Teachers shouldn’t need seminar time

What is wrong with the school board in District 15? Why do we keep electing these officials? Stand and fight against the unions and the school boards, quit giving them everything they want.

So we are giving the teachers in effect a 7.5 increase in their salary for them to hone their development skills every Friday. Give me a break. Shouldn’t that be an ongoing experience as they teach their students? That is three hours a week for 34-35 school weeks. Shouldn’t we decrease their salaries by this amount?

I’m paying them for something that they should be learning throughout their entire career. If you have been a teacher for five, 10, 15 years and you don’t know how to do your jobs by this time, find another career. Guess what, you wouldn’t last long in the private sector.

When I was a manager we learned on the job how to develop our skills. Maybe once a year we had a seminar, 8-16 hours spread over a couple of days. Yes, this was on the company’s dime. But we still had to make sure our tasks were done at the end of the day. This usually meant staying after the seminar and catching up.

So who is going to take attendance on these teachers on Friday afternoons? I volunteer to take attendance every Friday at Sundling Jr. High. That would go over big with the union, wouldn’t it?

The parents voted for the early dismissal, which beats the alternate late start. But they still have to adjust the schedules.

Teachers do a good job with what they have. But do they need this extra three hours to hone their skills instead of teaching their students? It’s 100+ hours lost to teaching our kids what they need to know.

Paul Gasiorowski

Palatine