{"id":111,"date":"2010-10-01T06:08:51","date_gmt":"2010-10-01T10:08:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unionvilletimes.com\/?p=111"},"modified":"2010-10-04T16:30:47","modified_gmt":"2010-10-04T20:30:47","slug":"reaching-for-the-middle-ground-on-teachers%e2%80%99-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=111","title":{"rendered":"Reaching for the middle ground on teachers\u2019 talks"},"content":{"rendered":"

UCF contract talks leave parents, students, taxpayers in increasing war of words<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong><\/span>, Editor, Unionville Times<\/em><\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>At some point in the conversation, you have to get past posturing and get down to problem solving.<\/span><\/span><\/span>
\nLike taxpayers, parents and others with a direct stake in the ongoing negotiations between the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District and its teachers\u2019 union, the Unionville-Chadds Ford Education Association, I\u2019m caught in the middle between both sides.<\/p>\n

Forget for a second that I am a taxpayer here \u2014 my wife and I have owned a home in Pocopson for more than 11 years \u2014 and my kids are students in the district. It\u2019s the constant tug and pull going on, as one side and then the other tries to make their side of the argument, reacting to each one of my new reports on the status of the talks.<\/p>\n

Commentary<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The complicated truth of the matter is this: both sides are right and both sides are wrong, which makes it complicated at best to honestly and fairly cover these sort of events. That\u2019s not to say that either side is populated by bad people or evil doers \u2014 quite the opposite, and I know all the people involved are good people doing what they think is exactly right from their perspective.<\/p>\n

Therein lies the problem: the increasing lack of perspective as these talks drag on. Here are two truths: there\u2019s not enough money to give the teachers a big pay raise and, frankly, we probably don\u2019t pay our teachers enough, not that any district does, but the student achievement in Unionville, both by measured numbers and anecdotal reports, suggest that they do an exceptional job.<\/p>\n

Out of that conflict of competing truths, somewhere, people have to find a solution. You could see a few heads nod the during the school board meeting the other night when Karen Halstead, in her colorful and unique way, suggested that the professional negotiators on both sides weren\u2019t helping get a settlement done.<\/p>\n

I tend to agree, having covered my share of labor strife over the years. Without question, the professionals are better at representing their side \u2014 but when you have two going head-to-head, and neither with a personal stake in the proceedings, it can become a polarizing \u201cus versus them\u201d situation, leading to a stalemate, or worse, a strike.<\/p>\n

In reality, though, it\u2019s all just us \u2014 and we as a community have to come together and figure out how we\u2019re going to navigate this mess \u2014 a mess, I might add only partially of our own creation. The high school renovation project led to two things that have complicated matters: a larger debt service than might have been possible with a scaled-back project and a more fiscally conservative school board, elected after the community felt like the previous board had ignored its wishes.<\/p>\n

What isn\u2019t anyone\u2019s fault in the community is being the middle of the worst economic downturn since 1930s. The bad economy and an utter lack of wisdom by the state legislature caused the current crisis with the Public School Employees Pension System and it\u2019s possible that is unfair to blame the teachers \u2014 the only group that actually has paid their fair share to the pension fund in 2001.<\/p>\n

The pension and the details of the pension are something to take up with out local state legislators \u2014 and while the final numbers have to be part of the conversation, they shouldn\u2019t be used as a hammer to bludgeon teachers.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the teachers know that things aren\u2019t so great even in this wealthy community. You don\u2019t have to go far to hear about McMansions with no furniture and tales of repo men grabbing Lexus SUVs \u2014 the great recession has hit Unionville, too.<\/p>\n

The politics require compromise \u2014 and truthfully, I don\u2019t think the board will \u2014 or can \u2014 make much in the way of a big step. Because of the politics \u2014 let\u2019s not forget that three of these board seats are up in 2011 \u2014 and the lingering anger in the community over repeated max tax hikes and high school project, this board pretty much has to take a fiscally prudent stand. Not to mention the fact that they can argue pretty effectively that there is only so much money; the more spent on teachers means less spent on kids.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s needed now is a cool head, and less attempts to win the headline war. There\u2019s no good solution here, but we as a community must find the least bad one \u2014 one that fairly balances the needs of taxpayers and students.<\/p>\n

I know Unionville can do this. Let\u2019s show them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UCF contract talks leave parents, students, taxpayers in increasing war of words By Mike McGann, Editor, Unionville Times At some point in the conversation, you have to get past posturing and get down to problem solving. Like taxpayers, parents and others with a direct stake in the ongoing negotiations between the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[39,29,33,45,44,43,42,24],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-featured","tag-chadds-ford","tag-chester-county","tag-high-school","tag-negotiations","tag-school-board","tag-schools-2","tag-teachers-contract","tag-unionville"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}