It’s slash and burn time, the wolf is at the door, fly away home your house is on fire. Use any image you want, but we’re up against it. You knew it was coming.
Matthew Stone has the story here. Read it all.
Particularly worthy of notice is this section:
Aside from mergers, the education commissioner called on local teachers unions to consider pay freezes, rather than stick to contracts that bind school districts to annual, incremental pay raises. The move, she said, would prevent some school staff members from being laid off.
Teacher and staff salaries covered by contracts account for more than half of school district budgets, Gendron noted. “Saving 2 or 3 percent of that cost would be a great savings for our local school districts.”
Chris Galgay, president of the Maine Education Association, called Gendron’s comment unfortunate. “I don’t think she should use the bully pulpit” to command local pay freezes, he said.
“They make these decisions locally,” said Steve Crouse, the teachers union’s government relations director.
Galgay and Crouse, if I remember aright, were silent on consolidation. Talk about the “bully pulpit”!
It’ll be interesting to see if anything comes of Gendron’s suggestion.
The initial reaction suggests that the MEA will sacrifice some of its members rather than consider freezes. A bit out of touch, eh?