Fighting for the right stuff

To the editor:

The school year is officially under way and I feel the readership of your paper needs to know that their child’s teacher is still working without an agreed-upon contract between the teachers and the Osceola County School Board.

Yet every teacher that I know goes to work every day; fights ever increasing stacks of paperwork, knows that some of their students are bordering on homelessness, ducks from fingers pointed at them because they want to follow what the voters wanted – classroom sizes that are manageable – increased pressure to have students perform on a test that is on its way out and still manages to smile. I don’t believe I have seen an article relating to this in the Gazette up to this point so hopefully this letter with give the necessary enlightenment to your readership.

In an article a couple of weeks ago, your paper stated, according to the district staff, that teachers received a raise last year. This is not true for the 400-plus teachers who have taught the greatest amount of years, as the top of the salary scale remained frozen with a non-repeating “bonus retention” (I believe it was called – I called it an insult – but, I helped the struggling economy and spent it). The truth must be told: those teachers, me included, have not received a raise since 2007. In addition, this also negatively impacts my retirement that is “a benefit” that I am counting on to receive due to my epic devotion to the education of students in Osceola County.

The same article said that “staff” has not received a raise. True, they did not receive a raise that I am aware of, they received a reduced working calendar two years ago and it was again passed by the board this year. As a result of reducing their work calendar by three or four days, top management received payments to not work, resulting in a windfall of thousands of dollars at the highest levels. This benefit resulted in an increase for all support positions for 11- and 12-month employees and did not even consider longevity with the district, impact on the student’s learning gains, contact with students or impact on the district. They just received the windfall. I do not believe that this windfall fairly trickled down to the support personnel that daily work with the students as most of them are 10-month employees and the calendar adjustment was only for the 11 and 12 support personnel.  

Now that the School Board has attended a workshop to help them work together collaboratively, hopefully they will take that collaboration to working with the people that impact the youth of this county most — the teachers. Maybe the next thing on their “to-do list” is reward the teachers who have devoted their lives to the education of students in Osceola County and all folks who are face-to-face with their child daily.

Do what is correct — give us a raise.

Thanks,

Jo (Olson) Beach, Teacher
Kissimmee

Thanks for help during choking

To the editor:

A couple of weeks ago, my husband, Harley, and I were eating lunch at Mrs. Mac’s.

Suddenly, my husband started choking. I tried the Heimlich maneuver but due to weakness in my right arm, I wasn’t strong enough to make it work. I cried for help and a gentleman at the next table came to our rescue.

The piece of beet was dislodged and my husband could breathe again. 911 was called and the EMTs checked him out. Unfortunately, he was too embarrassed to go to the hospital so I was told to take him to our family doctor.

I want to thank George, who works in downtown Kissimmee, for stepping in and helping us in this life-threatening time. We lost a child 27 years ago in a choking accident and when this happened I froze. I didn’t want to go through that situation again.

Thank you to the waitress who stood by me, the EMTs who responded quickly and especially to the good Samaritan who graciously left his lunch to help.

Beverly and Harley Houseman
Kissimmee