School District Wraps Up "Teacher Appreciation Week"

Are Emery Teachers Feeling Appreciated?

Opinion
It's been Teacher Appreciation Week at Emery Unified School District and teachers were feelin' the love all week long in the form of special treats and riots of flowers from the School District.  Alas, come Monday morning it will have all passed and it'll be back to the grind for Emeryville's most under appreciated public workers.  Elsewhere in California, school districts only celebrated Teacher Appreciation Day, May 7th, but here at Emery, it's been all week.  With large school yard banners conspicuously turned towards the community at large, the School Board obviously wanted to send a loud and clear message to the citizens that teachers are much appreciated at Emery Unified.

Teachers...We Appreciate You!
There, that's finished, now can we go back to
business as usual?

After the hoopla dies down, listening to the concerns of Emery teachers however causes one to wonder just who Teacher Appreciation Week here is really for.  Because without any fanfare, the School Board has been busy doling out pain to teachers during the other 51 weeks of the year.  From sub-standard compensation to cutbacks on hours driving some into part time positions with fewer benefits to outright lay-offs for others causing increased work loads for the rest to the shameful disregard of the Teachers Resolution litany of grievances against the Superintendent of the Schools presented last year, Teacher Appreciation Week smells like just another Emery School District public relations campaign.  Perhaps it's meant to make the School Board members feel better for the shoddy treatment routinely meted out to the teachers.

Real appreciation involves respect and that's what's missing here.  The School Board showed their lack of respect for the teachers in spectacular fashion last summer.  After the teachers showed up en masse at a School Board meeting in June and read aloud their Teachers Resolution of no confidence in Debbra Lindo, the Superintendent, the School Board countered at the following meeting by reading aloud their own resolution of support of the Superintendent.  More than 90% of Emery teachers signed their Resolution.  Since then, shockingly, there's been no meaningful effort on the School Board's part to address the teacher's legitimate concerns.

This School District has shown a propensity to lay out the platitudes freely and sometimes shamelessly.  That's what's happening this week.  But we'd like to see some real teacher appreciation here for a change.