Op-Ed: Woburn Teacher Defends Work-To-Rule

The following letter to the editor was sent by Woburn Memorial High School foreign language teacher Belinda Smith:

Dead Editor,

These last few weeks have been long ones for teachers in Woburn.

As another year begins to wind down, we find ourselves inundated with wrapping up our curricula, coordinating our schedules with state exams, completing all of our grading in a timely manner, and making sure our students stay motivated up through the final bell.

There has been a lot of talk and rumors about how our position of enacting Work-to-Rule has been detrimental to your students. I would like to take a moment to dispel that rumor.

As a teacher I have always put the needs of my students before my own. Even as we are engaged in “work-to-rule” I, and all of my colleagues, have continued to provide a quality education to your students. I have continued to help them grow not only in academics but in their personal lives.

I have continued to dry tears, give hugs and high fives, create study guides, provide extra help once a week, and help my students navigate their academic and personal futures.

I have stopped fights, mended friendships, and still managed to introduce the subjunctive tense in my Spanish class.

This past week, for the first time in my 6 years at WMHS, I did not attend the Senior prom. As part of ‘work-to-rule’ teachers do not participate in things that we are not compensated for. Many would say that this is only punishing the students, but let me tell you about how this was a hurt that fell squarely on my own shoulders.

I taught two classes of seniors this year, but beyond that I have taught many of the seniors when they were in their freshmen and sophomore years. I am also the advisor for the National Honor Society, giving me the chance to connect and work with many more seniors that did not otherwise take a Spanish class with me.

I have watched these seniors grow academically, personally, athletically, and physically. They are an outstanding group of young adults who were once just small, goofy kids figuring out their way through the halls of WMHS.

While I would never profess to be as important in their lives as their parents, I have grown to care about many of these students as if they were my own children. Not going to prom or the promenade this year was devastating to me.

As I have heard from many of my students following the event, the all still had a wonderful time and enjoyed a night that they will surely remember for the rest of their lives and will hold dearly as they continue on to the next phase of their lives.

The students were not punished, their evening was not ruined.

Should the negotiations still not be resolved come June 7, teachers will also not be present at the graduation ceremony for the Class of 2015. This will be perhaps more upsetting to teachers than missing the prom as we have worked so closely with these students to help them reach this culmination of their academic careers at WMHS.

The students will still walk across the stage, receive their diplomas, and attend countless graduation parties and the “All-nighter” celebration.

Please do not misunderstand my letter as one that is condemning work-to-rule or advocating that we stop observing ‘work-to-rule’. As teachers this is the only tool in our proverbial toolbox that we can enact to bring about awareness to our current negotiation stalemate.

Work-to-rule is an unfortunate circumstance of some unfortunately stagnant negotiation meetings. As someone who is sitting at the table of these meetings I can say with confidence that we have put forth every effort to avoid utilizing measures like work-to-rule.

We met as an entire teachers’ union and came to the consensus that it was a necessary step when we voted on the measure in mid-April.

My purpose in writing to you is to encourage the public to hesitate before making assumptions about teachers and how or why we do the things that we do; and before you jump to conclusions about teachers, take a moment and remember that we are not the only ones in the city without a contract.

Sincerely,

Belinda Smith

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