Certain Metro Nashville Public School employees have come forward with a petition to say that COVID-19 safety precautions and staffing shortages have burdened them and created more difficult working conditions.
Those teachers belong to a group called the Metro Nashville Education Association (MNEA).
On their Facebook page, MNEA officials complained of inconsistent contact tracing, bus drivers making double and triple routes without additional pay, and support staff covering classes for $2 an hour.
“Educators, support staff, and bus drivers deserve better,” members of the group said on their Facebook page.
“Our students deserve better.”
The MNEA’s petition, meanwhile, said the following:
• The district currently has hundreds of unfilled positions — bus drivers, support staff, and certificated employees
• The substitute teacher pool is meager, leaving jobs open
• Bus driver workforce is significantly diminished, and drivers are having to run multiple routes
• Staffing vacancies compromise the ability to adhere to COVID-19 safety protocols
• There is inconsistency in contact tracing across the district
• Classes are split, adding to the number of students in a classroom
• Not all materials required for lesson implementation are provided, resulting in teachers having to pay out of their own pockets for materials
• Teachers are spending upwards of 30 hours a week outside of school hours and are still unable to keep up with the demands
• If students are split, they are not receiving the same attention they would if there was a designated substitute.
• If support staff are pulled away from their assigned duties then their students are not receiving necessary services
• Teachers, support staff, and bus drivers are pushed to the brink, and the demands placed on them are unsustainable
The MNEA, according to its website, is the only public-school organization run by public school educators for public school educators. The group’s leadership, the website went on to say, is composed of elected MNPS educators. The MNEA has three action committees: advocacy, professional practices, and social justice.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Metro Nashville School COVID Safety” by Metro Nashville Public Schools.
Does anyone else find the timing of these complaints more than a little questionable considering Big Spending Bill Lee is forcing the probable revision to the school funding formula? They should skip the sham of public meetings and just ask the teacher’s unions how much of an increase that it will take to get them to shut their mouths.
Lee and his liberal cohort Penny Schwinn are determined to increase the cost of public schooling before his first (and hopefully only) term ends. Follow the money.
More proof that government run, public education has become an abject failure! Teachers and non-front office workers are the “useful idiots” being used by the Education Industrial Complex, of which this new Metro Nashville Education Association is just another branch. And our precious children are the victims!
Teachers need to walk away from the public school systems, as individual entrepreneurs, who have a skill set and a “product” which is, and always will be, in high demand. They will do well, once they shed the albatrosses called NEA, TSBA, MNEA, etc, which keep them from reaching their potential, both in terms of income as well as job satisfaction!
Kevin gets the award for probably one of the most uninformed and asinine comments I’ve ever read, parroting talking points heard from some local talk radio host that doesn’t know their elbow from their nose.
Kevin, the teacher’s union has been neutered in Tennessee for quite some time. They have absolutely no power. Furthermore, seasoned teachers have invested a lot in their retirement and to walk away now means they would lose it all. Private schools do not pay as much and these so-called homeschool teaching coops are about as stable as Joe Biden in front of the mic.
Calling all teachers “useful idiots” is short-sighted and quite frankly does more to paint yourself as one than it does anyone else. There are plenty of good teachers in public schools. But at this point I’m sure you’ve already got your head in the sand and didn’t read past the first sentence.
The democrats have created these conditions as they have always created negative conditions in anything they get involved in. Its just like paying people not to work that is why so many restaurants are closing and the ones that are open you cannot get waited on, not enough employees. Sad for the students and the good teachers. “Lets go Brandon”
It isn’t just in Metro. Here in Wilson, it is a mess too. Bus drivers quitting…teachers retiring early….student’s learning effectively, gone. And to make the teacher’s jobs even tougher, the state’s dept of education are pushing this ridiculous requirements and goals.
For example, chastising teachers for not staying on the pacing guide, not realizing (or caring) that regular students, which are comprised of normal students and (what used to be called special ed) students don’t learn at the same pace as AP and Honors students
The state is an entire mess, starting at the top with leadership. Yes Gov Lee, I’m talking to you.
AMEN!
Duh. Democrats want to keep people stupid. This is nothing new.
Democrats have little time to abandon their Party’s Flag of Destitution, crime, and waste. The longer Nashville stays on the Dark Side of DEMs, the harder it will be, and more tax costly!, later… to fix.
Adieu Nashville, adieu; you were a beauty from the past, that swayed, and fell in the muck. And unless you Right yourself, the city and constituents of, Nashville are all on the path of San Fransicko. Soon, your name will be… Crashville, or Nah’ville, or Fentanylville.
Currently, all Nashville is… is “that place you avoid”, or wear a concealed weapon. And definitely buy a, good, private education versus the public social-mind-wash DE-education program our taxes pay for.