A response to BOE concerns

This letter is my response to the three concerns raised by the Board of Education in its meeting last July 27.

I have told the board on more than one occasion that I’m here to help. But it is becoming ever more obvious this board is dead set on creating the same atmosphere we see with unions and I’m the only one on the board that will have the luxury of saying I tried to avoid the need for a union.

1. In regards to the testing, I have made it very clear that I’m for the testing and the concerns I made are only issues that we (the entire board) may have to address. I’m only doing my job as the BOE teacher representative. It is clear that the concerns I raised were not considered in the committee meeting and that is the main reason I should have been included. A notice in the paper over the summer for teachers was not sufficient. Many if not the majority of teachers don’t even read the paper—a phenomenon that was discovered during the BOE teacher representative election through a survey of 278 teachers. Many teachers were also off-island during this summer. I am a BOE member and I only knew about the testing when the Board was ready to vote. Why didn’t the board wait until school re-opened to send out a memorandum to the schools for assurance that teachers were informed—respect? I’ll tell you why—the board didn’t want teachers to be informed to avoid dealing with teachers’ concerns.

2. I resent any fellow board member directing me to “sit in the corner and be quiet until I can gain the respect of the board and convince them to do something about the collective bargaining issue.” This statement is a clear reproduction of how my parents and others were treated prior to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Furthermore, I shouldn’t have to convince this board about a matter of Local and Federal Law. The board is making the collective bargaining issue turn out to be the same scenario we see in states with unions by refusing the rights of teachers under local and federal law. The board should be asking me to help the board instead of playing ignorant about collective bargaining, using stall tactics, making power plays to stop me from communicating with teachers and they have even tried to get rid of me to avoid the issue. I could be the board’s best helper yet two members still are trying to manipulate the chair and want to treat me like a token member filling a quota or worse.

It should also be noted; the BOE member who professed in the meeting that the board has respect for teachers and is always working with teachers is lying. This same member of the previous board pulled me to the side and said, “if you don’t go along with this Board, I’m going to cut your legs.” Now a BOE member wants to tell me to “sit in the corner and be quiet”—so who is really being arrogant? Ignorance is also no excuse under the law and for the board to profess ignorance with an attorney on staff is absolutely ridiculous.

Board members are upset because the games and intimidation tactics are not working on me because I know a person shouldn’t have to earn respect to work with others. Respect for one another is an expectation in our very nature from birth to death. I’m just a person that “demands” respect and some people just don’t like it and can’t yield or be professional enough to give respect. I have experienced, studied and prepared for this transformation in teacher representation and this board’s attempts to play games with me and to circumvent me are like child’s play. I have the equivalency or a Ph.D. in these matters and its only prudent for the BOE members in question to stop playing with me because teachers and myself have Local and Federal Law on our side.

3. As for the apology and vendetta assertions, the board can’t be so naïve as to believe Mr. Guerrero didn’t d anything to provoke the response to his “opinion” in my letter too him. I am a member of this board and I want this entire board to look good but some board members don’t want to do the right thing. I am powerless to carry out any vendetta against this board making this an empty complaint. Regarding the apology to Mr. Guerrero and use of letterhead, the chair and I have discussed this and made an agreement. “I will be more cognizant of how I use the letterhead and to include a disclaimer when needed and that I will apologize to Mr. Guerrero when he is ready to apologize to me—like grown men should do.”

Mr. Guerrero refused to meet with me or reply too the many letters I wrote to him trying to establish an MOU on guidelines for teachers to organize and have an election. To this date, nothing formal has ever been put in place by BOE. He instead used this lack of formality to create his own rules as events occurred in an attempt to derail the entire process. It should also be noted that we had a BOE meeting and a committee meeting after Mr. Guerrero received the letter I sent and he said nothing. He purposely waited until the week of the BOE teacher representative election to make his complaint and leaked it to the news in hopes that it would cause me to lose the election. He is one of the BOE members that asked me not to write in the news BOE or PSS matters and I graciously complied only to be stabbed in the back. Mr. Guerrero even degraded the teacher organization I established in the newspaper and promoted the opposing group ignoring the AG’s admonishments for BOE to “remain neutral with no interference.” Mr. Guerrero had a big hand in polarizing teachers behind the scenes and he has also gone to principals telling them to ignore my letters. Mr. Guerrero should have gotten a reprimand, not me.

But the solution for BOE is really a very simple and basic people skill. The entire board must respect teachers and the BOE teacher representative as a fellow BOE member, respect the Local and Federal Laws granting teachers the right to bargain and work with me. I am the only one placed in a position by our Constitution to help the board, commissioner and teachers to accomplish collective bargaining in the best interest of everyone without making it ugly and without the need for the services of a union. The decision to make this a nice or ugly transformation has always been with the board, not me. All teachers, one direction.

Ambrose M. Bennett
BOE teacher representative