I am holding a pretty big grudge against our school district right now. They offered our union a 0% C.O.L.A. in the first round of negotiating our contract this year. This comes on the heel of pulling some nonsense on our retirees last year, cutting short negotiations and giving them what amounted to 5% less than continuing employees.
The state has given them 8% for Cost of Living Adjustment this year, mainly for employees and they offer us 0%. It really shows a lot of disrespect, so yeah, I suppose I do have a grudge there. The district has been good to me in the sense that I came from the restaurant world where employees have no rights or protections comparatively, but it is sad when our district is one of the best in state and we continue to get treated this way.
This year we are getting after it more though. We are trying to get 700-800 people out to our districts first board meeting to let them know that we are watching this process and noting their general dispositions, where last year, we never got out and when we thought we would, they ended negotiations prematurely.

I know no one goes into teaching for the money, but keeping up with inflation would be a nice touch when our district has a $90 million surplus and incoming record funding from the state.
End of rant
Thanks for reading Bunchiesblog! I encourage all of you to get involved in your local school districts meetings to better the future of our education system her in the U.S.
I totally get it, I’m a school bus driver and we are getting screwed by the administration on our hours for extended time. Some of us get back later than we are allowed to put down on our time sheets. If we miss more than 3 days of work without a doctors note, they said we need to be fired. I talked with the transportation office and she told me that’s only if we have their health insurance. Sometimes life gets in the way where your not sick, but have to take off to deal with whatever occurred, that isn’t a sickness. They are so short on drivers, i don’t think they realize how important bus drivers are to a school. I do wish we were Union, but no one here would go for it.
That’s ridiculous. Driving a bus full of kids is extremely stressful, especially this day and age. Our district doesn’t even provide transportation anymore, the kids have to take the city bus, which is always late and overcrowded. Then they don’t understand why they can’t get a consistent quality workforce, but somehow they never forget to give themselves nice raises and cost of living adjustments. It is so bizarre and frustrating.
Asa teacher myself, I can 100% sympathize.
It is like an unwritten rule that they have to treat school staff like crap, I don’t get it. We are the face of their brand that they care so much about. Why do they want to constantly antagonize us?