I want a pony, a pretty pony, with long hair that never gets tangled, and I don't want my pony to poop or smell weird or ever have flies, and I want it to be easy to ride, but super fun and fast and jump high and win races and, and, and

Sad fact of life #2155
The ideal and the real do not always exist in the same world.

In a perfect world children would always do their homework and chores without being asked.


In a perfect world cars would run on happy thoughts and gummy bears would rain down from heaven.

In a perfect world I could eat cupcakes for breakfast and still wear skinny jeans.

Sadly the world is not perfect, and we don't always get what we want simply because what we want doesn't always exist.

One such example of this type of illusive unicorn is "The Perfect Curriculum."   We all want a curriculum that is fun and easy to teach, prepares students for state assessments AND real life,  is loved by students and teachers alike, is cutting edge but still user friendly and intuitive, and is affordable enough to appeal to our tax base. That'd be ideal right?

But let's get real.

Fourteen months ago you, the parents and teachers and community members, did something amazing. You forced the hand of a reluctant school district and got them to commit to purchasing new curriculum for ALL our students in ALL subject areas. That was amazing!

You got them to do something they hadn't done in decades. Congratulations!  So everything is perfect now right?  Teachers are all happy. They got what they wanted. Everything is sunshine and roses now. Our test scores are on the rise. The teacher shortage is over. And we never have to worry about anything ever again. Right?

Right?

Not exactly.

Okay.... this may come as a shock to you... but not everyone is 100% happy. 

The curriculum we purchased isn't perfect.  
I know that may be hard for some of you to hear. But it's the truth, and I think we need to talk about it.

First of all there is no such thing as perfect curriculum.  There's that pesky reality again. 

AKA: Zoloft

There are all different types of teachers and all different types of learners, so no curriculum is going to be an exact perfect fit for everyone. There is no silver bullet.  We are dealing with all types of monsters here, so we're going to need silver bullets, and wooden stakes, and garlic necklaces, and cups of water (ya know, for those aliens in Signs, with Mel Gibson, those were super scary). 

So let's start by accepting the fact that no one product will be loved by everyone. A teacher who has been at this game for 30+ years is going to have a lot different style than a teacher who is brand new and strait outta college.

The good news is, for those teachers who were happy making everything up all by themselves, they can still do that if they they really want to. But for those poor new teachers (of which we have hundreds) who were trying to teach without any materials and who have no teaching experience, having a curriculum to teach from is like receiving manna from heaven. So essentially we've given an amazing gift to some, without really hurting others.

Which brings us to our next epiphany. Not everyone is going to feel equally grateful for new curriculum because not everyone was equally hungry for it.  

If we had a thousand people in a room, and five hundred of them were starving (and had been starving for over twenty years), we could all agree that was a problem worth addressing. The district's solution to this problem was first to deny that anyone was starving at all. They then said EVERYONE was starving and it was too expensive to feed them all. Then they suggested we do a needs assessment to study the people for a year to find out who was and was not starving. The teachers refused to accept any of these options and said, the time for talking is over, let's just get these people fed!  So they hastily bought food for all one thousand people. 

I don't remember ordering broccoli!

 It is good food. It is nutritious food. But not everyone is going to enjoy the food the same way. Obviously the people who were starving will love finally getting to eat.  But some of the less hungry people may be saying to themselves,"I don't like this flavor. I liked my old food." 

The good news is we fed all the people!  Or in this case we acquired (or are in the process of acquiring) curriculum for all. Just because people have varying levels of enthusiasm about it doesn't mean they are unhappy with it or that it was a bad choice.  It just means they are still adjusting.

And they aren't just adjusting to new curriculum, they are adjusting to to a whole new style of teaching (AKA Common Core). We have never had common core aligned curriculum in Pasco before. That means as our kids have lined up to take the state assessments, they have never been properly prepared for them.  This new curriculum will hopefully change that. Hopefully the style of instruction and assessment will more closely mirror the assessments our students must pass in order to graduate. It's a lot less memorization of facts and a lot more critical thinking. That means more work for teachers and students alike. And like a plate of vegetables, it may not be easy to swallow, but in the long run it will be good for us.

Change is hard.  Even change we WANT to have happen is hard.  It just is. This is a year of growing pains. And next year will be too. That's not a sign that something is wrong, that's a sign a growth.  And if there is one thing we are familiar with here in Pasco, it's GROWTH!

So as you talk to your children and their teachers about how they are liking the new curriculum, remember it's not a magic pony that never poops and has tangle-free hair. It's just a set of books. 

And books aren't a lifetime commitment. This may be hard for us to understand in Pasco since we've had the same books for eternity here, but they are meant to be used and replaced. We aren't married to these books. We're just dating right now. In a couple of years if it doesn't work out, we can break up, and start dating a new curriculum. And with each new relationship we will get better at knowing ourselves and what we are looking for in a long term educational relationship.

Selecting curriculum is a skill we've never had the pleasure of practicing until now. With each new curriculum adoption, we'll get better. And our kids will be better off because of it.




P.S.If you need a quick laugh, check out one of our school board members suggesting we give all the librarians a round of applause for getting the new curriculum ready for all of our schools. The school board video is RIGHT HERE and it starts at about the 10:30 mark.  Now I'm not suggesting that librarians don't deserve a thank you. They sure do. But it's a strange sentiment from the same people who took legal action against the teachers who were fighting so hard to get that very same curriculum that we are now cheering about.

Wake up, Sleeping Beauty, this is your big day!

The past few months have been confusing and frustrating times here in Pasco land. Most of us just woke up to the reality of what is going on in our schools, and we are still trying to get the little crusties out of our eyes so that we can more clearly see what's in front of us. It's been scary. It's been confusing. It's been frustrating. It's been exhausting. I'd be lying if I didn't confess that many days I just want to shout, "Five more minutes, Mom!" and close my eyes and go back to the happy sleep of not knowing. Ignorance is bliss right? It was easy just assuming that everything was fine. It was so relaxing not having to think about these big, complex issues.  But we aren't asleep any more. No matter how tight we keep clutching our pillow and squeezing our eyes shut, we can't  go back to that dream. We are awake. We are adults. And for good or for bad, we are responsible. Now brush out that bed hair of yours and let's get started.

So what is it we need to do today?

Pass the levy.

I know. I know. I can hear you groaning from way over here.  I HATE talking about the levy too. It is soooooo boring. I get it. But it is one of the dirty jobs that grownups have to do. So even though I'd rather talk about something more interesting (like the new Star Wars movie or my new favorite recipe for for tortilla soup) we are going to talk about about the levy. Today, tomorrow, and every day until it passes.

Pass the levy, you must.

I'd love to see this served in our cafeterias!

For all of our sakes, though, I will keep it short.

There have been a lot of people lately saying they don't want to vote for the levy because they aren't happy with the way PSD has been spending their money in the past. I TOTALLY GET THAT.  I am not at all happy with what they have and have not spent money on in the past either. However, today is a new day. Things are different now. They are different in two ways. First, we have clear contract language that makes very specific demands about where that money must be spent (i.e. curriculum, supplies, teacher pay). Second, we are all awake and watching to make sure they follow through on their end of the bargain.

Let me explain it one more time.

For the past twenty years or so (while we were all sleeping) we have been paying PSD a certain amount of money every year for the education of our children. We did this because we all believe education is important and we agreed that a certain amount of money was necessary to make that happen. We did this with out ever checking to see where our money was going or how it was being spent. Since we were all asleep then, we really have no idea where all that money went. Nevertheless we gave this money willingly without any accountability.

Now we are awake.  We all still agree that education is important, and we all know that a certain amount of money is necessary to make that happen. But now we are watching. Now we have contractual guarantees about where our money is going. Now we have thousands of eyes and ears holding the district accountable to how and where our money is spent.  There has never been a better time to spend money on Pasco Schools. There has never been a better reason to pass a levy.

You all gave your money willingly when you had no way of knowing if it was doing any good. Now I am asking you to keep giving your money (the same amount, a little less even, not any more) to PSD when we have a real chance of making sure it goes to all the right places.

You were gambling before. This is a sure thing now.

We finally have all the right pieces in play, don't quit the game now.

Please vote YES for Pasco schools.

Still worth fighting for?

My dearest friends,

I hope this letter finds you well. I must admit, I have not felt quite like myself lately.

Some outrageous news came out this week.

News so big it should blow your mind!

Information that ought to make every citizen of Pasco storm the Booth building with torches and pitch forks (PLEASE DON'T REALLY STORM THE BUILDING, THIS IS JUST A FIGURE OF SPEECH!).

If you haven't heard, the big news is the school board's action plan for dealing with the strike.  It's not really NEWS since it was written and signed by our board members way back in May. It's not really NEWS because it has been publicly referenced by board members since September. But it is news in that only a few people were paying attention before. So while it's not NEW, it is still news to us.

I will attach the document for you to read in its entirety, but for those who'd like a quick summary let me highlight a few key points.

The school board met with a consultant this spring who coached them through the process of dealing with a strike. So any pretense they may have made about being surprised that teachers were striking is a lie.

As a result of that meeting, the school board wrote and signed an agreement back in the spring about how they would deal with contract negotiations. So the idea that they were bargaining in good faith is a lie.

The school board had a plan in place to try to pit parents against teachers and make them selves look good in the eyes of the media. So any pretense that they wanted to do what was best for children is a lie.

The school board agreed that the only reason teachers would ever go on strike is for money and so no other issues were worth negotiating. THE SCHOOL BOARD DECIDED IN MAY THAT THEY KNEW THAT TEACHERS ONLY WANTED MONEY AND NOTHING ELSE. They agreed that they would keep offering teachers more money and ignore their other requests because they were sure that any other "soft" issue (like curriculum) were just a cover up for what the board believed was the real issue (money). So any notion that they were listening to teachers and trying to really understand them and come to an agreement was a lie.

With this knowledge the negotiations make a lot more sense.  The district decided teachers only wanted money. So they offered them money. Teachers said no. So the district offered them more money. And the teachers said no. So the district offered them even more money. And the teachers said no. And then the district said, "See! Those teachers are so greedy! No matter how much money we throw at them, it's never enough."

But of course it's not enough. No amount of money could make a teacher say, "Thanks! My students don't need curriculum after all."

They set us up.
They set up the bargaining team.
They set up the teachers.
They set up the parents.
And most disgraceful of all, they set up our kids.

They decided how this was going to play out long before negotiations began, and then they sat back and watched it happen. We begged them to step up and be the leaders we needed, and they did nothing. And when people raised concerns about the damage being done to our community, they said, "Don't worry, we hired a consultant to help heal the community after the strike."  And when teachers started fleeing to other districts, they said, "Don't worry, it's natural to lose teachers after a strike. We've been expecting this."

They expected it.
Of course they expected it! They planned it. They forced it into reality. Then they sat back and watched it.
THEN THEY PATTED THEMSELVES ON THE BACK FOR PREDICTING THE FUTURE!!!

This ought to be on the news.  People on the board and in the Booth ought to be resigning out of shame. We ought to be shouting in the streets demanding a recall.

But it's not.
They are not.
We are not.

Instead we are whispering to our neighbors, "Did you read that?" and "Can you believe that?"  It is so big and so important and so awful that as a community we almost can't handle it. We are still grieving. We are still in shock. We are still in denial.

In truth I feel paralyzed by sadness and completely overwhelmed by the enormity of this revelation.

And I guess that's why I'm writing this to you now. I need your help. I really really need your help.
Normally I'm full of ideas. I gladly tell people who to talk to, where to send letters, who to vote for, when to rally, when to sit down, when to speak softly, when to carry a big stick.

But not today.

Today I feel very very alone.

The district that teaches our children, the district that professes to love our teachers, the district that claims they want to heal our community has deceived us.

Over the past few months I have raised my voice for change because I believed Pasco was worth fighting for. I believed things could change. I believed we could do better. But today.... today I just don't know.  Today I want to throw in the towel.

So dear friends, I am asking you for another favor. Today I'm not asking you to write the school board. I'm not asking you to vote. I don't care about your letter to the editor or your comments at the next board meeting. Today what I need from you is a reason to keep fighting.

Please.
Please tell me why it is that you are all still here.
Why haven't you quit yet?
Give me a reason to stay.
Please.



Sincerely dismayed,

Alice

The Real Elephant in the Room

Wow! Another doosie of a week!  How 'bout that last board meeting? Tense right?  I thought Sherry Lancon was going to jump out of her seat and strangle a teacher. Intense!  And did you hear what Steve Christiansen said during the study session? I have it on good authority, he repeatedly referenced "the elephant in the room."

Awe, look at this cute little elephant we wish were in the room!

That elephant that he was referring to was the teacher raises and what they will cost the district.  The board has made many veiled (and not so veiled threats) that the end of times is coming to Pasco all because of the teacher raises.  Bus routes will be canceled. Para-educators will be fired. Music programs will be cut. Sports will end. The levy rate will have to increase. Bonds will fail. Schools will go un-built. And children will suffer, starve, and die all because those greedy teachers got a super-big-out-of-control raise.

As if this dooms-day blame game weren't bad enough, certain board members have even gone so far as to keep insisting the strike had NOTHING to do with curriculum and was really ALL about teacher pay.

.........
I'm going to go ahead and take a time out here while your head explodes.
.........






























.........






.........
All done now? Ready?
.........

Okay, let's keep going.

The irony of Mr. Christensen's comment is that there really is an elephant in the room that they aren't talking about.

CURRICULUM!

DUH!

Meet Bob the Blue Curriculum Elephant. Bob would like to give a shout out to his special man, Steve C.

This new contract is expensive. It's true. I'm not going to say that paying teachers doesn't cost money, because you're not stupid. But what I am going to say is that we are spending a HUGE chunk of change on curriculum over the next two years as part of this contract. A REALLY huge chunk. Like "Sloth Loves Chunk" kind of a chunk. We will be spending far more than most districts spend on curriculum over the next two year period. If we're honest with ourselves, though, we all know why we need to spend so much on curriculum now. It's simply because PSD has failed to fund it for the past decade or more! 

Look at it this way, if PSD is a car, the teachers are the gas. We have to put gas in the car if we want it to go, that's just the way it is. And gas prices keep going up. That's just a fact of life. Curriculum is sort of like the engine oil here. And the situation we're in is like having to replace your engine because you didn't get the oil changed for more than ten years while driving the car 17,000 miles a month. It's really expensive to replace the engine but we didn't change the oil, so the engine seized up into a hunk of blackened metal and now the whole thing has gotta go. Now everyone inside the car has realized we are going nowhere fast, but they can't seem to decide what to do about it. Some people are griping about the cost of gas and still (STILL after all we've been through!) saying the engine is fine and we've got plenty of oil.  

This guy is wishing he would have adopted curriculum on a more regular basis, am I right?

Teacher salaries aren't as negotiable as they seem. We really have to pay a very similar wage to what the other local districts are paying if we want to keep teachers in our district.  So how do our numbers stack up?
Starting salary in Pasco is $38,997.  Starting salary in Richland is (not written as clearly as PSD's and therefor a little hard to calculate but my math tells me it's......) $38,339 per year.

Basically Pasco teachers make almost exactly the same as Richland's teachers. Except, of course, that the teachers around here for years have had to purchase their own classroom supplies and write their own elephants, er curriculum, so their comparative pay actually goes down...

So let's look at those numbers again. Are they that crazy? That over the top? About another 50 dollars a month per teacher which, let's face it, can be sucked up by glue sticks, pencils and white board markers pretty fast. Is this unreasonable? Actually, no. Teachers are in short supply, and high demand, so if we want to keep teachers around, we need to at least pay them what neighboring districts are paying. Especially if we want the good ones, the smart and capable ones, to stick around.

Now let's talk about the price of curriculum. Every year the district receives money from the state to pay for curriculum. Thousands and thousands of dollars, millions and millions of dollars meant for curriculum. Unfortunately they haven't been using that money for its correct purpose. I don't know what they actually have been spending that money on, but it wasn't curriculum. Now they even have a gigantic surplus of money sitting in the bank. Money that should have gone towards our children's education, but didn't. Money that was squirreled away for pet projects. Money that was spent on Saundra Hill's bonuses every year.

So how much is curriculum going to cost?

Nobody knows. Originally the board set aside one million dollars for curriculum and materials. But they later admitted that it was far too little money to be useful.  Realistically it shouldn't matter what it costs, should it? We are talking about a school here! If they don't have curriculum, what is the point!  Without curriculum, school ceases to be school! Teachers become highly educated babysitters. Is that what we want? Are our schools just a holding tank until graduation? NO. There is literally millions and millions of dollars sitting in "buckets" waiting to be spent on your child's education. Maybe not enough money to build a new school. Probably not enough money to build a Ferris Wheel in the parking lot of PHS. Not enough money to end world hunger. But DEFINITELY enough money to buy curriculum. We need curriculum and we need it now.  And we need to quit blaming teachers for the cost of running the district when it is poor central administration that has put us in this hole that we are in.

So let's talk about the real elephant in the room. Or maybe it would be more correct to say Let's talk about the elephant that's not in the room but should be!'

Let's get more of these elephants into our children's classrooms.

If you're one of the awful, greedy teachers who fought so hard to get the district to spend money on books for your students instead of just asking for a raise for yourself, please stand up and be counted.

Thank you teachers.

Q & Alice

Since the school district has been so willing to answer questions publicly, we thought we'd return the favor.

As time goes on we will continue to update this Q & A page, so please come back and check often. If you have a question for Alice, let us know. We'd love to dig up some answers for you! Also, we'd like to note that we will be doing this in the same format and style as PSD's Q&As, so we get to answer how we like in what fashion we like and sometimes inject our own questions into the mix to make sure people think about what we want them to think about instead of what they'd like to. 

Enjoy!

Why did the District notify families so late about Tuesday’s school closure?                                                
 Because the District fully expected the teachers to meekly give up and return to work.

      As has been the case in past negotiations, the district has just assumed that they are right and everyone else must do what they say. It is strange that a district who routinely breaks and skirts the law (ya know, by not having curriculum, canceling meetings without proper notice, etc.) would be surprised that a simple court order wouldn't be enough to convince 1200 teachers to give up on what they believe in. 

   When will school start again?
      No one knows. Anyone who says they do is lying. The school calendar has to be negotiated and agreed upon in bargaining, so until an agreement is reached, there is no school. It really stinks not knowing. It's hard for kids. It's hard for parents. It's hard for teachers. So call the district and let them know you want them to settle this now.

How is the strike illegal if the teachers don’t have a contract?

Teacher strikes are illegal in Washington, that's written into the law.  The side note and the good news is there is NO punishment outlined in the law. And any three year old can tell you that a rule without a consequence is no rule at all. Each teacher has signed an individual contract with the District promising to work this year, and hopefully that work will begin soon (as soon as PSD gets contract language together that guarantees curriculum).

This is a common apple core.

Does PSD use common core?

The common core standards were adopted by the State as the new Washington State Learning Standards.  All Washington school districts must use those standards. Unfortunately the few books we have don't align with common core because they are more than twenty years old. The district has tried to say that the new standards are the reason they haven't updated their books sooner. I guess they have been anticipating implementing common core since 1995? Michelle Whitney must be a seer, providing her services to PSD for her entire career. We assume it was on her resume when she applied for the position of superintendent.

Who determines the teacher salary?
The State of Washington (the Legislature) determines the base salary schedule. But each district is allowed to pay teachers above the state allotted funds. In fact the superintendent's salary is determined by the state as well, but PSD has no problem adding an addition $100K to our current Superintendent's pay check every year out of levy dollars.

Is it possible to set up some kind of lunch distribution for the kids while they're not in school? Kind of like they have at Memorial Park during the summer?

Due to concerns with many of our children’s access to nutritious meals, the District looked into offering this as an option during the strike.  Unfortunately, the Federal funding source would not extend meals into this week so our kids will not have access to them. The good news is no matter when school starts, students will still get the same 180 free meals they have come to expect. So while some kids may be missing out on school lunch this week, they will get an extra week of school lunch in June.  We would hope that these families would take advantage of local resources such as churches, food banks, and food stamps as well. We also hope that PSD's bargaining team would move to end this strike as soon as possible to get all those kids back into classrooms. But in the mean time maybe Saundra Hill or Michelle Whitney could use some of their generous salaries to set up a little lunch in the park? Lots of teachers buy snacks with their own money to help their students make it through the day, I bet Saundra and Michelle would love a chance to get in on that action!

What is the District doing with the money congress gives them? How much has been accumulated? 
Millions. Millions upon millions. In fact, PSD has so much money set aside that our representatives in Olympia have stated they are disinclined to give PSD any more matching funds since they aren't even using the money they already have. This becomes a more serious issue when we try to build new schools, which are currently desperately needed. Having money for a rainy day is important, that is what the 5% balance that's frequently touted is for.  However we know that if we don't manage the funds given in alignment with the expectations set out for the use of that money, the legislature will not be giving us more. Our high end fund balance has already come to Olympia's attention. Continuing to hoard funds would be extremely unwise at this point.

The legislature frowns upon the use of open air money pools for swimming.

Who is included in the curriculum adoption process?
Current District policy states that the Instructional Materials Committee (IMC) shall review and approve the recommendations of curriculum adoption committees for all textbook selections prior to school board adoption. This committee includes staff and community representation. The parent membership on the committee shall make up less than one-half of the total committee membership as is consistent with state law. Unfortunately members of this committee claim they have met less than once every two years, and that when they have made recommendations, the district has ignored them and gone on to purchase inferior (and insufficient) curriculum instead.

Where is the curriculum?
There is a link on the District website that shares the adopted curriculum for each grade level. http://www.psd1.org/Page/7624 As you can see this link is garbage. For a look at what real curriculum access looks like, try Richland's website.It is beautiful. http://www.rsd.edu/teach-learn/curriculum.html

Is there anyone independent of the two sides who can verify any of this? We are hearing two vastly different versions of events. The truth generally lies somewhere in between. Is there a way for the public  to confirm for themselves what to believe?

Although details of negotiations are legally unable to be shared, PSD has chosen to continue to post the proposals anyway. In fact the district requested mediator has told PSD to stop posting so many details, but they are continuing to do it anyway. If you want a first hand account of what is going on, go to the source. Ask the two bargaining teams themselves. And see who answers you.

Would it be possible to read the attendance records of the meetings? I realize we cannot be included in the negotiations, but is it prohibited for the public to know when either party was late, refused to negotiations, or completely refused to meet at a predetermined time?

PSD has refused to meet without a mediator there, so they certainly aren't making things convenient. As far as a log of who was there? It doesn't appear to exists, but again you could ask the people who were there.

Where is the sense of urgency? Was there something else more pressing than getting my children back in school?

PSD has been very busy hiring lawyers, going to court, and holding press conferences. This has substantially cut into the time that they have been able to actually do their job.  The District would like the teachers’ union to end the strike and come back to work while bargaining continues, but teachers know this is a stupid idea, since more has been accomplished in one week of striking than has been accomplished in a whole summer of bargaining.

 

Is it true that some teachers eat children for breakfast?
No. A previous PSD employee was quoted as saying, "These kids are so cute I could just eat them up," but after a thorough investigation it was determined that this was just a figure of speech and the employee posed no real harm to children.

What specific learning resources can the District suggest to parents/guardians to help provide supplemental learning opportunities at home when students are not in school in preparation of the Spring SBACs?
Why are you asking for advice from a district that has failed to provide comprehensive curriculum and has been rated by the state as failing in almost all categories? My guess would to do what you do to prepare any child for a ridiculously difficult standardized test, which is work on their foundation reading and comprehension skills and then engage in family discussion about why standardized tests don't really determine their worth as a person. Then have ice cream.

We love football. Come on, admit it, you do too.

It is my understanding that, as a teacher, I am not to be on district property until the strike is resolved. Does that include attending football games at Edgar Brown Stadium?
Schools are closed so that teachers can't get into their classrooms and prepare for the school year. Teacher access to email and power school has been cut off so that teachers can not get to know their class list, or prepare in any way for their incoming students. But everybody loves football!  For this reason, teachers may certainly attend the football games at the Stadium.

I've heard that other school districts in Washington may be striking. Is this true? 
Yes.  What is interesting is that in most other districts, teachers are just asking for more money. In those districts, teachers are getting what they ask for. Unfortunately in our district they are asking for something way crazier- CURRICULUM! And they still can't get it.

Is it true that children are starving because of the strike?
No. If children are going hungry, it is not a result of the strike. The school has provided 180 days of free lunches every year in the past, and will continue to do so this year. So those children without food at home will be no hungrier this year than they been every other year. If you are truly concerned about the hungry children of Pasco, you should be worried about them with or without a strike. Their needs remain the same.

Teachers seem genuinely concerned that there is not a standard district-wide curriculum yet the District says there is. What does district wide curriculum mean and do we have it? 
The District has changed its answer on this subject about six billion times give or take.  First they said we had it. Then they said we didn't have it and it would cost too much to buy. Then they said we could afford it but it would take years and years. Finally they said they can't buy it because they need teachers to come back to school and tell them what they want.  The truth is some grades and some subjects have curriculum and some do not. But we certainly do not have anything comprehensive, current, or well defined.

This is just a tiny sampling of the amazing resources teachers in  Basin City have that our Pasco teachers would love to get their hands on.

Are teachers involved in the curriculum adoption process? Can you explain how that process works?

District Policy and state law outline specific requirements for an Instructional Materials Committee (IMC) that reviews and approves the recommendation from curriculum adoptions committees for all materials prior to school board adoption. The IMC is made up of teachers, principals, and members of the community. Members of this committee claim they have met less than once every other year for the past seven years.

Does PSD have a current curriculum used throughout K-12?  If not, is this against the law?  And if it is against the law, how can you file an injunction forcing our teachers back into the classroom while PSD is breaking the law as well?
 The District is not breaking the law. Just kidding, they are! They do not have a comprehensive k-12 curriculum and it is against the law. And probably causes significant and ongoing harm to all the children in Pasco School District that is very likely to last them well into adulthood and beyond. But, you know, strikes are bad and illegal and teachers, you go back to work now.

Does the district realize that the implementation and management of curriculum needs to be reviewed?
Yes.  The new leadership in curriculum and professional development fully recognizes that curriculum management and fidelity of implementation across the District is critical. Unfortunately this "new" leadership is the same old adorable Ms.Whitney who has been there for years. So why this is such a mess is a mystery.   PSD is claiming now that they can not clean up this mess until teachers are back in the class to tell them what they need. Unfortunately the teachers have already stated emphatically that they will not come back to class until they get firm contractual language that promises to address the curriculum problem. PSD refuses to give a firm commitment on this point of bargaining.

Will teachers get paid while on strike?
Probably. Teachers are paid year round. Any teacher with a contract to work for 180 school days this year can expect to get a paycheck each month as usual. However, PSD could be nasty and cancel pay checks if they are so inclined. This would be even more retaliatory than going after PAE's bargaining team in and of their own persons, but we're not ruling it out at this point. PSD probably isn't, either.

Can we go ahead and start school while PSD and PAE continue to bargain?
Yes, we could. But this would not be a good idea. More progress has been made at the bargaining table since the strike began  than has been made all summer. To go back to work now could easily result in the district's diminished desire to bargain. 

When is the last official date that classroom curriculum for Pasco elementary schools has been fully funded, by the District including teacher provided instruction/training?

Pasco School District has board-adopted and supplemental curriculum and instructional materials in all content areas.  Unfortunately supplemental material is all they have. But since there is nothing for it to supplement, this approach is like feeding your kid a vitamin and calling it dinner. PSD believes a “one size fits all” approach to curriculum does not work for all students with diverse learning needs, so instead they have adopted the "no size fits all" approach.

Is PSD currently run by a tiny robot living inside a human shaped suit?
No. This is just a rumor. We think.

"Do not... mention... the 'C' word to me..."

What role is WEA playing in the negotiations? Is this standard for these types of situations?
WEA and NAE send support to help local unions navigate the difficult legal matter of contract bargaining. Just as the district's bargaining team has a lawyer present (and several others on hand), the teacher's bargaining team (which is made up of regular classroom teachers) need legal council to advice them of their rights and responsibilities. This "outside" support exists in many negotiations throughout the state and those negotiations have been settled without incident.  It is in no way an indicator that something is wrong or that outside influences are dictating the outcome of negotiations.

Who is on the PAE bargaining team?
Matt Polk, a teacher from Pasco High School is the lead bargainer.  The team is made up of four local teachers who currently work full time in Pasco classrooms. Not an outside team, not an expensive law firm, local teachers. Also, PAE does not have a werewolf on their bargaining team, much to most teenage girls' disappointment.

Are both sides making compromises to their original positions?
Absolutely. Both sides have issues they are willing to bend on, and a few points on which they are not willing to bend. The two sides are actually quite close to a compromise. But some very important  pieces still need to be hammered out. Unfortunately the bargaining process was slowed this summer when PSD requested to only meet with a mediator present. This allowed for only a few days of bargaining over the summer. Now that the teams are able to meet every day, bargaining is going much quicker.

What can parents do?
Call your teachers. Ask how they are doing and what they need. Call the PSD bargaining team and let them know what it is you expect. Email your school board and ask them to please accept the teacher's invitation to meet at the bargaining table and get this settled. Pray. Injecting yourself with super-serum is a highly risky and not recommended path to getting this settled, but many are considering it at this point. We'd like to point out that without Vita-Ray saturation, the serum is unlikely to be effective. So please, for safety's sake, please stick with contacting the board and the bargaining team.

The school board has been invited to come to the bargaining team, but at this point have refused. Where are they when we need them most?

If Teachers were Admins....

Remember when Jamie Lee and Lindsay switched bodies for a day?

Ever wonder what it would be like to trade places with someone? To spend a day in someone else' life? To spend a day as a pop star with adoring fans or maybe have one of your lazy coworkers have to do your job for awhile? Well, wonder no more! Okay, that's not true, unless you're a teacher and have often wondered what Pasco School District administrators do all day.


So, let's suppose for a moment. If our teachers were treated the way we treat district administrators working in the Booth building, how different would things look?


After a role switch of this magnitude, teachers would be able to do crazy things like use a printer! 
Currently teachers receive one printer cartridge and a half a box of paper a year. If they run out, they may either buy their own, borrow from another teacher, or just go without paper for the rest of the year.  Who needs worksheets anyway, right? The kids can just do all of their homework orally. Save the trees!
If teachers were Booth building employees they could print as much as they'd like, as often as they want, any time or day.  The amount of ink and paper they would use could be out of control!  Imagine all the assignments they could create! Thank goodness unlimited paper and ink is reserved only for Booth administrators who really need it for all that fancy paper work stuff they do. We wouldn't want paper and ink to be used for students.


Teachers would be given beefy pay raises from levy dollars!
Right now our superintendent is claiming that she'd like to give teachers the raises she claims they deserve, but she can't because their jobs are funded by the state.

Shrek's best buddies had to body swap once.

If teachers were Booth Building administrators that wouldn't be a problem. All teachers would be making six figures, regardless of job performance or qualifications! Despite the fact that the state also funds administrator salaries, Pasco school district seems to have no problem padding those salaries with an extra $50,000 per administrator in levy money. Which is great, we wouldn't want to be padding the salaries of the people who, you know, actually teach the children.




Teachers would have all their insurance premiums paid for!
Right now teachers pay a hefty portion of their own insurance premiums.  And while pay has been stagnant over the past few years, premiums keep going up. This means that many veteran teachers are actually taking home less money each year than the year before.
If teachers were treated like administrators they'd have 100% of their insurance premiums paid for. After all, it's hardly fair to expect someone who only earns $120,000 a year to pay for their own insurance.


Teachers could spend work hours organizing and lining up hostess gifts for their off hours Pampered Chef parties!
Admit it Boothies, you know you've done it. But we wouldn't want the teachers wasting hours of work time planning parties. That would be a ridiculous use of time for a teacher, naturally.

Buffy and Faith switched places once. They learned the true meaning of friendship!

Teachers would be able to come to work late and leave early!
Teachers have to be in school during regular hours. If a teacher doesn't show up to class on time and all those children are left alone, chaos ensues. And if a teacher has to leave early for an emergency or an appointment, they have to get request time off that comes out of their paycheck.
Thankfully admins aren't like teachers. They have the much needed freedom to come and go as they please. Ask anyone on the PAE bargaining team and they will tell you how much the Booth employees love to be hours late and unprepared, take extra long lunches, and then go home early. This is good, of course, since we don't want our valuable administrators frazzled to the point they cannot get anything done. Naturally.


Teachers could order catering anytime they have a meeting!
Instead of brown bagging it with a 33 cent cup o' noodles or scrounging up something for the teacher pot-luck, they could just call in a caterer.
If teachers were administrators in the Booth building, they could just order in and have it put on the tax payer's tab. That, of course, would be an utterly ridiculous, extravagant waste of taxpayer money in a district with such a poor tax base. So that's why teachers, of course, don't get to order catering for their meetings.

Teachers could get all the supplies they need for their classrooms without having to go without or using their own money to buy supplies!
Right now teachers get a small budget to buy supplies for their classrooms. What they actually get ranges from 75 to 150 dollars a year, though many of the teachers estimate around a thousand is needed for a whole year. When they need something additional, typically teachers put in an order to the Booth building.  Orders can take as long as ten months to arrive in the classroom, some orders never arrive. Because teachers' budget rarely covers all that is needed so they often purchase supplies out of pocket.  Many teachers buy clothes and other items for their neediest students.

The Administrator and the Teacher. Er, the Prince and the Pauper.

If teachers were administrators in the Booth building, they would never have to buy their own supplies. They could just go to the magical Booth closet and pull out as many post-its and white board markers as their hearts desire. And as an added bonus, they would never have to be in close contact with students, so they wouldn't have see the real needs of the children they were hired to serve. But this is, of course, a good thing. We wouldn't want to have an endless amount of school supplies available for teachers to use in classrooms. That wouldn't make any sense.

Teacher would make sure all of Pasco's students had access to comprehensive, board adopted curriculum!

If teachers were administrators at the Booth building, they would do whatever it takes to reach a contract settlement  by providing a reasonable plan and timeline for studying and acquiring quality curriculum for all Pasco kids. Teachers want to be in their classrooms. They want to teach. They want what's best for the children they serve. So maybe it's good that... nope. This just isn't good no matter how you look at it.

Maybe it's time the Booth administrators and school board took a long hard look at what the teachers are really asking for. Maybe it's time for them to walk in a teacher's shoes for a day or more. Maybe it's time for us to stop daydreaming what it would be like if teachers were admins, and to step up and make sure the teachers and students get the very best.

P is for Propaganda

So I was bored the other day and thinking about PSD’s website. That inevitably made me think about Katniss Everdeen. Hey, we all have our little bit of pop culture that we’re vaguely embarrassed about liking. One Direction fans, I’m looking at you. Anyway, as you've probably guessed, mine is The Hunger Games.

Dear, lovely Katniss. So brave, so pretty, so bad at choosing boyfriends. One of the many things she taught me (besides first person present tense) is the word “Propaganda”. Her world calls them Propos. Videos, posters, messages put out by both sides of a conflict to support their own agenda. Mister google defines it thusly:

prop·a·gan·da

ˌpräpəˈɡandə/

noun

noun: propaganda; noun: Propaganda

1.

derogatory information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular cause or point of view.

The many Propos of Panem.

Propaganda can actually be a great thing. When you want to get your public to buckle up for safety or remember not to text and drive, PSAs are your best friend. And we all know that without Katniss being the Mockingjay, the districts might never have overthrown the nasty capitol. And we’d never have met Liam Hemsworth.  *sigh*

There’s nothing wrong with propaganda in and of itself. It’s a tool that can be used for good or awesome. Or evil. The real problem is when Propaganda goes about masquerading as something it’s not. As facts. When information is not what it claims to be.

I am not going to claim to know everything about propaganda, but I’m getting pretty good at spotting it when I see it. I've had ample examples over the last week with presidential hopefuls duking it out on the national stage. My favorite examples of solid propaganda, though, are Pasco School District's recently created, much touted and amply supplied Q&As. Really good propaganda. Again, I'd like to point out that propaganda isn’t a problem on its own, but it is a problem when we’re all told it’s informational posts designed to, well, inform the public.  

Katniss wasn't really surprised that Peeta proposed. But she wanted everyone to think so and used a Propo.

PSD actually went to the trouble of setting up an email address info@psd1.org a while back because the board and top administrators were being inundated by questions, and probably complaints, day and night. For a time, the address appeared to be nothing more than an informational abyss, a place to throw uncomfortable information and questions and never have to look at them again. Then, surprise! The Q&A page popped up! And, by Jove, some parents’ questions were actually on it! 

Then, of course, we actually read the page and disappointment promptly set in. A big issue was that many of the “answers” on the page never answer the questions asked. Others are so convoluted in language and style that it would take two dictionaries, a thesaurus and four grad students to tease them out. But the big thing I noticed was the spin factor.

Take this question from the August 27th group.

"I was wondering when the science curriculum will be updated."

PSD’s answer to that statement:

The science curriculum was reviewed and adjusted to the new science standards in 2007. Deputy Successor Superintendent Michelle Whitney has been charged with putting together a plan to review all of the instructional materials during her time this year as the new Curriculum and Professional Development leader. When she becomes superintendent, she will have a deep level of knowledge about what is in the plan and what it will take to implement it. Mrs.Whitney has been working since May on English Language Arts with a team of teachers and principals. As soon as the contract is settled, she will be able to take up that work once again.

The implicit question, when will the curriculum be updated, is never answered. What PSD did do was provide a misleading statement about science curriculum (reviewed and updated! Not adopted, provided or something meaningful, but we’re hoping you don’t read too closely) followed by a glowing review of the things they are doing in an entirely different area. This is a lovely plug for the future qualifications of Mrs. Whitney as a future superintendent and some interesting information about some possible plans to develop curriculum in English Language Arts. It leads us to think district leaders are hard at work on something that’s become very important to the community. Curriculum. But it’s like asking your local sandwich artist why the sandwich you paid for isn’t in your baggie, and having them answer you with an explanation of their theoretical smoothie making skills. So why was this tangent placed as the main focus of this "answer"?

Information of a biased nature used to promote a particular cause or point of view.

 

How about this question, from August 24:

"What can the district communicate about bargaining?"

And PSD’s answer was:         

Caesar Flickerman wishes you would just answer the question.

We will continue to post the most recent proposals from both PSD and PAE on our website www.psd1.org as they become available. We remain optimistic that an agreement will be reached and that students will be back in school on time. The district agrees that teachers deserve higher salaries which are the responsibility of the State. However, in order to settle this contract, the District has increased its financial offer over 300% since bargaining started. The parties remain far apart.

Again, the fact that the question is not actually answered is not what bothers me. What stuck out to me, was the district painting themselves as “optimistic” at a time when they were already preparing to file a rather pessimistic (and lengthy) injunction, following which they blame the state for tying their hands where salary is concerned. They finish up with a spectacular attempt to make the teachers look greedy by implying their 300% increase just wasn’t good enough to pacify those rebellious, grabby educators. Never you mind the original question didn't ask how close a resolution was, nor how much the district increased their offer. The state's constraints on them weren't touched on by this question. All this unsolicited information had nothing to do with the topic, but was provided anyway.

Information of a biased nature used to promote a particular cause or point of view.

It’s an unhappy realization but not the first one I had while reading the almost daily Q&A releases. The first thing I realized was that there was repetitive information posing as public questions. The first five questions from the first day of Q&As was a rehash of PSD's previously released budget information, along with another few previous posts. While I know there are a lot of people out there who likely wanted that information, it made me suspicious about the origin of these questions.

I confirmed with a few Pasco citizens who were (unsurprisingly) shocked that some of their real questions did make the final lineup but some of them complained the questions were altered slightly. Some of the questions appear to be lifted from Facebook comments. And then there’s the questions that no normal member of the public would ask. 

Katniss hopes the real questions weren't in that building that got all blown up.

Last night (September 1st for those of you who are reading this post later than today) was a particularly good example of this. The first ten questions (which start off with a whopper of a non-sequitur as of the time this blog is posted) read more like a blog post than a list of questions from the public. Believe me, I have some experience with blog posts. While I appreciate that someone may have taken the time to organize and answer a large number of similarly phrased questions in a logically progressive fashion, the list of questions looks far more like a meeting bullet list than honest inquiries. What is the public grumbling about now? How can we appease them? Someone write this down, I want it on our website, STAT.

In other words it reads very much like Information of a biased nature used to promote a particular cause or point of view. Controlling the dialogue with bogus questions or releasing previous information posing as public questions isn’t informational, it’s propaganda. And that’s just not cool, man.

Unless you're President Snow. President Snow would like to congratulate the fellow Propo Pros out there.

So where does this leave us? Confused, probably. A little uncomfortable. And likely a little bit unhappy, most especially the One Direction fans.

Like I said before, there's nothing inherently wrong with propaganda, so long as it stands up proudly and proclaims itself for what it is. Political ads, product placement in movies and cereal commercials. You know what they are when you look at them, there's no ambiguity involved. When a public school district is on the production and delivery team for propaganda, though, I must ask myself why?

So, PSD, Why? Why the games? Why the spin? If you've really got a good point and nothing to hide, just give it to us like it is. We're voting adults, we can figure out what's good on our own. Have your meetings and discussions in public. Give a strait answer to real, honest questions, even if the answer is "We don't know the answer to that question." And for the love of Gale, stop trying to sway public opinion with propaganda. It's not classy, the voters don't appreciate it, and you just can't pull it off well enough for us not to spot it.

And so, my fellow closet pop-culture fans, I leave you with these thoughts, hoping you take the time to spot the propaganda in your own life. Enjoy some closing music, on behalf of the people of Panem.

Katniss wishes you luck in future Propo spotting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdYDzTtaulo

*                      *                    *

As a coda, to those who would accuse me of not being thorough, I really had many, many more examples of propaganda from PSD Q&As out and available, but I thought you wouldn't want to read through hundreds of pages of analysis. You're smart, you can spot it. However, if you'd like any question examined on your behalf, please feel free to comment with the one you'd like.