Your mission, should you choose to accept it... No, really... Should you choose to accept it?
Contracts are coming out April 12.
Deployment Assignments will not be out until much later.
What are you signing up for?
Being asked to make a commitment to performing an unknown job is unreasonable and strips us of the ability to make important career decisions, create successful programs which become the foundation of a lifetime of learning for students and families, build relationships with students and staff, and manage work/life balance.
Even those undertaking the impossible are given the details of the situation before choosing whether or not to accept the mission. That's the basic concept of a contract.
Other educators have contract language minimizing the impact of displacements and involuntary transfers. We are told these do not apply to us. This is inequitable.
If you are unworried by this, then you probably have not been arbitrarily transferred. Yet.
After all this year has brought, it sure would be nice to know what we're going to be asked to do in the fall.
Deployments should come before contracts.
Please engage Christa Erolin, Lisa Nolan, Forrest Griek, and Kristin Bell in conversation about how this particular inequity can be lessened.
A long letter is not necessary. When questions about current situations or future deployment occur to you, just shoot out an email with your question -- the idea being that we can raise awareness that there are both wide-spread and more specific situations that need to be addressed in order to serve every student every day with quality instruction.
Please encourage principals, district administrators, union representatives, parents, and community members in an effort to ensure students have these opportunities going forward.
Visit tacomaspecialists.org for advocacy materials, who to address, and example letters to help organize your thoughts and promote a productive dialog.
