Monday, October 17, 2011

Teacher's Contracts for 2011?

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Needed: 9th Period. Change the Teacher's Contract": Are the teachers still working with an expired contract? I was under the impression that the contract ended in july. . Maybe Mr. Rosenfeld can enlighten us.
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17 comments:

  1. AnonymousOctober 17, 2011 at 5:47 PM

    You are correct that teachers are working under terms of last (expired) contract. Also, teacher aides, custodians, and (I believe) administrators are as well.

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  2. Morton Rosenfeld, President PCTOctober 20, 2011 at 2:24 PM

    Yes, we are unfortunately working under the terms of the expired contract. As for a 9 period day, I have repeatedly said that the PCT does not oppose negotiating one. We don't have a 9 period day because it is too expensive to create on. More periods = more teachers. It's really that simple. I can't see how this can happen if we are to live within the 2% property tax cap.

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  3. AnonymousOctober 21, 2011 at 6:16 PM

    Is there a reason why the teachers are not taking the actions they took two years ago (picketing, wearing buttons, excluding parents from class parties, etc) when they similarly were working without a contract?

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  4. AnonymousOctober 21, 2011 at 7:15 PM

    Mr. Rosenfeld
    With all due respect , You and the Board of ed should of thought of the possibility of seeing a tax cap with the reckless spending and contracts years ago. I know your job is to get the best contract for your leadership. I hold the reckless BOE more responsible for agreeing to the reckless spending in the last few years . Unfortunately now we, the students,the residents , and the employees of the school district are going to pay the price for incompetence. My question is , who was the rocket scientist who thought up the idea of going from a 5 day school schedule to a 6 day school schedule . How about a contract with status quo. No raises . That is what the last contract was supposed to be .

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  5. AnonymousOctober 22, 2011 at 11:04 PM

    Dear Mr. Rosenfeld,
    I am a parent of of two children in our schools here in plainview. I just want to say THANK YOU TO YOU!!! You have done a good job over the past several years, I feel at times you don't get the respect you deserve. You have a difficult job and you are appreciated!!!

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  6. AnonymousOctober 23, 2011 at 10:36 PM

    Yes for the teachers Mr Rosenfeld,you have done a good job , regardless of the effects and hardships that the increased tax bills have caused on the children and Parents of Plainview. But you only deserve half of the reckless credit along with the fiscally incompetent BOE who deserves the rest of the credit for our outrageous school tax bills that we just received

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  7. AnonymousOctober 26, 2011 at 4:09 PM

    Not nice... Your comments are outrageous!!!

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  8. AnonymousOctober 26, 2011 at 10:39 PM

    Being "not nice" is not the intention. The truth is that the BOE is and has been fiscally reckless. If they were on the board of a corporation then the corporation would of gone bankrupt already. Every election the same 20 or 30% of the eligble voters actually come out to vote for the same people to get re-elected and that is why our tax bills are so high. so we only have ourselves to blame because we the residents do not activly partake in the election of the BOE members.

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  9. Morton Rosenfeld, President PCTOctober 27, 2011 at 3:43 PM

    I thank the writer who complemented me. I do the best job I can for the teachers and the students of this district. Anyone who reads the things that I have written over the years will agree that I have been a strong advocate for high academic standards. As recently as last evening, some of my colleagues and I talked to the Board of Education, warning them that this district is dangerously close to becoming totally focused on test preparation to the exclusion of quality education. To my critics on this blog, I'll point out that there is no money or benefits in advocating for these improvements. In fact, being a critic of the district often makes it more difficult to negotiate good contracts for our members. Finally, I remind readers that the teachers in POB are not the highest paid on Long Island or the lowest. They are smack in the middle of the pack. If the people who are concerned about taxes would stop blaming us and work with us to fund education with a more progressive tax, we might actually accomplish something worthwhile. The current system that has families earning thoroughly disparate incomes paying the same amount to fund the schools. That is simply an absurd way for a society to fund the education of their children.

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  10. AnonymousOctober 27, 2011 at 6:55 PM

    I am the parent that complemented you, Mr. Rosenfeld. Many people use this blog to vent and be critics instead of trying to stick with the facts and make solutions for our district. I know that you are working very hard to make a positive difference for our children. Many people just think you are a avdvocate for our teachers. Truth is, you are an avocate for the children, parents and community too. Thank you for your above comments

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  11. AnonymousOctober 27, 2011 at 7:20 PM

    Dear Mr. Rosenfeld
    With all due respect, you are responsible for part of the reason why our taxes are so high. How you could have the nerve to have your members picketing because you demanded raises when these have been the worst economic times since the depression 82 years ago is beyond me. They even made a documentary on the thousands of citizens on long island that are hiding their financial problems for fear of being ostracized from freinds and neighbors. They picked 4 towns on long island with 4 families. Guess what one of the towns they picked . Plainview. I do not blame the hardworking teachers . I blame 2 groups for our outrageous taxes. The first being the fiscally irresponsible BOE and the ever demanding PCT leadership for the economic contract demands in these depression like economic times where the real unemployment rate is 17.1%. That is an undisputable fact Mr. Rosenfeld which you may ignore because your membership is fully employed. I can only hope that the next contract is better than the last one

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  12. AnonymousOctober 27, 2011 at 7:31 PM

    Mr. Rosenfeld
    your statement about residents with disparate incomes paying the same amout of school tax is untrue. The school tax bill is not based upon the income of the homeowner . The taxes are determined by the value of the home which is ridiculous when you consider a homeowner who is fortunate enough to make improvments to his/her home only to get penalized by the county by getting taxed even more . The property tax structure incetivizes homeowners to not improve their home . This does not make sense

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  13. AnonymousOctober 27, 2011 at 9:14 PM

    Mr. Rosenfeld, I am not the person who complimeneted you earlier in this post. I agree that your work and/or role in the school district is highly misunderstood. I've said this before but I'll say it again. The fundamental problem in the Plainview schools does not rest with the teachers. Is every teacher perfect? No. Are there teachers in Plainview (and everywhere else for that matter) who are an embarassment to the teaching profession? Absolutely. Is is fair to generalize about the majority? I do not believe it is.

    In my personal opinion, the fundamental problem in the Plainview school district is shared between the administration in district office and the board. The superintendent is retiring so hopefully we'll see some changes with whoever they replace him with.

    The issue you raise of test preparation as becoming the be and end all of education is a major problem that many residents will not realize the long term effects of until their children reach college. The associate superintendent for curriculum and instruction has major responsibility for this. So long as she is employed here, the district is headed in a very dangerous direction. She favors what is advantageous to her own career over what is truly best for our children in the long run. It baffles me how the board is unable to see this.

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  14. AnonymousOctober 28, 2011 at 10:45 AM

    I think her tenure date comes up this spring. Yes, we should send letters to the board. I'm not trying to step out of line here."**********************************". Her responses to questions and comments are often so far from the issues being raised. It's almost as if she lives in her own world without any understanding of the needs of other people. How the board doesn't see this is beyond me.

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  15. AnonymousOctober 28, 2011 at 7:34 PM

    I wonder how Mr. Rosenfeld, as representative of the teachers in this district feels about the job Ms. Gierasch is doing.

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  16. StefanieOctober 30, 2011 at 8:02 AM

    I agree there is too mich test prep. I question why much ELA over the years has been so focused on reading comps and not reading books, why math tests are mostly multiple choice instead of kids figuring out the answers without choices.

    Thanks Mr. Rosenfeld for helping get rid of Investigations. You and your members were critical in that important change.

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  17. AnonymousOctober 30, 2011 at 8:16 PM

    One of the biggest problems regarding the reading comprehension is the read 180 program . it is not the success that it claims to be in this district. Why? because the district doen not follow the recomended structure of the program . Instead the district has the children in the program less hours a week than required resulting in a program that is a wast of the teachers time as well as some of the students . My son was in it a couple of years ago and it was a waste of time .

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