Stay connected…Reported "lack" of teacher contract. Choices we've made in the past and how it has put us where we are today.

How long was it? Two years? Four? More? For how many months was it reported that the teachers were working without a contract? Does it really matter? How does this type of situation really affect the students and the quality of teaching over both the short and long term? I hope to answer a few of these questions, but more importantly I hope that my answers will bother the reader enough that they will become advocates for the students in our community and stop thinking that the situation is another's job and that they are not the one to take part, no matter what their opinion. Every day we let this continue it hurts our students. As in my previous article, we found that when our students are hurt, the entire community is being damaged irreparably.

Fact of Fiction? The teachers were working without a contract.

Fiction: The way the state of Indiana has written the law, a teacher's contract remains in place until a new contract is agreed upon.

Fact or Fiction? The teachers have had the same benefits for the entire duration of their previous contract.

Fiction: The way their health care benefit was written into the contract is not a dollar benefit but as a percentage of the total premium cost.

Fact or Fiction? The teachers, administration, and non teaching staff all are treated equally as far as their health care benefits?

Fiction: For the most part, the lower paid corporation staff get the least percentage of their premiums paid for. In some instances having to pay the corporation at the end of the month for family coverage.

Any of us who have had healthcare benefits through their employer for the past several years, knows that healthcare insurance is spiraling out of control. I'll wager that at any place in the country premiums have risen each year, co pays and deductibles have gone up, and in some cases, benefits have gone down. Each one of us has had a larger chunk taken out of our take home pay due to this. The teacher's contract however stated that they only pay 10% of their health care insurance premiums, NO MATTER WHAT THE COST! So if they go up $50 a month, the teachers pay an extra $5 and our taxes pay $45! So in reality they would have actually been getting an additional $40 added to their salary while every one else has had a real sizable chunk taken out of theirs. Now these numbers aren't accurate. I'm only using easy to figure numbers to explain the way it is done.

Now back to contract talks… Would you want to settle on a new contract knowing that you've been automatically getting more and more each year without negotiating anything?

No. I certainly wouldn't want to.

Who should we blame for this predicament teacher's union or the corporation?

I don't think that we can blame anyone who was involved with negotiations, on either side. We certainly would be wasting our energy blaming those who set up the contract this way years ago as it was a different world when health care wasn't nearly as complicated or expensive. What we all need to ask ourselves is again involved with the subject of change, social responsibility, and the need to realize that this race for education and jobs is not with others in Clay County, but with the entire world.

The teachers didn't want to give up their traditional benefit. The corporation couldn't afford to provide it and will soon be bankrupt which means that the state will come in and take over our schools. But it was settled and unlike the majority of the school corporations in the state, our staffing costs are up over 90% of the budget. On top of that our per student cost is WAY below that of other corporations [by about $2,000 per student] so we are providing even less in curriculum dollars per student by far. I am ashamed of this as all others should be as well.

What do we do now?

Go to our state representatives to get the outdated teacher's contract law repealed so the corporation can rework our outdated system. Get all the members of the team from administrators down to building staff and bus drivers on the same health care benefits as all are valuable members of the team. I have heard teachers argue that they went to school more so deserve better benefits. This is the wrong approach in my opinion. All members of the team deserve the best healthcare that the corporation can afford to provide. Differences in salary determine the educational criteria for different positions in the corporation.

We also need to provide to all the corporation staff the dollar amount it costs the corporation to employ them. I'm sure this would have helped to get the contract settled in a lot more timely manner. The average employee did not see in their pay check stub what the corporation paid each pay period towards their health insurance so they did not see where the corporation paid more and more each year even without a contract renewal even though they might have actually been taking home a few dollars less than the year before. This caused a lot of unnecessary frustration on both sides. I've been promised by the corporation that this pay check stub change was going to be made this year. Hopefully it has. If it hasn't, I hope other readers too will inquire as to why it has not.

Let's work on these issues now so by the time the next contract talks roll around some of these problems will have been solved and we can spend more time on the students.