Teachers denounced for theatrics
Teachers have been criticized for dragging students out the frontlines in the political drama to try to head off threats to employment security and salary cutbacks.
The criticisms were directed at teachers who had organized rallies in which students were tagged along, captured in news pictures holding banners in what was construed more as a stage-managed event than a voluntary act of students.
“I hate to hear schools and teachers who try to influence the students on a political level. That is bad. Do not use the students,” said Rep. Heinz S. Hofschneider, chairman of the Health, Education and Welfare Committee.
“We don’t pay people to incite political fears,” Hofschneider said, urging the Public School System to carry its performance to the level expected of the size of the government’s education spending.
The president of the PTA Council, Serafina King Nabors, echoed Hofschneider’s concerns.
Visibly upset, Nabors told a recent forum of teachers: “You come to the CNMI, but you only worry about your salary. These children are the future of the CNMI, while you guys are here temporarily.”
She asked the teachers to bear the economic pain with the community, saying education officials are doing their best so that the effects of the crisis would not come down hard on them.
Franklin Keiper, vice president of the Marianas Teachers Union, assured Nabors that teachers from the mainland are not leaving until the end of the school year.
He said he had conducted a random survey at the Marianas High School in which 47 teachers out of 51 polled said they preferred to stay. Four said they wanted out.
Teachers have been edgy lately after PSS unveiled plans to slash wages by 10 percent and cut contract employees.
The salary cuts would have taken effect next month, but a fresh fund injection bought a little more time for those who would otherwise have come under the chopping block.
The acting budget officer of PSS had said the funding boost could carry the school system until June 18 without layoffs.
To dramatize their opposition, teachers had set up demonstrations, appealing to authorities to not let go of employees and keep salaries intact. And that’s where the unsuspecting students came in.
Hofschneider said he is not opposed to students demanding reforms but that these must be grounded genuinely on education policies, not stained with politics.
He said the package of employment benefits for teachers is generous enough, and this should instead spur them on in educating children.