f minus 17 days

Because I'm pressed for time, my e-mail response to my friend B's query: How do you feel about the 17 furlough day proposal?

Hey B!

Well, the contract's been ratified. Furloughs it is.

I was playing designated driver in Mililani, but my mental vote was a reserved yes. On the one hand, I am disappointed of course - that it's come to this, that our students will lose out, that we will lose out, that we are all stuck between a rock and a really hard place - but the flailing economy has hit so many others even harder than this ... this is in fact the first direct hit that I personally am taking. S and I are beyond blessed to have a home + secure employment, so I cannot complain about this. I can feel sad, tighten the household budget, start feeding the kids the WalMart CheapAss pet food specials, and put off our honeymoon for yet another eternity ... but I can't complain.

Incidentally, it amounts to a 7.9 percent pay cut. S may have to let me get that Barnes & Noble job after all. (There a silver lining to EVERY cloud!)

Frankly, I just wanted the contract to go through - I think so many teachers are sick of waiting for a decision to be made. In light of all the other "options" (like layoffs), this one is best. Some teachers, myself included, wanted to take unpaid holidays instead, which still amounts to a pay cut. I am probably very naive in my rationale, but I hate the thought of the kids losing 17 instructional days. However, HSTA explained that doing unpaid holidays would mean the union statutes would have to be rewritten. Also, the majority of teachers would not get on board with that because paid holidays are an "earned privilege."

I think in the public eye this may make teachers seem like we place the privilege of paid holidays over the welfare of our kids but in any other sector, people would riot over losing paid holidays or any other privilege written into the statutes, and the indignant public would riot along with them. Only educators come under such scrutiny because people know the profession is not the fattest cash cow on the farm, and people expect us to do it for love, which we do, but we also need to be considered, and paid, fairly. It is a PROFESSION built on love, not a hobby built on love.

Personally I believe that we should keep our instructional days and do unpaid holidays, but I would have voted to ratify the contract w/furloughs because something needed to be done already and going back to the tables would have been building toward disaster.

Hope your job and company are holding heads above water! HHKK to little Gato Pants.

<3 kreeesty