Waimea
Union contract
Who gets left out?
I read your article about the teachers not ratifying their contract. I haven’t heard or read any mention of one important issue. As you read, just for a moment, put yourself in the position of teachers who are affected by it and ask yourself, “How would I feel?”
The West Hawaii Today article stated that years of service would be recognized in the new salary schedule. When I read this I thought, Gee, how nice. The Department of Education will recognize all the teachers in the new contract.
Well, folks, I hate to pop the bubble. Guess who gets left out of any pay increase (which, by the way, can’t really be called an increase)? We will go back to our 2009 salary and then add on a minimal 1 percent based on a good evaluation, but not until July 2013. We still have another 11/2 years of a 5 percent pay cut. Guess who doesn’t even get the 1 percent?
If you guessed those of us who are at the top of the schedule because of our years of experience (I have 41) and because of the numerous post-graduate courses we have taken, you are right. This is the second time in a contract with the state that those of us with the highest classification have been “recognized.” I conduct my classroom on the premise that fairness applies to everyone. If I were to run my class the way the DOE treats its teachers, there would be a lot of unhappy campers.
Yes, it’s true. Those who have dedicated the majority of their lives to education get nothing. Did I feel better when I read that new teachers will get a $2,500 bonus in addition to the 1 percent, based on a good evaluation? Is that telling me that no one cares what kind of evaluation I get?
Thankfully, our students appreciate us.
There is nothing better than seeing the light go on in a student’s eyes, or watching the excitement they express when learning becomes fun, and hearing their cheers for each other when they pass their reading. But, that’s another story and no one can take that away.
Mary Lou Griesser
Kapaau
Hawaii energy
Don’t reinvent wheel
I’m tired of politicians yammering about electricity with hot air. We live on a volcano. Iceland has been making electric power from volcanic heat for 50 years. They probably invented the term “geothermal.” Icelanders and Scandinavians are trying to design infrastructure to send this geothermal power across the Atlantic (farther than Oahu).
Contrary to mainland information, we usually have the highest gasoline prices in the U.S.
Brazil produces ethanol from sugar cane. What a concept.
The eucalyptus trees didn’t work out, or ethanol from grass or weeds, but surely some of us remember how to raise sugar cane. The state still has many thousands of acres of vacant land that once was covered with sugarcane fields.
We do not have to reinvent these wheels. Think of the jobs.
Jerry Goedert
Waimea