School cuts...

[Don Kaag <dkaag@turbonet.com>]

According to the Moscow Education Association, member teachers should
"speak with one voice" as an association, so you don't see too many
letters to the editor or emails from individual teachers.

Regardless, fresh from an after-school staff meeting to discuss the
impending evisceration of the Moscow School District, this is just my
two-cents' worth as an individual and a teacher that works hard every
day to teach MHS kids Government, U.S. History and Advanced Placement
U.S. History.  My opinions are my own.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE PEOPLE OF MOSCOW

Imagine going to work every day knowing that no matter how good a job
you do
there is no possibility of still being in that job next year.

That is the situation our youngest, newest, teachers find themselves in.

They came to Moscow School District 281 in the last five years or so,
full
of energy, new ideas and idealism, and now they face an uncertain
future.
They love teaching kids, they're good at it, and they are just beginning
to
put roots down into the rich soil of our community.  But teaching kids
in
MSD may not be in their future.  The Administration calls it "being
Riffed":
seventeen percent of our teachers, gone.

Many people picture teachers as nebulous, chalk-dust-covered, personages
who
get unplugged and rolled into a dark closet after the afternoon
dismissal
bell rings and on weekends.  We are not some cartoon-caricatured "those
teachers"; we are citizens of this town, too.  We are your neighbors, we
go
to your church, we are the leaders of your kids' Boy or Girl Scout
troops.
We can be found coaching Legion baseball and girl's softball teams and
volunteering for community projects.  We have lives, too.  We take
courses
at UI.  We buy our groceries in the local food stores, gas our cars at
local
stations, eat local fast food, and buy our clothes at the mall.  Many of
us
have spouses and children.   Our kids are the friends of your kids.
They go
to school together.  We own houses or rent apartments in this community.

Thirty-point-three of us may not be here in September.

The Administration says that these are tough economic times.  The School

Districts' utility bills have mushroomed.  So have ours.  This school
year,
teachers are working on a contract in which most of us did not even keep
up
with the annual rate of inflation.  Many of us have been teaching here
in
Moscow for years, have raised our families here, and are at the top of
the
"steps and ladders" pay scale in teaching experience and longevity. This

school year, we got a 2.5% pay increase.  Social Security recipients got

2.6% this year, as bare-bones compensation for inflation.  We keep
getting
further and further behind.

Those of us who are "maxed-out" on the District pay scale typically are
between 45 and 60, which means that we are Masters-degreed teachers with

over 30 postgraduate credits past our Masters' degrees.  We worked to
become
highly educated in our fields so that we could, in turn, educate your
children.  In the United States as a whole, teachers, as a
college-educated
class of professionals, are the lowest-paid class of college graduates
given
their educational level and years of experience.  On top of that, Idaho
ranks 48th in the nation in teachers' salaries. We are amongst the
lowest
paid teachers in the nation.  Teachers with the same qualifications
working
for Pullman School District, as an example, make an average of five
thousand
dollars more per year than we.  In addition, each year in living memory
our
District medical benefits have decreased and our yearly out-of-pocket
contributions to the mandatory-membership medical insurance plan has
increased.  How can we afford to send our kids to college?

The Administration and School Board of Moscow School District may find
the
Law of Unintended Consequences at work this spring.  The teaching staff
has
heard the Administration cry "wolf", and raise the specter of massive
layoffs and drastically cut budgets for classroom supplies and teaching
materials. They anticipate involuntary transfers in subject areas and
classrooms filled past overflowing with students next year, and no
chance of
a pay raise in the foreseeable future.   Greener pastures beckon, and we
may
lose many more hard-to-replace teachers than we as a community plan on,
or
can afford.

Meanwhile, uncertainty has teacher morale at rock bottom for obvious
reasons, and that cannot help but affect attitudes, their general
demeanor,
and their teaching.

That is not good for kids and it is not good for this community.

Respectfully,

Don Kaag