CALVO: “If you take on the duties of cleaning your own classrooms with your students… supervise children in the hallways on a rotational basis… and make sure kids are safe in the cafeteria, the playground and on their arrival and departure from school… in return, your pay will increase collectively by the amount saved within your budget. It will be funded by the reduction of expenses for janitorial and supervisory services that will no longer be needed.”
THE TRUTH
Pay: The Governor does not have the power to set pay for teachers, it’s set by the legislature.
Firing school aids and custodians: How will firing a couple of hundred people that do the critical work of protecting our children and ensuring that our schools are safe and sanitary benefit anyone? It will actually hurt our economy and our students not to mention the hundreds of more unemployed people that won’t be able to take care of their families because they have been fired.
Making teachers clean toilets: Teachers went to college for years to become professionals and now the Governor wants them to clean toilets? That’s an insult! Does a doctor have to clean up the Operating Room after surgery? Does the Governor clean his own office and bathroom?
Making teachers be security guards: Elementary teachers already pick up and deliver their students. Imagine if there were no school aides in middle or high school. Who would break up fights? 75% of teachers are women and even most male teachers are not trained to deal with this, nor do any of them want to. It’s important to have trained professional school aids ready to protect our students at all times. Look what happened to Jeromy Newby when we didn’t have enough.