The Rohnert Park Board of Trustees and Superintendent are shaming teachers for seeking a living wage. On February 15, the Cotati Rohnert Park Unified District held a board meeting, an update on negotiations was briefly touched upon. The board did not respond or ask any questions to those addressing the board. However the board and superintendent did send a letter to all parents shaming teachers for daring to ask to be able to live on their communities without taking a second job. The fact that board is openly saying stating that a living wage for teachers will come on the back of students insults the intelligence of the community. Below are the highlights of the most shameful actions the board and superintend have taken.
1) Failure to attend negotiations: Not a single board member has attended negotiations, the superintendent has only attended to drop off donuts. (Keep your donuts and provide a living wage). The board needs to end its propaganda campaign that they actually care.
2) Retaliation: Teachers are being bullied when they engage in talks about negotiations or share information with students and parents during off hours. Talk about cutting positions and disciplinary action that will take place if a strike occurs.
3) Lack of Respect: While board meeting must end by 10pm (they can extended to 10:30pm but only on a limited basis). The Last and Best offer provided to teachers was presented at 11pm and the board and superintendent then decided to shame teachers for not providing a timely response back.
4) Transparency: Special Meetings are not recorded, legally the board of trustees is responsible for recording all public meetings including special meetings, yet this has no occurred on a consistent basis.
5) Manipulation of Data: The board is grouping all administration and teacher salaries in effort to diminish the ask being made by the teachers union. Rather than sharing the actual spend on educators vs. administration this allows them to claim that 78% of expenditures are teacher salaries. SHAME on them again for being manipulative.
The shame is on Joe Cimino, Leffler Brown, Chrissa Gillies, Michelle Wing, Mark Nelson and Mayra Perez. They have failed the entire community and are now more concerned with covering their public image vs. addressing the problem.