To "L"

Today I received a profound message from a county employee that I would like to share with readers, but I was asked not to post it. The gist of the email is that employees of the school system are weary of fighting for so little in pay and that a new school board is not going to be able to fix the distrust between the employees and administration easily. (The message encompassed more sentiments than that, but unless the author gives me the “ok,” I won’t post more.) I also warn you that this particular post focuses on teachers, but I fully realize that classified employees are in a similar position.

Anyway, as soon as I read that comment this morning at 6:05 am, I was struck by the familiarity of sentiment that the writer conveyed. The helplessness and the frustration, the feeling of being undervalued – not just by the current school board – but by society in general and Burke County in particular. To clarify, these are my anecdotal observations:

Society undervalues teachers. That is a truism. However, most folks understand and agree that teachers are not paid what they are worth. I am always chagrined when I hear people talk about teachers being overpaid or that they have two month vacations, so they do not deserve to be paid on par with everyone else. I often attribute that sentiment to folks who are resentful of the education that teachers have or don’t understand that teachers have made an investment in their education that they have to pay back. I wonder if those folks realized that if teachers were paid on an hourly basis, they would make less money than many factory workers.

I notice that Burke County frequently loses young teachers to adjacent counties. It seems to me that we get new teachers, keep them for about two years, and then they move away to counties with larger supplements. So, Burke County essentially gives these folks two years of training and incubation and then provides adjacent counties with teachers who have been ‘seasoned.’ (Granted two years is not a lot of “seasoning,” but listening to teachers talk about their career lives, the first couple of years seem to be fraught with the most anxiety.)

Another feeling that was conveyed to me by the message I received this morning was a pervasive feeling of anxiety – not an immediate “stage fright” kind of anxiety, but a low grade, constant, post-traumatic -stress disorder kind of anxiety. I ‘get’ that, and to explain why, I’ll have to fill you in on a little information on my personal life, so bear with me –

My husband Joe is an airline pilot for a major airline. He has been an airline pilot for a long time (over 20 years). Currently he is a 767 captain and flies international trips. Back in 2000, Joe was a captain, and was flying a lot of transcontinental trips from New York to Los Angeles. The airline industry was beginning to decline. By that time I learned how the dynamic between the “company” and its union groups operated. The “company” tended to pit union groups against each other – “well flight attendants, you can’t have a raise because those pesky pilots are insisting that they have a third pilot in the cockpit on those 16 hour flights, and the bottom line is that we can’t afford both – and you know how unreasonable those pilots are.” So, the airline workers were in a constant state of anxiety and resentment towards the other work groups – and the company seemed to sit back and yank the chains when things seemed to go too smoothly.

Then September 11th happened. Thankfully Joe was not flying that day. Some of the flights that were targets were flights that he regularly flew. To say that day was chilling was an understatement – but we all have September 11th stories. Anyway, 9/11 catalyzed the downward spiral of the airline industry. Not only did my husband have to fly with the unsettling thought that there could be terrorists on his plane, but a slew of other life-altering events followed. The pilots at his airline took a pay cut of 33% (which has never been restored) while the executives continued to be paid exorbitant salaries, retention bonuses and other perks. My husband’s name, “Joseph Thomas,” was listed on the terror watch list. So, every time he went to work, he had to undergo extra security screenings (this particular practice just stopped THIS WEEK due to new software the TSA is using – but Joe has had to deal with this for 8 years). So, the reality was that Joe could hold the lives of hundreds of people in his hands everyday – every flight – but omg! What if he has a pocketknife in his kitbag!?! I could write a book about the hassles and loss of income that followed 9/11, but you get the point.

There are certain things one signs on for when one chooses a profession. In Joe’s case it was long days away from family, commuting to far away cities to get to work, strange and ever-changing monthly schedules and the inability to be able to quit one’s job and move to another airline without starting all over again in seniority. But Joe loves to fly. So, in spite of all of the added difficulties (i.e. things he didn’t sign on for - like loss of income, loss of public’s respect for authority in an airplane cabin, “enhanced” security screenings and the ever impending suspicion that airline bankruptcy is just months away ) he continues to fly. But let me tell you, it has not come without anxiety for our whole family.

So, how does this relate to the sentiment of anxiety here in Burke County? We all take it for granted that teachers are “called” to teach. It is a vocation. Because it is a vocation, many seem to think that teachers will put up with anything for the sake of the children. While that is true in many instances, many teachers in Burke County have probably reached their breaking point. Pay cuts, endless scrutiny from those who have no knowledge about teaching or about the North Carolina Standard Course of Study, constant ( and baffling) berating by the Board of Education regarding test scores, witnessing huge amounts of money driving away in a Lexus to Raleigh – these things are not what teachers signed on for. And the immediate anxiety that teachers have felt this past year is either going to evolve into a low grade constant anxiety with accompanying personal depression*, or that immediate anxiety is going to result in a mass exodus of qualified, experienced teachers from our county. We, as a county, can afford neither.

And now we have an impending announcement about a new superintendent. Only 9 or so people know what salary and benefits this person has been offered to take over the school system here in Burke (the school board, Mr. Schwartz and the candidate himself). And I guess only some of those folks know how Burke County Public Schools are going to pay the local supplement for this person since the fund balance will most likely be less than zero after legal bills are paid.

All I can say to teachers and staff of BCPS is to “please hold on.” Tie a knot in the rope that you are holding on to. In a particularly bad situation in my life I had the benefit of great counseling – my minister at the time told me that even though it felt like I was holding on to a rope that was suspended high above the rafters, at some point, I would let go, and the ground would be right under my feet. I truly believe that with the right board majority we have a chance to “raise the floor.” But to get to that point we must continue to hold on and do the work that must be done to change the board majority. I know that many of you are doing that work and my team mates and I are grateful. Please know that we are working hard, too – trying to get the message out that we will do everything in our power to make a difference to the teachers, staff and students of the Burke County School system.

And, you’ll have to continue to “hold on” even if we are elected. The economy isn’t great. We have a lot of work to do. But hopefully, little by little, we can re-build the trust, rebuild the respect and eventually rebuild the finances so that BCPS staff – classified and certified – have their pay and raises restored and enhanced. It is my belief that the students will benefit from these changes beyond measure.


*I am not nor do I claim to be a mental health professional, although my children have accused me of being "mental" on occasion. Anyhow, this particular statement comes from my own observation of life - take it or leave it.