By Joseph Gerth, Opinion Columnist
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Gov. Matt Bevin
(Photo: Michael Reaves)
I got to thinking about what Gov. Matt Bevin said on Wednesday about all the “selfish” teachers in Kentucky public schools.
You know the ones he’s talking about. The ones who are so self-centered that they don’t want to accept cuts to the pension benefits that were promised to them years ago.
So I decided to go out and find some of the horrible people who are teaching this state’s children.
Quite frankly I was appalled at what I found.
Take Angela Green for instance. She’s a kindergarten teacher at Mill Creek Elementary School in Shively.
About 90 percent of the kids there qualify for free and reduced lunches, and many of their parents are struggling just to get them to school, let alone with the things they need to succeed.
The school has budgeted money to buy pencils and paper and other basic needs, she said.
“But any time we’re going to be doing anything special, all the materials are bought by me,” she said. “Poster board, art supplies. I buy them all. I buy Play-Doh and books for my library in the class.”
She expects to spend about $1,000 this year.
Selfish, selfish, selfish.
The problem is that Kentucky’s pension programs are billions of dollars in the red because of things that politicians did. They didn’t fully fund the pension systems over the last two decades and they didn’t wisely invest the money.
So the obvious answer is to make the teachers pay. Unless they’re too selfish.
Like Stephanie Roederer.
She’s a middle school language arts teacher at Frederick Law Olmsted Academy South, on Southern Parkway.
She’s almost as selfish as Green.
Teachers there get an allotment of white copy paper, but she likes to use colored paper because she feels like it helps engage the students. “That’s $10 or $12 a ream right there,” she said.
She buys novels for her students, heading to Half Price Books a couple of times a year to drop about $50 each time. She buys things that her students sell to raise money for the school. “I spent 40 bucks the other day on tumblers,” she said.
She rewards the kids with candy and pizza and cookies when they do well. “I might say, ‘If everyone does well on this test, I’ll buy doughnuts.’”
Back when she started teaching a decade ago in Bullitt County, her classroom didn’t have a projector so she could display PowerPoint presentations, so she went out and bought one with her own money. “That was $700 or $800 right there.”
She’ll spend well over $500 each year, she said.
“They’re my kids,” she said.
How dare she?
The biggest trouble with the pension now is that the politicians don’t have the guts to raise taxes or legalize expanded gambling or legalize marijuana — all things that could bring much-needed revenue to the state and help get the pension problem under control.
If you’re not going to raise revenue, the only thing to do is cut benefits to teachers, for gosh sakes, and get rid of the cost of living adjustments that they were promised years ago.
That is if the teachers weren’t too selfish.
Like Susan Ellis.
She’s been a teacher for 22 years. Now she’s teaching reading to first-graders at Breckinridge-Franklin Elementary School on Payne Street.
“This is my mission every day, to take care of these babies’ needs,” she said.
Ellis and other teachers at the school routinely buy everything from glue sticks to pencils to crayons for students. And she always has food and lip balm and tissues that she buys and knows kids will need. Teachers there will sometimes buy clothes for the kids or bring in hand-me-downs from their own children.
“These are just basic things that our children don’t have,” she said.
Last Christmas, because of a mix-up between the school and the school’s resource center, nothing had been done to make sure one family would have presents under the tree on Christmas morning.
When the teachers found out, Ellis said they pooled their money, bought clothes and toys and food and delivered them to the student’s home.
How selfish.
Now I know what Bevin was talking about.
These stories are played out in classrooms all across the state.
Kristina Morgan-Weber, the librarian at Goldsmith Elementary School in Louisville, said she spends about $1,200 each year on her students.
Another teacher said she buys backpacks, treats, gloves, hats and coats for her students.
Melissa Macaluso Brooks, who teaches at Liberty Alternative High School in south Louisville, said she recently paid for a student’s housing deposit at Western Kentucky University. He’s going to be the first person in his family to go to college.
Diane Ashby, a first-grade teacher at Indian Trail Elementary, used to spend $2,000 to $3,000 a year on her students but just couldn’t afford to continue that. “I’ve slowed up some this year. I’m probably up to about $1,000.”
For Rachel McComb, it’s not about the money. She has a 16-year-old daughter with Down syndrome who needs constant supervision and has high medical costs. Yet she finds time to help students maintain seven vegetable garden beds, a monarch butterfly waystation, a sunflower bed and four flower beds.
“I am also the Robotics team coach and co-sponsor of our Student Technology Leadership Program, which placed in the University of Louisville regional event and is headed to the state event in a few weeks. I don’t get paid for the hours I spend doing most of these projects,” she said.
This kind of selfishness is appalling.
Joseph Gerth’s opinion column runs on most Sundays and at various times throughout the week. He can be reached at 502-582-4702 or by email at jgerth@courier-journal.com. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: www.courier-journal.com/josephg.
Winkler was among the teachers and state government retirees who attended a packed hearing of the Senate Standing Committee on State and Local Government in Frankfort. Marty Pearl, Special to Courier Journal