, Jan. 12, teachers are inviting community members to attend the Three Rivers School District Board of Directors meeting.
Local teachers have expressed disappointment in the school district’s contract that includes a possible 15 days cut from the school year and a reduction in teacher salaries to deal with budget shortfalls.
The district was expected to impose its final offer Wednesday morning and Oregon Education Association (OEA) members plan to address these issues at the 7 p.m. meeting.
Three Rivers teacher Owen Peterson said the contract would be discussed in a mediation session Wednesday morning before the evening meeting.
“We submitted a final offer to them last Friday morning [Jan. 7],” Peterson said.
“They rejected it, but we’re going to revisit our offer and see if they have a proposal for us that could create any movement.”
Teachers were concerned they could not identify themselves in speaking out against the budget plan without consequences.
But a River Talk announcement from OEA encourages people to support their schools and attend the board meeting.
“We want to accept a reasonable offer,” the news release read. “Teachers have shown with their offer to take significant pay reductions that they are ready to help during this economic crisis.
“But we can’t shoulder ALL the budget issues,” the announcement continued. “The district needs to do [its] part. It’s up to them to find reasonable, alternative solutions that don’t devastate their front line educators.”
Peterson said teachers understood the difficult financial position the district is in, but hopes some compromises can be made to protect the teaching staff.
“We have the expectation that we’d be able to come across an agreement that would benefit education for the children as well as our position [financially],” Peterson said.
“We want to preserve the prep time that occurs during the day. We have ever-increasing demands from the state and federal level, and to help meet those demands, we believe our prep plan needs to be preserved,” Peterson added.
The board meeting agenda includes 20 minutes for public comment. The meeting is scheduled to take place in the district office boardroom at 8550 New Hope Rd. in Grants Pass.
According to public input directions from Three Rivers school district, citizens should first state their names and the topic and keep comments to three minutes or less. The Board will not hear complaints about individual district personnel.
The public input directions also say those with budget or program complaints should first follow steps described in district policy KL (Public Complaints) and KL-AR (Review of Administrative Decisions) and that the Board Chair has copies of these policies.
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