This is my first diary. I have been coming to visit here for about a year. I have made comments, most of them regarding education. I am a special education teacher in middle school(grades 6,7,8) in Springfield, Ohio. I have always voted democrat, but only recently (2004) became actively involved with the democratic process. I have lived in Ohio for only 6 years, so my knowledge of the politics here is limited and what I know disgusts me. I have lobbied for the National Education Association (teacher's union) for the passed two years in Columbus. I have read a lot about NCLB and the politics behind it. I live the day to day pecking away of public education and the theft of money (what precious little is allocated) from special education. I experience the expectations by NCLB, the State of Ohio, the Springfield City Schools' Administration and my building's administration become more and more unrealistic, expecting children with below average IQs to test in the average range, to name only one of many. But I ramble. My diary is about the apathy of my peers and how I ended up sobbing from my gut today.
We were assembled at a staff meeting this afternoon when we were told our parent/teacher conferences were scheduled for 4:00 to 7:00 on November 7 and November 9. I immediately said (outloud) the 7th is election day. There was grumbling from the teachers. Someone piped up and said, "You can vote before work". "Yeah", I heard, "what's the problem?" I said, "Well, we've already lost habeous corpus in this country and I want to help keep what democracy we have left. I VOLUNTEER on election day. I help people with rides to the poll or watch kids at the polling site. It's not about ME voting. I'm voting early. It is about being part of our democracy." Our building principal said that she had made out the schedule last June, so she didn't know when the election was (I guess calendars don't have election day printed on them anymore?????). She said that she didn't want to reprint the schedule for conferences and didn't want to have to send them out again. She said we would, as a staff, vote on whether to have conferences on election night. 14 voted to keep conferences on election night and 7 of us voted for changing the night. I was dumbfounded by the numbers.
One of our sour, angry staff then commented that we should have parent night on election night because there is nothing on TV to watch, anyway. Then he said," I won't be here on election night because I have to show up at the polls at 7 wearing a sandwich board that says vote republican." That got the staff rolling. Oh, he is so funny. I got up and left the meeting at this point. I went back to my classroom and started to sob from my gut.
But it isn't his negativity that sickens me. It's that I work with educators who DON'T THINK DEMOCRACY is worth rescheduling a parent conference night. Many teachers live out of the immediate area and drive quite a distance. They will be at school until 7 p.m. Many have young children to get up and off early before work. The principal, in all her selfishness, put her unwillingness to admit an error and fix it, in front of ensuring her staff has ample opportunity to vote. It is unfair to have working parents choose between conferences or voting, We should NEVER, NEVER, NEVER put obstacles in the way of people voting. What sort of message are we putting out for our youngsters?
How frightening is it to know that these people influence the minds of 500+ students every single school day? I grieve for the state apathy and ignorance that is destroying our country. God help us all.