Support Raises for Teachers in Virginia

I consider myself very fortunate to have grown up in a home where I was talk to embrace my freedom to participate in government. (Thank you to Thomas Jefferson and our Founding Fathers for writing the Declaration of Independance!) I can remember going to Phillips Volunteer Fire Station with my mom on election day as a little girl so that I could "vote." When I turned 18, I was thrilled to go to the polling station and cast my first official ballot. Although I cannot tell you now what particular election it was, I was proud to be an American more so than normal on that day. I felt like I had made an everlasting impact on history. Even now, I still get that same feeling and try to teach the same values to my own children. Having said all that, I feel that it is so important to continue to take part in political issues that are important.

Today, I learned from my local Education Association, the the Virginia Education Assocation that the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that state employees will be getting a 3% salary increase. "That's great news for teachers!", I thought at first glance. Not so! Even though I am technically a state employee (my retirement will be paid through the Virginia Retirement System) on paper, this pay increase does not apply. Hmmmm, doesn't seem to make much sense does it? When I moved to my current four years ago, I took a pay cut of about $7,000 a year with that move; which I was prepared to do. The problem is that I have not gotten a raise in salary since my move, nor am I moving up on the steps (this is a % increase for years experience). I am frequently told, "We have to do more with less." I have done so time and time again with little complaint and will continue to do so for the simple reason that I LOVE TEACHING and OUR CHILDREN are worth it; however, if on paper I am a state employee, I think that I should reap more of the benefits. It is not ethical for teachers to be considered state employees when it comes to budget cuts and shortfalls, but when there are monetary rewards to be had be excluded. Now, I am not one that would consider myself a math whiz, in fact, I don't even really like math, but....those numbers just don't seem to add up.

Should you feel the same, I urge you to follow the link to the VEA website and encourage your representatives to include teachers in salary increases. It's simple to do, if you look on the right hand side of the page you will see the the Action Center. Click the "Act Now" link and complete the form.

http://www.vea.nea.org/ Here is the link again just in case it didn't show up. I am still learning how to blog.

Saying Goodbye to Summer

It is with great remorse that I say goodbye to summer for another year. It seems that with each passing year that summer flies by more and more quickly. Although, I did accomplish some of the things on my goal list for my 8 weeks off, I did not do nearly as much as I would have liked. My basement is only semi-organized, the office is a wreck, and all of that scrapbooking that I just knew I would do....did not happen. My plans for my last weekend of freedom have seemed to go by the wayside as well; but such is life. In the words of John Steinbeck, "The best laid plans are of mice and men."

Why Blog?

I can't really give an exact reason for starting a blog except, I thought that I should give it a try. I have found that when I am exploring technology, that the best way for me to learn it to simply have a little hands-on experience. Who knows where this may lead? Right now, I am gearing up for another school year. Even though, I love to teach and work in the field of special education, for some reason I just can't seem to get motivated to begin. I feel like this summer has flown by and I am just not ready for it to end, although, the structure will probably help to eliminate some of the chaos in my life.
I recently attended a conference that was the culmination of a year long commitment to learning more about myself as a leader. For this last session, we went through an excercise in which we reviewed our loves, both personally and professionally, and developed a year long plan of goals. It was amazing to me that once I had to put pen to paper how real these goals became. Now I just have to figure out how I will accomplish them without procrastination.