Putting Kids First?

Saw this great blog post at The Coal Mine this afternoon, and this is my response:

I've never claimed to be a diplomat so I won't start now.

To that minority of teachers who now are saying that they won't vote for the action plan because it is too vague . . . to that minority of teachers who think that they're the only ones who feel bad about potentially giving up extra-curricular activities or, who think their extra-curricular activity is the only one that counts as important . . . to that minority of teachers who feel compelled to go to the media telling how unhappy they are with our union, our action plan:

Where were you at all the local meetings, for the past year, when you could have been adding your voice to the dialogue?

Where were you when your local asked for people to step forward and join committees, run for executive office, or as happens most often, just put your name forward because we usually don't have enough people to have local elections for all positions? You could have had your say and even affected change, before the fact.

Where were you when it came time to put your name forward for the AGM, where you would have had a say in the action plan? Where were you when your fellow members spent 1/2 their spring break sitting in 12 hour meetings and having the opportunity to have their say and casting their vote for the BCTF executive? (By the way, I didn't attend nor put my name forward to attend the AGM, so this isn't sour grapes because I had to sit through those grueling days.)

You think you are putting kids first . . . how? By continuing the extra-curricular activity for a couple of months?

How about putting kids first for the years ahead? by sending a loud and clear message to this government that you care about kids, using the only avenue that this government has left open to us.

Tell them that you want to help kids by spending quality time with the individual students in your class, by differentiating their learning, and you can't do that effectively with 30+ kids.

Tell them that you want to help the special needs kids and do the best job you can with their individual programs. That, by having no more than 3 special needs kids in your class, you will be able to serve them well, but by increasing the numbers, your time for each child's program will be spread that much thinner.

Tell them you want to help, not only the coded children, but the code-pending kids and those who just require a bit of learning assistance each day by having more support -- more support teachers and learning assistance teachers -- more school psychologists who do the testing and coding -- more speech & language and OT and PT and hearing and seeing teachers and teacher-librarians. You know, those specialists that the government has reduced so greatly in number?

Put kids first, for the long haul.