Stuart’s Blog

It was a sad night for the San Mateo Union High School District.

It seems that on the one side we have Superintendent Sam Johnson and his staff. He began the meeting by accusing the CTA (California Teachers Association) of abandoning their children whereby “teachers and other certificated personnel will abstain from participating in voluntary, non-essential duties, especially during lunch and after school”. I wouldn’t exactly call Mr. Johnson’s speech visionary, or inspiring. In fact, I would call his opening remarks arrogant, divisive and accusatory.

On another side, we have the California Teachers Association, claiming “gross malfeasance” and “ineptititude” on the part of Mr. Johnson and his aides for the $3.5M budget shortfall.

Sadly, students are suffering. “There is a rift between the teachers and the district. A rift that we are caught in between,” said Mitra Anoushiravani, a student trustee. She continued: “I am calling for an end to the damaging rift. Our teachers should be respected and valued for all the time, effort and love they put into their work.”

Many parents, teachers and certificated employees called for Mr. Johnson and his staff to resign, due to the fact that they have known about the budget problems for years, and that they did nothing to help it but did many things to exacerbate it. For instance, there were numerous claims by various parties that, even though the district knew last April that they were going to have a shortfall, they recruited and hired teachers (some who had already gotten a form of tenure from other districts), whom they are now firing.

And it seems the teachers are squeezed in the middle. They want to give good services to their children, while at the same time they are forced with pay cuts, with being fired, and with extremely short resources in their school classrooms (for instance, on the wish list in many classes are requests for xerox paper simply to print on, marking pens, and paper towels to erase boards).

For my part, as a parent, I am calling for Mr. Johnson and his staff to resign. I believe that his years of misleading the district has caused mistrust on the part of the teachers, administrators, children, parents and staff. His claims that they were “blindsided” by the shortfall are just not credible. Last year, at a Capuchino High School fcaculty meeting, questions were raised about the financial impact of the 7-Period Day. Superintendent Johnson said, “My philosophy is to shoot first and aim later.” That attitude, I believe, has gotten the school district into this $3.5M shortfall nightmare.

To the teachers, I implore you to stop this abstention from doing your volunteer work. I am incredulous, as an ex-CTA member and as an ex-California School Teacher, that you would choose, as your first political act, to strike back at the administration, by hurting your own students through withholding such worthy activities as tutoring during lunch and after school. If you are going to do a political act, isn’t it better to march, together, to the Superintendent’s offices, and demand that he resign?

To the students, please support your teachers! They need your help. They are people who have literally dedicated their lives and their livelihoods to your betterment; they are our local heroes and I respectfully ask that you work together with them to find creative ways, in your own school, to save money and to help meet the budget shortfall. The teachers did not create this $3.5M shortfall; they are merely victims of it, as are you.

Lastly, to the parents, please help your children understand that these are complex issues, with many sides, and many agendas. Please urge them to work with their teachers to find creative solutions to cut budgets. Also, please urge them to continue to have their club meetings, even though they have now been locked out of classrooms and hallways.

Humbly submitted,

Stuart Liroff

This entry was posted on Friday, September 22nd, 2006 at 7:46 am and is filed under Local Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.