In the wake of tensions between the school district and its teachers, school superintendent insists that the online presentation is the right course of action.
Green Bay School District officials provided this year’s annual welcome back for teachers online instead of in person, writes Patti Zarling at the Green Bay Press-Gazette.
Whereas in previous years teachers would gather a few days before the start of school at the West High School auditorium to hear from the school superintendent and other speakers as an unofficial kickoff to the new academic year.
Instead, teachers this year viewed recorded messages from new district Superintendent Michelle Langenfeld, School Board president Jean Marsch and Green Bay Education Association president Toni Lardinois through video podcasts shown online.
Since a new teachers’ contract was signed in spring, the relationship between teachers and school officials has sometimes been tense. Marsch said changing the presentation of the back-to-school address is not a reaction to that.
The new teachers’ contract suspends many rules about teachers’ working conditions and requires them to pay more toward retirement and health care benefits. The new agreement followed changes in state law that eliminated collective bargaining for most public employees.
“The meetings at West High School would often be quite crowded,” Marsch said about recent back-to-school meetings.
Officials considered a face-to-face back-to-school address, which could have meant renting an outside space, but there’s a cost associated with that. “We thought, ‘Why incur the cost?’” she said.
“Teachers have a lot to do at the start of the school year. We’re using technology in a new way. We think it’s going to be better.”
Teachers have no problem with the podcasts, according to Lori Blakeslee, spokeswoman for the teachers union.
“Our relationship with the School Board is fine, and we are fine with the welcome back,” she said. “They have said they want to work with us, and we believe we’ll move forward in a collaborative way. Everyone is very respectful.
“Our teachers feel that’s a positive thing — to do it at the schools. From our perspective, our teachers will appreciate it.”
Teachers expressed frustration earlier this summer when the district added a half-hour to their workday and made changes to their planning time. Board members and the superintendent, however, have promised to work more closely with teachers as they move forward with policy reviews.
“That’s probably the biggest change that needed to be made,” she said. “It will vary from school to school, and teachers will have input. It’s a work in progress. Things haven’t been finalized in each school.”
There has been talk of a new employee handbook, but Marsch said nothing is immediately planned.
She said she welcomes the start of the new school year.
“We’re really anxious to open schools. It’s always an exciting time.”
However, not all teachers were keen to accept the changes. As many teachers across Wisconsin chose retirement over coming back in the wake of a new law that forces them to pay more for benefits while taking away most of their collective bargaining rights, writes Scott Bauer at the Associated Press.
Documents obtained by The Associated Press shows that about twice as many public school teachers decided to hang it up in the first half of this year as in each of the past two full years, part of a mass exit of public employees.
The exodus of teachers has led to fears that the jobs might not be filled, and that classroom leadership by veteran teachers will be lost.
In the first six months of 2011, overall public employee retirements were double that in all of either 2009 or 2010, according to data provided to the AP by the Wisconsin Retirement System. That includes 4,935 Wisconsin school district employees who started receiving retirement benefits, up from 2,527 teacher retirements in all of 2010 and 2,417 in 2009, writes Bauer.
A spokesman for the Wisconsin Association of School Boards said it was not tracking retirements. And it’s unclear how many vacancies caused by teacher retirements are being filled statewide. A website maintained by the state listed 244 public school openings as of Monday.
In Green Bay, about 140 out of 1,700 of the district’s teachers retired this year. Another 50 or so planned to retire in the middle of this school year.
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