Education Day: A crisis in leadership

The reported downsizing of attendance in the annual gathering of teachers during the forthcoming Education Day festivities might just come as the last proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back. Or, send the teachers spirit to perdition.

As a member of the Association of Commonwealth Teachers who, along with many other awakening teachers, wants to see the Association gain its rightful place in the organizational make-up of the Public School System, I think that the teachers themselves are an asset that have been exploited and abused more than profitably utilized. It is a pity that they seem to be more perceived as a threat rather than an ally.

Ironically, the theme for this year’s festivities is: “Education—wealth of the past, the present, and the future.” It feels more like the wealth of the past has been overwhelmed by the contradictions of the present decimating the prospects of any significant future!

There is a defensiveness abroad among some administrators. In not too few occasions where a central office facilitator is leading a meeting and an inquiry or question of clarity is raised, I felt as if a wall akin to the one Bush wants to build facing Mexico immediately goes up. The inquirer is often left wondering what s/he did wrong. The message comes loud and clear: how dare you question my authority, not to mention my intelligence, by asking such a question, or suggesting such a thought!

Regarding teachers as asset, a teacher at my school, one of the last teachers to sign up into the ACT membership drive, fearful that we might approximate the face of the dreaded Guam AFT, opined that had the BoE early on asked the teachers to take a 10 percent cut on salary across the board, they would have gotten a sympathetic audience. Or, at least, he would have been responsive to the call. The massive demoralization that has since transpired would have been avoided, the pain evenly spread out, and teachers would have claimed ownership to the prevailing situation rather than being picked upon to carry the whole weight of a systemic burden. Instead, the BoE groped through a series of indecisions, including inter alia the protracted selection of a Commissioner. Stealthily dealing with the salary scale and the teachers’ certification standards while the Teachers’ Rep was off island (who asked that the issue be not dealt with until he returned), it proceeded to stumble into a few critical blunders that resulted in a rapidly wilting and exodus-contemplating teachers’ corps.

The fact that we even think (if indeed, this is the case as reported in the media) of excluding members of the teaching staff from Rota and Tinian during the Education Day celebration is indicative of a widespread malaise across the system. This is not about individual decision makers. It is about an organizational culture that moves on the basis of projected income, or the absence thereof, rather than the definition of need. For instance, to plan a budget with the assumption that PRAXIS would result in a 50 percent attrition rate is a methodology of losers.

Lest this is perceived as whining, let me offer two days monetary worth of my service to start a fund that will allow ALL the teaching staff of Rota and Tinian to be present in Saipan on Education Day. I call on my colleagues to stand up and contribute. Let me suggest further that we scrap the TOY banquet and brown bag it at Kilili pavilion instead. A canary whispered to our ear that BoE members might even forego using their personnel development funds and use it for the TOY expenditures. Let’s win one. Let’s get everyone here!

But as some of my colleagues at ACT are won’t to say: “Dream on, Mr. V.”

I ask my fellow teachers, especially the TOYs, if the current trend prevails, to call in sick on banquet night and Education Day. With the present state of affairs, if you are not sick, shouldn’t you be? I am. I suspect, come Nov. 22, I will still be.

Jaime R. Vergara
SVES TOY 2006