Featuring Candi Peterson, blogger in residence and candidate for WTU General Vice President
11/21/10 UPDATE: "Holdover" President Parker was a 'no show' at the Nov. 19 meeting, according to attendees.
DCPS Instructional Coaches (IC's) find themselves in a precarious predicament being government employees manipulated at taxpayer's expense. The Washington Teacher has confirmed that Instructional Coaches are required to attend a mandatory November 19 afternoon meeting with "Holdover" president George Parker during instructional time instead of their previously scheduled training.This is the second hastily called Friday meeting for IC's with Parker at taxpayer's expense and has some IC's feeling miffed about the misuse of instructional time and directive to meet with Parker.
In a November 18 email to Jason Kamras, one IC wrote: "In all my years as DCPS employee, I have never worked under administrators who disregarded the sanctity of instructional time. The last such meeting was a total sham! George Parker and Mary Collins presented nothing of educational, or professional value to teachers. Needless to say, I am shocked and disappointed by this administration's callous disregard for instructional time. I have no recourse but to respond to (Washington Post) Bill Turque's queries about this meeting as many WTU members have forwarded the email notices about this meeting to him. Please explain why this meeting is preempting one half day's training for Instructional Coaches for a Union meeting. I pay taxes in DC and I know that you and Kaya do too; thus, I do not believe that DC tax payers will look favorably upon this misuse of learning time for teachers and students."
Another union activist complained to Parker earlier this week in a terse email : "Despite the recent meeting with DC teaching fellows, you have not called a union meeting in six months. This violates our Constitution and you (Parker) are directly responsible for this on-going destruction of unionists' democratic rights." One has to wonder how important these IC's issues really are to Parker given that he hasn't conducted any union meetings (rep. assembly or membership mtgs.) as the WTU Constitution requires. Perhaps Parker's meeting with IC's is as Washington Post writer/blogger Bill Turque suggested about Parker's recent meeting with TFA/DC teaching fellows an attempt by him to reach out to a less active segment of the electorate to garner votes in the runoff election against the Nathan Saunders slate who received the most votes overall. I was in attendance at the TFA/DC Teacher Fellows meeting and the menu piled on crab cakes, London Broil and quesadillas while Parker promised to work on the DC fellows job related issues (i.e not being paid, exorbitant costs for private certification to the tune of $4000, etc.) and provide special IMPACT training.
Given that the city is demanding that teachers be held accountable for student performance- is this union meeting an appropriate use of Instructional Coaches time or is it the payback of Interim Chancellor Kaya Henderson to Parker? As a Washington Teacher commenter wrote to me: "I expect this from Parker, who has pulled every trick out of the book to stay in office, but I'm feeling abused by Kaya Henderson right now. Gray better watch these actions. "
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