Bennett poses a challenge to Norman, teachers

The Board of Education finally admitted in our last meeting that it CANNOT remove me from office for personal and frivolous reasons. Maybe now BOE will get the message that I’m not just there to fill an empty seat and that the BOE teacher rep is a genuine force on the board. I have always tried to work with the board but the power and the choice has always been with the board to “work with me and not against me.” Unfortunately, the BOE chose to refuse to work with me. It appears BOE had to learn the hard way that it is better to work with me than against me, especially when I’m fighting for what is right and fair for teachers and the system. I’ve taken on Marja Lee, Herman Guerrero, the chairman and now Mr. Scott Norman wants to try his luck. There are only two BOE members left that have remained professional by not taking a personal swing at me in the news.

As for Mr. Norman’s assertion of me being paranoid, it is really him who should be afraid. It is his seat as chair and committee member that should be held by the public school teacher rep and not the private schools’ rep Mr. Norman wants me removed because I’m a threat to him; that is why he was the architect of the board’s actions to try and have me removed, which only served to embarrass the board further. I don’t know when the board members are going to wake up and realize Mr. Norman was using their resentment toward me to earn brownie points and for his own personal agenda to get rid of the strongest threat to the power he now holds on the board.

Mr. Norman’s assertion that I’m not representing teachers is an oxymoron when you consider the fact that I’ve been blackballed from membership in all the BOE committees. He even refused me membership in the committee he chairs. Therefore, I challenge Mr. Norman to step down and allow me to take his place as the chair and member of the committees he is now a part of. He may think it’s a good thing for the private school rep. to stick his nose in PSS business, but I’m sure Mr. Norman is “resented” by many PSS teachers and many stakeholders in the PSS for sticking his nose in the public school’s business. He started with his bold self-injection into the union meeting, then his admonishment that I should sit in the corner and be quiet, up to his failed proposal to the board to have me removed by the governor. It is Mr. Norman who is paranoid, not me.

As for the union, teachers should still be signing up, if they want a permanent representative who can really get things done. I will only be the rep until 2008 and it will take an organized group effort to really maintain a permanent and genuine working relationship with PSS.

A Collective Bargaining Agreement is the only way teachers will be guaranteed permanent “fair treatment” in the workplace. How teachers will achieve a bargaining agreement is a challenge and a choice for teachers and I’m not going to lose any sleep over what teachers will decide to do. I’m giving this my best shot and that’s all I can do.

I am a member of the union but that’s about as far as it goes because we don’t have any organization or officers in the CNMI at this point. I want whatever teachers want and I think teachers know the BOE teacher repcan never do what a union could do for teachers. There will be another major push at the beginning of the next school year to sign up the necessary teachers for the union. However, if 50 percent plus one of the teachers do not sign up for the union, it may become a dead issue that will put teachers virtually right back were we started when I was elected, unless there is a miracle and the board realizes that “change” is necessary and offers to work with the BOE Teacher Rep and to sign a bargaining agreement.

As I see it now its either a union for teachers, teachers pray for a miracle or teachers pray the public will change the board in the next two elections and hope the new BOE will do a better job of working with teachers and their representative. I’m just doing my job by giving teachers a choice, which is what any representative should do for teachers. All teachers, one direction.

Ambrose M. Bennett
Teacher Representative