Helen Gym: SRC statement: Going to war on your own soldiers
These remarks were made at the Aug. 15 SRC special meeting which stripped seniority from the teachers’ contract. This means that the District has the right to arbitrarily determine which staff to return to schools based on “need.”
Last week when you Superintendent Hite issued your ultimatum, parents across the city sprang into action on your behalf. Within 24 hours we were down at City Hall meeting with the Mayor’s office staff and City Council members. Parents wrote letters to the editor, made phone calls, contacted the media about our stories ,and turned out for press conferences for support. We stayed up late, emailing into the night, and met and planned – all on behalf of you because , foolishly, we somehow believed.
Of all the things which have run through my head in the past week, the saddest one perhaps is the sinking in that all of last week – the plea from you, Superintendent Hite, the threat not to open schools which sent parents and families across the city into a panic, the dueling press conferences – all of it was nothing but political theater to justify this.
This was never, never about educating our children.
If it were, you would have made the smallest effort to make sure the state money was on the table. But you didn’t even try to get money from the state, money which would have alleviated, if not solved, this crisis. Instead you are permitting the woeful unprepared opening of schools no superintendent or educator in their right mind would declare fit or ready for children. You allow this opening of schools in order to provide pathetic cover for a