After failing to pass their referendum last week, the Christina School District Board of Education will hold a board meeting tomorrow night. The first action item? A reduction in force. This means they will vote to fire a ton of teachers. It won’t be the first time their board voted on something like this but they can do something different this time. They can vote a resounding NO for this action item.
Many will ask the same question: then where does the money come from? Simply put, Christina School District is too big to fail. Who is going to take them over? The Delaware Department of Education? They don’t have the capacity or the money to do the job. The charter schools? Hell no! They are not one organization with a ton of umbrella schools under the same name. Like the banks in 2008, the answer is simple- a state bailout of the district. Force them into a bankruptcy type situation and let the legislators dole out the money to save them.
For far too long teachers in this district have been forced to sweat it out come referendum time. Their jobs, along with their livelihoods, have been put on the firing line every single time a referendum comes along. The madness has to end and has to end now. If you agree, email the Christina Board of Education between now and tomorrow night (May 7th) at 7pm or show up to their meeting at Gauger-Cobbs Middle School, 50 Gender Road, in Newark, DE. Give loud and proud public comment urging the board to vote NO on their latest gambit to fire teachers. Their email is CSDBoardMembers@Christina.k12.de.us and I would strongly suggest emailing them NOW! Then go a step further and sign THIS PETITION on Change.org.
Yes, this is a drastic step. But it is time for the state of Delaware to stop with their silly education funding games and finally take education seriously. It is time for the legislators to stop whining and be forced to do something. The students and teachers of Delaware can not afford any more half measures. It has to be go big or go home!
The Season Of Myths 
Wasn’t it just two years ago that the legislature cut 36M from the education budget? The underlying issue here is a failure to understand public policy on the part of our legislature and governor. They have come to believe that a vote for any necessary taxes, to avert cutting 63 teachers, is political suicide. The anti-taxers are as nutty as the anti-vaxxers. But until legislators put their big-person pants on, and raise taxes for education, we simply won’t have the money for teachers or anything else.
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Look at the board docs for May’s meeting. There are temproary And permanent rehires of teachers and paraprofessionals. Just another year of christinas mismanagement of funds.
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