It just gets worse

I'm too tired and too blech to write much. But for those of you who are wondering if I'm still on the line...I am. Today marked the 5th day of our strike. I am still positive about the time spent and incredibly passionate about why I'm out there. But things are not good.

I have to make this short because tomorrow we're starting at 5:45 AM and some of us are meeting at 5:30 for a prayer group because the whole situation needs to be bathed in prayer. The bad press has continued, though finally one news station is starting to present a more balanced case. Today we met for a general membership meeting. I got out of the car at 3:30...four hours later I walked out of the meeting facing a whole new situation.

800 teahcers were there, in the middle school gym for 3 1/2 hours, we talked a lot. We clapped a lot. We cheered a lot and a lot of people said some very unpopular things.

The district has moved to an acceptable health care proposal (well, not good...but about as good as we're going to get out of them) and curriculum is closer, but the pay is way off. They propose to give us 3.5 percent over 3 years, with an extra 1% if the levy gets passed the third year. They refuse to prioritize teacher salary and they laid down the law that this was their final offer and that along with the offer they wanted us to realize that if they give us that 4% raise over 3 years it will be paired with 36 job cuts this year, 24 next year and another 30 the following year, to make up for the increase in salary. This is rude, and well...I don't want to talk about it. I hate the district, find them incredibly dishonest (for other reasons) and unfair (they emailed all the parents and called homes, which we are unable to do as a union)....

We voted to reject the districts offers but there was definitely some dissension in the ranks. The district has been wanting to divide us for a while and they finally have. I don't like it because I feel like we played into their hand but the bargaining team wanted the assurance that we wouldn't accept the district's offer.

The most likely response now is that we will go back to the picket lines tomorrow and it will start to get ugly. It already has started to get ugly. Though we do have quite a few parent supporters, the tide is turning against us and it's mean. I have never been called so many horrible things in my life and not only will the parent community turn against us but the district will probably file an injunction. Best case scenario, they file it against the union leadership. Middle case they file it against us but no one is arrested. Worst case, they file it against us and a significant number of us go to jail. I find myself thinking that won't happen, but I am still stuck with a decision. Today I voted to reject the district's offer because I can not vote to accept it in good conscience. We've walked over 40 miles already--I will not give up now while we are so close. But...I do not know what I will do if they file an injunction against us. Many in our meeting today declared that they would go to jail for what they see as right...but my student community is not as supportive as the other high schools...I have to decide whether this is important enough to me to break the law. What example am I giving to my kids? I struggle whether it is a good example to stand up for what you believe in or whether breaking the law is not something I want to teach my students...

I'm frustrated. And I'm disappointed. And I'm disillusioned and I just wish that our parents were still behind us....it will be very damaging for our teacher / parent relationships if they are not.

Please pray for this situation. It gets worse by the day, with our own community and as each of us individually struggle to decide where we draw the line and where we are willing to give in to what our community thinks they want.

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