vision2020
Re: Moscow teachers
John, Lois, and other Visionaries:
The mediation scheduled for tomorrow, Saturday, August 18, will be a
PUBLIC meeting. That means, of course, the public can attend, not
participate in the discussion. More important, since the room may be too
small to accommodate a huge number of people, and since many want to
know what happens but not spend Saturday afternoon sitting inside, the
restrictions of confidentiality will be lifted and a more complete discussion
can ensue after the meeting. Unfortunately although minutes are required,
they are minutes that describe the process, not the detail of what is discussed,
reasoning, financial information, etc. With closed meetings it is not
appropriate to describe what was asked for, what was offered, what is the
general status of negotiations.
The meeting is scheduled for 2 pm at the District Office, 650 N. Cleveland.
Mike Curley
On 17 Aug 01, at 16:38, John Danahy wrote:
Date forwarded: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 16:42:26 -0700 (PDT)
From: "John Danahy" <JDANAHY@turbonet.com>
To: <lmelina@moscow.com>, <vision2020@moscow.com>
Subject: Re: Moscow teachers
Date sent: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 16:38:24 -0700
Forwarded by: vision2020@moscow.com
I must, with all due respect, disagree with Lois' suggestion that each side go
to the public to generate support. With this idea, rational discussion of the
various issues disappears under a wealth of mis-information as each side
attempts to curry public favor. The "spokesman" will, of course, present their
"side" in the best possible light with as little real information as possible,
while ridiculing the "other side's position" as much as possible.
A much better solution is the simple but effective process of publishing the
minutes of each session immediately after each session. Such minutes are,
by
Idaho public law, required to be kept and made available to the public.
John
John Danahy
jdanahy@turbonet.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lois Melina" <lmelina@moscow.com>
To: <vision2020@moscow.com>
Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 2:41 PM
Subject: re: Moscow teachers
> This discussion of teacher salaries is interesting, but "salary
> compensation" is only one area of discussion that we are told is being
> discussed, and even then, we don't know the specific areas of disagreement on
> that issue. In addition, there are several other areas of discussion where the
> board and the teachers evidently disagree.
>
> Earlier this week, someone suggested that rather than a referendum on
> contract issues, the public needs to let the board know its wishes. The
> difficulty here is that both sides have agreed not to discuss specific
> proposals publicly. While that's probably a wise move in the early stages of
> negotiations, now that we are facing the possibility of a strike unless this
> impasse is resolved, it might be helpful to the negotiations for both the
> board and the teachers to know where public support is on the issues.
I
> urge the board and the teachers to agree to end the secrecy and put the
> proposals out for the public to evaluate.
>
>
>
>
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