It was a rally asking you to simply give us what you promised. A chance to provide a better education to the beautiful children of this state. A chance to be paid the same as our colleagues interstate, that doesn't sound like too much to ask does it?
You offered to give us a pay increase...of pittance. It was not that though that got the fire boiling within me Ted. It was the proposed performance bonus and the way in which I will earn it that really made me mad. I will need to earn it through working more than the 38 hour week I am already paid for you say?
I am quite confused and I will be contacting my bank tomorrow as clearly there is something wrong with the figures within my account. For one there is very little money in there at all, but that is not what I will be enquiring about, I will be quering where my overtime has been placed? Where is all the extra money that I should be earning for the time I do at home? For instance, I cannot see reflected in my account the 7 hour day I did last Sunday? Sunday, that would be double time wouldn't it? What about the evenings? surely the after hours time would give me a rate of time and a half? So please add another 9 hours onto Sundays total for the last few nights....
I wonder what the CBA would say to me if I did ring?
I don't get paid for all of that extra work do I Mr Baillieu? It is just a part of the job that I do in order to provide the best education that I can to the students that I teach. It is just a part of the increasing amount of additional work that I need to complete in order to show my accountability to my work.
Mr Baillieu, while I am checking my account I would also like to see where the money is that should be returned to me for things that are not provided towards my special needs son, within the public school system. You see, unfortunately the scoring and assessment for special needs funding within schools is set to be so low on the scale of disability that him, and many others who need additional assistance within the classroom, are not funded to receive it. So every month I spend over $400 on private occaptional therapy, psychologist sessions and social interaction skill groups. Over $400 on a single full time working teachers wage. Think about that for a moment....
Sunk in? As I know that you know how much I earn. It makes quite a dent in my budget as you can imagine.
But, there is hope for me I hear you saying! Because if I just work a little harder and do a little better than all of my colleagues then I might be the lucky one who is chosen at the end of the year to get an incremental rise in my pay and also a bonus! Just me though...not my colleague. Unfortunately she had more children with learning difficulties in her class than me (children who are not funded for the extra assistance they so desperately need!) and she did get a few more EAL (English as an Additional Language) students throughout the year and so by the end of the year her students didn't quite produce results as good as mine did. But it is totally ok, she didn't need a payrise...it isn't as though she didn't work just as hard, if not harder than me throughout the year. Oh and the Principal I adore to chat with and work with, well I wont at all feel resentful towards her at the fact that she chose someone in the Early Years department to get a larger bonus than me. Not at All..it won't cause division within our close knit staff will it Ted?
I think what you are doing right now, the amount that you are giving public schools and what we can provide with that money is totally adequate Mr Baillieu. I mean, I'm not really bothered at all with the fact that I am already buying extra white board markers, blu tack, pencils, rulers and tissues for my classroom because they have run out. Oh and the fact that I am buying my novels and texts for the children to read so that they can be up with the times? No problem, they are tax deductable right? Oh...but please don't forget that I am buying these on my single mum, 'teacher salary'. I know you know how 'high' that annual figure is.
So today Ted, my son who has Aspergers donned his red hood and held on tight to his Mum as we waded through loud and busy sea of teachers into Hisense arena and listened to all you promised and didn't give and voted to try and instil the same values in you as we do every day in our students. Respect, Honesty and Fairness!
My son and daughter marched beside thousands of my colleagues who also, like me are working hard, using their own meagre funds to bring the kind of education to all children in public schools in Victoria that we believe they deserve. Today approximately 30,000 teachers walked off the job giving up a much much needed days pay to show you that we matter. To show you that our kids and their education matters!
Mr Baillieu have you forgotten your roots? were you home schooled? or was it lowely paid teachers such as us that provided you with the literacy and mathematical skills, political knowledge throughout school which saw you end up where you are today?
No matter what profession you are in please do not forget who we are and what role we had in your learning and upbringing. To the parents who, like me, had to find alternative care for their children today, I am sorry for the inconvenience we may have caused you. But I hope that you understand that in the long run we did this for you, for your children.
We really do do this job for the love of it and the passion that we feel towards providing the best type of education possible to your children. It is a hard job which we do for the joy and rewards that come from your children...because we can certainly say at this moment in time, in Victoria, that we are definitely not doing the job for the money! (but we should be paid what we are worth TED...we are worth a heck of a lot more than a measly 2.5% more!)
Regards,
JAAK
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