Schools
Why Teachers Turned Their Backs on the School Board Meeting Wednesday
"The feeling is that the school board is being very disrespectful to the teachers," one reader said.
I wasn't able to cover Wednesday night's school board meeting, but the Davis Enterprise reported that "restive Davis teachers, upset at a proposal to cut their salary by 5 percent, disrupted Wednesday’s Board of Education meeting by turning their backs while the superintendent spoke and loudly clapping to drown out other speakers."
I received an email Thursday from a teacher in the district who elaborated on why the teachers turned their backs during the meeting. According to Dana Sodergren, here's why they did it:
"The major issue that was not mentioned [in the Enterprise article] was the reason the teachers turned their backs. The established agenda of board meetings is public comment first. The board suddenly decided to move public comment to the end. The feeling is that the school board is being very disrespectful to the teachers. They are actively saying, 'We do not want to listen to you.'"
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The May 16 school board agenda does list the public comments as an introductory item to take place at the start of the meeting, per usual routine. With that said, agendas for public meetings can be changed when the board feels it is necessary. It tends to happen when high volumes of people show up to comment on the same topic. It's not always met with enthusiasm.
Some Enterprise readers called the teachers childish for turning their backs, while others came to their defense and stressed the importance of dialog at this time. Sodergren had this to say about the importance of teachers and the pending cuts:
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"Education depends on teachers. Teachers ARE education. Of course teacher pay is the majority of the budget. It should really be about 98% . You can do without new books, new computers, and 99% of the administrators. But you can't teach kids without teachers."
You can watch video of the meeting on Davis Media Access.
What do you think of the proposed cuts and the teachers' decision to turn their backs and clap?
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