Union chief responds
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to respond to Thursday’s editorial, “Cool Rhetoric on School Talks.” The News-Journal is correct that the last round of negotiations, two years ago, was quite contentious. The employees in the district have no desire to see that happen again. However, the past two years have been far from peaceful. The issues of two years ago — clean classrooms, lack of textbooks, too many meetings and trainings, and many more — still exist. We’ve tried to address this; we’re told to “bring it up in bargaining.”
Teachers and staff want safe, caring and engaging schools. They want to teach using exciting, hands-on, project-based approaches. They want time to plan, without constant micromanaging. Management wanted this discussed in bargaining, so the employees have a lot of issues to bring to the table. Even before we talk salary and benefits, we have a lot of work to do.
We wanted to start bargaining in early February, before the legislative session. Eventually we were given a time after the session, and told they were happy to negotiate into the summer, which would mean employees returning the next school year without a contract. The district delayed setting a date until the employees sent a press release about it. This inaction has caused the most concern entering into bargaining. Employees want fair, honest and open negotiations. Employees want the best schools for our students, and they want to stay here in Volusia County.
The editorial was also correct in that Tallahassee lawmakers, once again, failed students. Prior to the Great Recession, total funding per student was $7,126.95. Today that number is $7,306.63, an increase of just under $180, or less than 3 percent. This so-called recovery has certainly left Florida’s children behind. Money is tight, but the district can do better.
Start with addressing concerns mentioned above. Second, live up to the commitment to make salaries a priority. We continue to lose incredible teachers and staff, and we must be competitive. According to the district’s own budget, the district is spending about 2 percent less on salaries and benefits than it did two years ago — about $9.5 million. Where is that money going? We’ve added non-classroom positions, including management; spent money on new programs and consultants — and class sizes have been creeping up. Even with extremely tight budgets, priorities can be made.
Making the last priority salaries is not making sure we keep our greatest assets, our teachers and staff.
Andrew Spar, Ormond Beach
Spar is president of Volusia United Educators and secretary/treasurer of the Florida AFL/CIO.
Volunteering a fix
So, here we are. The schools are permitted to include an element of safety improvement with additional armed personnel. This can be accomplished with both paid police personnel and with trained volunteers. These are the solutions already implemented in some states, like Texas.
The reality now that the cost of additional paid police personnel does not have an unlimited budget has surfaced (we’re millions short) and the need to have a mix of both police personnel and trained volunteers must be faced, managed and acted on. Part of our important education budget must also be allocated to “hardening” of school infrastructure. The budget, though, is not unlimited.
(READ: $4 million shortfall looming over schools)
Unfortunately, some Volusia County School Board members and the teachers union president oppose including volunteers in that mix. It’s time to quit debating the need to offer “more” armed responders into the immediate and available solution to prevention or ending an armed attacker. Of course, addressing mental health and student behaviors must be improved, but that is no immediate solution. The “gun control” arguing offers no immediate solution.
Our School Board members need to move forward now with the enabling of trained volunteers to supplement additional police personnel. They need to be supported. Move forward now to assure that the next school year doesn’t become a tragic story that the media focuses on as our failure to act. Our teachers union president needs to end his hypothetical objections and partner with the School Board and support those personnel who are willing to be trained, and who are ready to offer more than pleas and their own lives when coming to the aid of our students. Let responders be enabled to defend our students.
Tom Coriale, Daytona Beach Shores
Has board lost its way?
I was employed as a Volusia County Schools teacher for 20 years, until my retirement in 2015. I have interacted with Volusia County Schools as a parent, teacher, taxpayer and retiree. I have had the privilege of working with over 3,000 students; involved and caring parents; untiring support staff; supportive school administrators; and hard-working teachers. I have worked personally with Volusia County Schools Superintendent Tom Russell and Andrew Spar and have known them both to be men of integrity.
(READ: Schools, teachers brace for tough negotiations)
A healthy school system is vital to a healthy economy. Our teachers are the heart, soul, and blood of our school district. Our teachers make the daily difference in the lives of our children. Excellence in education is not about ever-changing curriculum, the newest educational strategy, new facilities, more administrators or school uniforms. It is about quality teachers. It continues to surprise me that our teachers are not made a budgetary priority.
Regardless of our differing political positions and personal affiliations, I think we all agree that our children come first. Let’s look at our school district’s priorities.
Our school district says it’s short on funds. Yet it employs a full-time attorney and has another attorney on retainer. It recently hired yet another attorney, at significant expense, stating that our School Board attorney is too busy to bargain with teachers. Really? Is this how we validate our teachers?
Volusia County Schools budgets significantly less for teacher salaries than surrounding districts. This has been common knowledge for several years. So, again: How does our School Board expect to retain and attract quality teachers? It is time that this community insists on more money for competitive teacher salaries.
Teacher benefits in Volusia County have also declined. Cheaper health insurance premiums do not imply better or more affordable health care. Many teachers are still not able to afford health care coverage for their families. Will help us to retain and attract quality teachers?
My understanding is that our school district has received $6 million back in savings from our health care insurer. Will that savings be passed on in the form of better, more affordable benefits?
It is time for our community to demand that our School Board get its priorities straight. Our children must come first, and therefore, our teachers must be a priority.
Paul Flaherty
Port Orange
Down to details
The headline of Friday’s front page shouts about a $4 million shortfall in the Volusia County Schools budget. The article throws out lots of big expense numbers without talking about the biggest number of all: the amount given to schools before any expenses.
How much is the total budget that ends up with a shortfall?
The article then goes into how we need more money to prevent school shootings. This is “crisis mode.” One can conclude, after reading the article, that those who are against higher taxes must be in favor of school shootings — just a few more pennies off your dresser will prevent another Parkland incident.
That’s not true. Armed deputies were on site at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
My guess is that all Volusia County’s property tax-paying residents want good schools and no school shootings. Probably 100 percent. My guess is that the majority of taxpayers in this area do not have children in school.
The only choice responsible residents have on paying taxes is to not be blindly fooled into paying more. The tail continues to wag the dog.
Mike Walker
New Smyrna Beach
Officer’s other side
I am writing this letter on behalf of Police Officer Eric Peterson of the New Smyrna Beach Police Department. Although we have never met each other, I have encountered him through my grandchildren, who attend Read-Pattillo Elementary School. It is unfortunate that the April 13 article, “NSB cops punished for failing to make an arrest,” discredits Peterson’s integrity as a police officer.
In his defense, over the past few years I have witnessed him park his police vehicle and stand in the middle of 6th Street, directing traffic as the children cross the street safely to the schoolyard. In doing so, this gentle giant offers our impressionable youth words of wisdom with numerous “high-fives” along the way. This back-to-basics approach is not only valued but needed.
According to this article, Peterson may not have handled this traffic incident wisely, but I can probably vouch this will never happen again.
Judy Cornette, New Smyrna Beach
Suggested angle
I’m responding to "An $18 million gift to Stetson," which talks about a gift given by Cici and Hyatt Brown for science and health education at Stetson University. Stetson President Wendy Libby notes that "health care is projected to be the fastest growing sector of employment through the next decade."
We need to educate and re-employ the employees of the bloated, tax-subsidized, and obsolete profit-making health insurance corporations. Imagine their satisfaction working not with paperwork but with patients for their preventive, acute and longterm health care needs under the coming expanded and improved Medicare for all.
I hope that this $18 million will be used for this purpose.
Barbara Schablik, Holly Hill
Voting is a right
In a recent letter, “No right to vote,” the author confidently if erroneously states that the right to vote is not granted by the Constitution of the United States. He’s adamant that “voting is a privilege, not a right.” That’s not what the Constitution, or the law, says.
The right to vote for representatives through “Electors” is expressed as early as Article I, Section 2. If that’s not clear enough, Amendment XV (that’s the 15th), Section 1, states very clearly, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.” And then there’s Amendment XIX (that’s the 19th) that states, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
Hearing an erroneous belief about a fundamental right of all citizens is a bit unsettling. Voting is a right! Read the Constitution.
Michael Cocchiola, Palm Coast
Gun reality
Concerning the April 10 letter, "Get rid of guns":
True, guns are weapons. Their purpose is to kill, or at least deter someone bent on doing harm. But their removal would not cause the homicide rate to drop. Lately in London, where guns are tightly regulated, the murder rate has surpassed New York City's! The weapon most used? Knives. Here in America, I guess the police would naively assume no criminal could be armed if guns were outlawed. I also guess the writer has never seen what a determined killer can do with "just a knife." Ask a Londoner.
Outlawing guns or knives, even repealing the Second Amendment, would have no effect on the criminal community, only on the law-abiding. The writer mentions Prohibition. But it only affected the law-abiding; anyone who really wanted booze could easily get some. The same would happen if guns were outlawed.
And breaking into homes and businesses would "drop significantly"? Did the writer read up on the soaring burglary rate in Australia since its gun ban?
Just as there’s danger a child could get hurt, or hurt someone else with an unsecured gun, there’s also danger from knives, saws and lawn mowers, not to mention cars. Just how much freedom should be sacrificed?
The NRA has 5 million members, 5 percent of the population. How are they responsible for an estimated 300 million guns in Americans’ posession?
The Second Amendment was about preserving the right of individuals to self-defense, especially from their own government.
Ernie Garland, DeLand