001[Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] let's see thank you [Music] thank you foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] the notice of the public hearing my name is Dave Dixon Labor Relations attorney this is Lou gecas president of the Federation this is pursuant to Indiana code 20-29-6-1 the public hearing of the Hammond teachers Federation the School City of Hammond today's date is September 12 2023 at 4 pm public testimony will be taken at this hearing pursuant to Indiana code 20-29-6-1 section 8 regarding teacher compensation and collective bargaining first so could we stand for the pledge thank you I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God the indivisible
002with liberty and justice for all could you please uh bring me part of the sign up sheet and people will still be able to sign up as they come in because I know they're coming from different buildings but that way we can start so while we're waiting for that I want to thank all of you who are here on behalf of the Hammond teachers Federation we appreciate you taking in a few minutes of your time today to be here after a long day of work in the classroom so we look forward I know I look forward to hearing what you have to say and we'll carry that back to the bargaining committee for um as a suggestion and possibly an action so again thank you very much okay thank you Mr gigas Tracy Moyers good
003afternoon Mr Dixon and Mr geekus and everybody involved my name is Tracy Moyers I teach middle school math editors presently I've been in the system for 33 this is year 34. and you know last week we had our um Wednesday in service and the top two things on there was Student Success and retaining teachers and I feel like what we have what we've been going through for the past two weeks is so far from that I mean kids start with us and this is the third year in the in a row at Edwards that kids have started with us and we get to know them we start to build those relationships that you guys continually talk about are important and they get yanked from us and they're upset we're upset you know I'm afraid to
004start building new relationships anymore because is this going to happen again and sure enough it is happening right now I mean a kid couple kids today I'm not scheduled to do a new class anymore tomorrow I'm like what and sure enough they're getting pulled out um you know all of this is not in the best interest of our students like we say ability and we are not giving them stability when we keep changing things I'm going to quote a young man although I'm not going to say his name this was I don't know the second week of school and we were talking about some things and he's like haven't they had all summer to get this figured out and I said Amen to that I mean you know the kids see it this was an
005eighth grader and he sees that why is there so much chaos when you know they've had all summer to figure it out and I do want to thank my um counselors and my principals they have done worked really hard trying to start this year out and then again that carpet got pulled right out from under when you guys took those teachers and later class sizes get so much bigger I mean I took the uh my students took the I ready test and the number of them are that that are below grade level is scary absolutely scary and when you think that I only have a 45 minute period to get to 32 kids that's almost impossible and we're that far behind and I don't know I just are only getting one planned period that oh
006yeah today we met with a parent I mean to do anything except meet with that parent then you didn't get a prepared I didn't get a plan for the next day I didn't get to um grade any papers the whole time was spent talking to that parent thank goodness she came in but that's just hard so I just think we need to rethink what we mean by the best interest of the students and show that we mean that not just say it in words thank you thank you thank you [Applause] Mary good evening my name is Mary Moriarty I'm the community school coordinator for both middle schools I just want to stay State a couple things in support of the teachers teachers under a lot of adversity are struggling they're doing their best and I
007I believe they deserve a really good contract this year thank you thank you thank you Miss Cox all right my name is Anita Cox I'm a teacher at Hammond Central and I've been a teacher for school City Hammond for 17 years and I'm a proud HTF member I'm here to speak on behalf of myself and my colleagues but I first need to say that I need everyone to understand that's going to be part of this bargaining team is that we want teachers want what students need I understand that many items of concern are not bargainable in our contract but they are necessary for the retention of teachers and the success of our students my first item is bargainable and that is salary increases for teachers who fall into category where due to past Financial roles
008they did not see receive adequate pay raises these are teachers with tens of years of experience 10 years of experience and their salaries do not reflect that in fact many of the teachers who have been here for 10 years are being paid less than new teachers pay needs to be equitable and failure to address this long-standing problem will lead to more resignations my next item is class size if School City Hammond wants to see growth in higher test scores we need a policy of 24 no more a math teacher across the hall from me has 38 students in one math class and only 36 deaths try to fit 38 deaths in one classroom try to teach maths nearly 200 students a day or try to keep 35 students safe in a PE class the English
009teacher next to me has over 190 students on her roster how does School City of Hammond expect that teacher to meet the needs of all of those students and maintain their sanity if math and English scores are so important then we need to say it with me 24 no more the next item is something very precious to me and that is my time respect my time High School teachers lost 35 minutes of plan time every day I know that many elementary teachers have it even worse School City of Hammond is asking us to do too much with too little it takes time to revamp a curriculum from an 80-minute period to 45 minute periods it takes extraordinary amounts of time to effectively Implement new tech Network in modern classroom and it is a waste of
010time to force teachers to navigate a new learning management system that is cumbersome and unnecessary for student Improvement last item is managing student Behavior School City of Hammond has no effective plan to address student attendance I will bet anybody in here a hundred dollars that on any given day that there are more students absent in the classroom at 7 30 a.m than in the high school at the high school than in the classroom last Wednesday in PD I was asked for ideas to help retain teachers and students asking for more and giving less is not the answer but it is a great way to burn us out cause us to take all our sick days actually make us sick or even make us quit thank you thank you thank you I am now have um
011speaking on behalf of a colleague at the high school school she says I have worked at school City of Hammond since 2012 and this is the first year I have doubted why I have stayed so long the decisions the district making regarding our teachers and our students are extremely disheartening and makes those of us who have been with the district for some time extremely disenchanted the lack of attention to the staffing issues at Eggers is now directly impacting Hammond Central the freshman class this year has so many behavior issues I don't know where to begin I have taught freshmen for many years and it is my favorite grade to teach but this year's class has made me doubt my career choice Additionally the decision to cut the third team at the Freshman Academy is a
012choice that I will never understand we went from having manageable class sizes to every single class being over 30. I believe the large class sizes are directly impacting the disruptive behavior we are all experiencing it is extremely frustrating to come to work knowing that I will be disrespected and my personal items will be destroyed I look forward to coming to work every day but now I do not or I used to no I do not last year I had 140 students total this year I have 194. 86 of which have special needs which is either an IEP a 504 and enl you are giving us an impossible task to meet the needs of our students with the class sizes the way they are every week I get emails about new students but there's nowhere to
013put them I had to borrow chairs from another classroom because there's no room left and I ran out of chairs I believe the district made a huge mistake eliminating the third team from the Freshman Academy and this should be corrected immediately we cannot meet our district goals if students do not have successful freshman year and that's scientifically proven with the current situation and we cannot set up our freshman students for success I realize the district has Financial issues but we continue to invest in programs that have cost a ton of money instead of programs why aren't we investing in our staff all these programs in the world can't solve the issues if we do not have competent capable dedicated staff in our being our buildings we have lost too many teachers already please stop making
014decisions that make it worse for those of us that have chosen to stay this is from one weather teacher so she said excuse me who who are these people um this was Rebecca champagne and who was a prior person that was me I this is the third person this is the third person and this person is um Angela Herrera and she is a teacher at the high school um she says you want to retain teachers time then give us time with the attendance size of 194 students teaching five classes in a row monitoring hallways and only a 40-minute break when are we supposed to plan put two grades in per week tutor call parents give positive shout outs answer emails do gcns Proctor training put up with student work put up student work etc if
015you don't give us a second plan then we need more teacher work days retainers don't burn us out Services if you want to retain teachers make PDS that work for individual teachers when we had covid-19 teachers were able to get online and watch a presentation that pertain to something that we needed to learn and had an interest in learning bring that back you want us to be lifelong Learners just like our students then treat us like professionals and give us options during PDS to learn what we need or want um next one pay us you want more discipline in the schools pay us some of the teachers would be more than willing to help maintain the bathrooms in the hallways before school after school during plan times but you need to pay us um and
016again that is part of retention Pay Teachers so they stay the next one is hallway maintenance at our school we have unannounced lockouts these habitual tardy students need to be dealt with and parents need to be contacted if you sweep up the same kids and those kids need to be put on a discipline plan and parents notified thank you thank you thank you I said Miss Morgan is that correctly yeah good afternoon my name is Rena Horgan I've been an educator for the School City of Hammond for almost 20 years during my tenure I've been able to do some wonderful things for my students and my families just like my college weeks here have have also done not only sent every day but an educational apps books and other classroom items so that students can
017succeed when we go school shopping at the beginning of the school year we are amazed at how many people think the district pays for these items we must remind people that all this comes out of our small and meager paychecks if we do not purchase these items our classrooms are not functional so we choose to open our wallets and help our students be successful your Educators go the extra mile every year to also plan School field trips which are extensions of our daily lesson plans on average my classroom goes on eight to ten field trips per year this is extra work for us but the students need these experiences outside the classroom because this helps grow the whole child daily your Educators choose to build relationships with our students and their families often going Beyond
018school hours we come in before school or stay after school for parent conferences beyond the requested District hours we help our students with tutoring we show up students at students extracurricular events so they know that we support them out of the classroom we are also active members of our school communities we help our administrators with new Endeavors we attend meetings during our prep and our lunch times we serve on different committees without compensation because we know the school cannot function without us I also believe that I work towards unifying our district Community with my union position and I go to many district events on my own time to promote Partnerships within the district and the community so why do teachers go above and beyond our duties as Educators well because we are assisting our school
019and District to retain these families we are helping our students become successful individuals we are committed to diversity equity and inclusion by including all of our students and making them feel valued members of our classroom we are stakeholders in our community and we take we want to see our schools and our districts succeed I deserve just as my colleagues do a decent wage and a cost of living raise every year I have been rated as highly effective every year of my tenure as many of my colleagues have too I've even been chosen as one of your District's teacher of the year yet I can count on one hand how many times I've received compensation for our Effectiveness or our tenures with this isn't fair nor is it just the challenges we Face from this District
020are getting to be Monumental in your strategic plan you set six District priorities as the driving force for Student Success but your Educators see this district is not flying by the seat of its Pants Daily you want Educators to increase Student Success by 25 yet you cut teachers and create class sizes in elementary school to 30 students or more in many schools not all schools which isn't Equitable at all in middle school and high schools you increase the class sizes to 35 40 students knowing full well that Research indicates small class sizes equals more success another District priority is to retain your students and staff yet after teachers create relationships with students and families you pluck them out and remove them even assigning them to another building after they've already built relationships for the past
021four weeks it seems to your staff that your kids are really not your priority when you cut special education teachers and then cut paraprofessionals that work in the general like classroom to help these students how do these Cuts show that students are your priority they don't you say you are committed to Dei and that all students and staff should feel accepted and valued but your actions speak louder you choose to remove teachers and paraprofessionals from classrooms on the same week that you have PD on these specific priorities how does that make your staff feel valued of course of course we need to be fiscally responsible and we must look at the bottom line but why are your first clutch Cuts you make in the classroom where it affects students families and student achievement we have
022heard time and time again from your CFO that we need to cut positions to save money he says we have too many employees I agree but he also said the positions in front of students should be the last ones to cut so why are your first Cuts in the classrooms to classroom teachers and paraprofessionals in the buildings your teachers and paraprofessionals are your front lines we are the ones who keep these families coming back we are the ones that help ham and students succeed not 41 million Street yet in the past several weeks we have seen District actions speak louder than their strategic plan so I hope that as we enter negotiations this year that you view your view your truce your paraprofessionals as your most valuable asset because that is what we are and
023with that should come some respect for the work we do on a daily basis to help our students our schools and our district thank you thank you thank you let's play Kim Miss Blake King meditation of my heart the acceptable One To You O Lord my God oh goodness good evening Colorado breaking hmm all of my adult life I've been advocate the children anybody could tell you that strong advocate bold advocate and as a taxpayer City of Hammond and when I consider my children and these students and my question comes to me are we developing an underclass of students as opposed to students that are ready to address this world ready to deal with what's to come to them because this world has changed it's changed buying sets of how we develop our children has
024changed do we really see our teachers as the First Responders children who else is the First Responders for our kids when it comes to education when it comes to coming into these buildings that we have to make sure that they are safe and sound for our children and our babies to participate in Educational Learning System I'm saddened because it appears as we move forth and all of these contract negotiations year after year after year I wonder is anybody really listening is this just a formality because the state says it's required I strongly suggest that you take this video because we are streaming this correct and that the negotiators before you go into negotiations you listen carefully to what everyone has said before you regarding educating our children and you have to take that into account
025I wonder sometimes negotiators you haven't been in a classroom for so long so obviously you don't know what's going on in that classroom so how can you seriously negotiate any major benefits that's going to benefit our teachers mental capacity I'm so afraid the World Health Organization has put out warnings of stress stress and our teachers are on the number one list for this stress and we wonder why lacking the proper resources not resources that we tend to want to give them resources that they are asking for day after day year after year and obviously is falling on deaf ears so once again I come before you as an advocate strong advocate for children children of Heaven I don't want to see an underclass of young folks being developed I want to see an outstanding group
026of young people because they have the tenacity to do it because they have these teachers in front of them that want to do it but they can't do it their hands are being tied day after day week after week month after month because of resources it's all about resources cutting hair and cutting hearing the fear the fear with this referendum all I've heard about we're going to cut here we got to cut here but if we cut if we have to cut we better look very closely and consider what we're cutting again I'm an advocate for children I stand for children no one will silence me because I work for children I don't work for this Administration I was up to a school board position to serve people not just Administration to serve children to
027serve teachers to serve parents to serve the staff that is working on behalf of these children and I'm going to say this we've had such a major Exodus of our season tenured professional teachers and it breaks my heart and nobody seems to care or does anyone care does anyone ask what are we doing wrong well how can we make it better are we doing that I don't know all I know the population of children that we have we have to educate them we are mandated by law to educated therefore the First Responders who are our teachers must have the resources from salaries to physical resources to make it right and let's let's be clear they see what we do they see what some consider outrageous spending or why did they get this contract or why
028was this contract approved people can see people can hear so once again I just ask that people that are sitting around that table look at this event tonight rethink it and consider children and put yourself for once in the in the in the hands of these teachers because obviously you're not obviously we're not thank you very much thank you thank you Miss Owen [Applause] good morning my name is Brandy Odom I am not only a prior educator of school City and honey you remember for HCL but I'm also a parent of School City of Hammond children one child has just graduated and has gone on to college and I have another one that is in high school and I prided myself on bringing my children to him and after I started working in Hammond because
029I saw the diversity and I saw how Sammy was set up and I knew they would be successful here this year I have started to doubt that decision okay the good thing is I have started my 14th year and I never thought I would see 14 years as a public school educator but here I am today and I'm very proud of that okay one of my favorite things about starting every year is seeing my former encouraging students how are you how was your summer I Minnesota connections I have established those connections at least 50 times since the first day of school due to constant scheduling changes literally every single period I have a minimum of three students who are being swapped out of my room without notice after I do the attendance then they have
030to go on the other side of the building and this is creating a very tense and hostile environment in the classroom um watching them succeed but I am unable to do that so far in addition to those scheduled changes having students multiple times imagine the first period their schedules changes I've had them second period schedule changes again I had to do the sixth period And I made a joke with people like me but I told him I don't like myself to be with me that many times throughout the day it's Middle School right so to try to right now I'm really anxious with the constant scheduling changes okay now you see the response is about relevant schedule changes for my admin our voices feel unheard I teach at Scott Middle School and teachers are going
031very frustrated day by day period by period only to have is constantly not heard I was ready to get started and started teaching my unit with my students to get those tests going up when they're constantly changing being switched it's very hard to do that when I constantly have to review my expectations and procedures and deal with behavioral changes foreign if that is how I feel I love your day thank you thank you Jamie Bomba hi my name is Jamie bomba and I'm at Scott Middle School also um I pretty much agree with Miss Odom 100 we are not happy yet Scott it is week five and we still don't have schedules and I don't know why there is none any Administration in our building in her school helping us as Miss Odom said I
032had four kids walk out of first period after I did attendance they got brand new schedules it's ridiculous if I was a parent I'd be pulling my kid out of your school five weeks in and you don't have schedules we can't do grades we're supposed to be using schoology squalogy whatever we can't even get a schedule so how like most of the teachers in our building have not touched schoology I have it does not work well with Google um all of our Google stuff that we're trying to upload in it it's not putting the stuff with the assignments your kids can't open it it's getting lost more frustrations and frustrations so again I've been teaching 17 years also and this is probably the worst year in Yemen and I'm sad to say I'm a human
033teacher right now and that's sad to have to stand up here and say that that's all thank you thank you miss Shelby is that somebody saying name right Mark oh I see sorry sorry I am Marcia shenick I teach fourth grade at Essen Elementary School I am the elementary trustee for the Hammond teachers Federation this is my 43rd year of teaching foreign building Representatives before school started and they had many good comments about their schools including positive teamwork with their colleagues High family involvement highly motivated and dedicated staff many teachers noted that there were opportunities for improving our elementary schools administrators supporting the new code of conduct resources are needed for the new and old curriculum initiatives and standards improving communication from the top down including safety issues in our buildings and neighborhoods we are
034now in the middle of a shake-up in many of our buildings because Staffing was not planned correctly we have many teachers moving grade levels within buildings and moving to different grade levels in completely different buildings after spending four weeks developing relationships with their students teachers are now being asked to move and break up their classrooms the teachers of Hammond see it as our calling and our mission to teach love and protect our kids what teachers want our students need and our Hammond families are with us quoting Randy Weingarten the president of the American Federation of teachers from the article climate culture conditions and compensation we must change how teachers and other school professionals are treated and supported schools need to be places where adults and children alike can Thrive and grow where there are relationships
035built upon trust and respect where Partnerships exist among students Educators families and communities only then will Hammond have schools where teachers want to teach students want to learn and parents want to send their children Miss Brooks hi thank you for allowing me time to speak my name is Dr Jane Brooks I have spent almost 20 years in higher ed before I came to School City of Hammond I switched gears that's a story for another day but I've seen retention I've seen initiatives I've seen and done the research on administrators to student ratio student to teacher ratio and when we look at our strategic goals and Student Success is highlighted it is very clear that class sizes of 35 to 40 are not optimal now to be clear the research on that is not there's not
036clear correlations because the variability between schools they haven't found a way to control those so there's not any clear data that has been verified in multiple Institute institutions that show specifically class sized and then achievement however what they do clearly show study after study is that students who are at risk several levels behind and from a poverty background or Working Poor background do not do well in classes over the size of 30. they need the close relationship with their teacher to feel that they can be vulnerable many of them come from backgrounds where the traumas that they have suffered even microtronies which are often more detrimental to a student than one big trauma make them fearful of people especially people who say they care because anybody can say they care you have to be able
037to show it in terms of Student Success again we are fighting a battle for these students future in a war you don't pull out your boots on the ground and your soldiers if you need to slice some fat from the hog look at things at the top the more teachers we cut the board teachers we cut the more behavior problems we're going to have in the school we then trickle down into the classrooms as well and when you get around 40 students you're no longer teaching your main Imaging behavior for 45 minutes last year when Miss Reese came to our school and talked about losing their playing time at Eggers she promised us there that if we agreed and we went to the southern classes and lost a prep that it would be worthwhile because
038they would keep us at no more than 30 students obviously that is not this was the best start of the year at Eggers in the six years I've been here students moving to class we had them in class we hadn't had a fight um they boost upstairs in the seventh grade I can't speak for eighth grade but we were moving on we were getting there I had implemented the modern classroom project in my room and then we had three teachers we moved one from my team two from uh seventh grade as well which led to three teachers being removed just from my hallway so we have basically a cavern at one end and then teachers at the other and we cannot cover all of those areas when the semester started we had had two to
039three teachers that were bought from Scott they were told we had to take them and then the restaurant some of the time was like I don't have anywhere you know I don't put them um we took them we adjusted and then three weeks in we have three teachers removed from our school not necessarily the same ones that were there before but three different ones one of whom was our most skilled teacher to work with our IEP 504 and have special needs behaviors this was a total disruption of the schedule I think everyone has spoken to the fact that disrupting the schedule is less than ideal and causes a great deal of stress for the students in my time here at Hammond this has been the third year of the year we've had such a major
040schedule change every time it's like starting the first day of class over I think um said she was excited when superintendent Miller said hey we got to get these kids we got to hit the ground running let's drop all those 10 days to spend your curriculum I was like sweet because we got a lot of work to do um but then we turned around and basically a week later I'm having to redo the whole Spiel all the way over again it's it makes you feel crazy because you're doing the same thing over and over and over it's like Groundhog Day in that light I have read um as an example superintendent members contract and in there I'm not quoting this exactly but I believe there's a 30-day notice in there if the board wants to
041cancel his contract right which makes sense everywhere I've worked there's been some sort of standard to that if we as teachers leave this recess told us many times that she will have in school by license for one month and yet our teachers were made to move with one business day notice in terms of teaching retention I don't know what could speak more clearly to that not being a priority [Music] When Miss Parkinson who was moved out of egos who was our Ela who worked with special needs on my team I sent an email and said okay if she's gonna have to go then let me go loose because we planned all summer to run modern classroom in tandem I remember responded to by Mr Verda [Applause] oh this has a really bad rap in the
042community and I've never quite understood why I come from Michigan City and at Michigan City High School we've also had that same wrap for many years our students at Edgars want to learn I would say we have one percent that come and be really call for problems and they have reasons for that obviously this year was the first year we all had a real um sunshiny Outlook I believe from the start of the year because we thought okay this is really off to an ideal started like all right but it dropped it didn't just drop it like atomic bombs um I'm really cool because it really feels like a lot of time I guess it's the short end of the stick for whatever reasons I have to just stress the Optics to me um that
043we took a we disrupted the whole school that was staffed that's led by a female African-American woman pretty much sabotaged that school from being successful to then take those teachers to address supposedly a problem at a school led by the white you know now I'm not saying there's bias there but I'm saying if we want to be talking about diversity as part of our strategic plan that we need to be aware of what the Optics are when we make big decisions and given the state of what some of the teachers from Scott have said it is obviously not those three teachers that were going to be the magic ball right that crystal ball to solving that problem the problems at Scott's still living meanwhile now at Edwards I'm fluctuated just from myself 187 to 192
044students in less than three hours I service 100 students in my classroom I I don't service them as well as I know I could because I don't have the space I've had to pull in more rooms or more seats from other places to to try to see if they can accommodate them and mostly getting kids at it I had a new student added yesterday we had three last week um and I'm sure others will trickle in [Music] in terms of retention I I also want to speak to the fact that in the time I've been at Edgars and we've had some crazy years I've never thought about actually leaving because I love my kids that I work with I love my colleagues I move in our building administrators um this is the first year I
045seriously thought about leaving um in the year because of the way Administration is treating the teachers we're not treated with respect well talk down to I saw Dr Rouse in the hallway and explained how wonderful A year had been and she's like it's just Financial it's just Financial you deal with it you make it work okay I can make it work but are we going to be able to make sure we meet the goals that we wanted to set I don't know because now I'm babysitting a lot of kids and you can't be everywhere for the kids in the classroom thank you thank you Tyler Anderson hi uh good evening I'm Tyler Anderson I'm a new or was the new third grade teacher at Burns Hicks last Tuesday after school I was called into a
046meeting with my principal and the union rep to be told that kindergarten third and fourth were being brought down to three teachers in that moment I thought I was losing my job and I'm a first year teacher but we were told that I would be taking one of the long-term sub positions in fifth grade I was told I would finish off the next few days with my students and the next week I would have three days to move everything I set up and start teaching this week Thursday my stuff is still sitting in bags in my room because I do not have time to move it during the day without disrupting the rest of the school it is almost impossible for me to get all this done within three days so and so last Friday
047was my last day with my third graders and a lot of them kept asking me why and I don't have an answer for them one of my students who only speaks Spanish came up to me with her tablet and on it it just asked me why and I do not have an answer for her and I have no way to explain to them that it's finances to kids who barely understand how to add numbers together I had built relationships with these students and That Was Then Stripped Away after only three weeks together I had to spend two hours of that following Wednesday just call me my students because three of them broke out into the corner of my room crying because they were going to be moved rooms and like I said I'm now expected
048to be moved out in three days I only have after school to move my things I am expected to start teaching Thursday and now we have wind time where I have no class lists I have no data to look at I have nothing to prepare for Thursday when I have to start teaching these kids I've had no time to meet any of them as I'm packing up my room I have nothing to work with and as a first year teacher this is mentally wrecked my confidence as I'm having to start over four weeks into my years I mean this will have negative impacts on my students third and fifth as they have to learn new expectations new rules and a whole and a teacher that is all new to them four weeks into school but
049even as a first year teacher I know I can't give up and I have to keep going no matter what happens and I just leave this with the question my third graders kept asking me which is why thank you thank you thank you Mr Micah hello my name is Mr Michael and my story is very similar to Mr Anderson's I began the years of fourth grade teacher at burn six and for the last four weeks I've been building the academics and relationships with my students as well as the long-term sub in fifth grade that I will be replacing this is going to be mentally taxing not only for my class who I already know broke out in tears when I had to break the news to them it'll be mentally taxing for the fifth grade
050class that I'm taking as well these students have came to respect and appreciate us as their teachers just for us to get the call to be told that we are either moving or for the long-term sub being taken from their position I am grateful that I'm not just being let go and that I get to keep a position but I am very frustrated that this is happening just like [Applause] just like Mr Anderson I was allowed to finish the week with my class and was notified that I had Monday the 11th yesterday Tuesday the 12th today and Wednesday the 13th tomorrow to get moved in with that I have also had to have time to take everything down from my room and get packed to move I have everything in bags right now and if
051I were to move it in the school day I would be disrupting just about the entire building because I need to take my stuff from fourth grade all the way to the opposite side of the building in fifth grade if I do it in the school day there are multiple classes that are going to be more interested in me walking down the hallway with bags or a cart pushing myself then what's going on in their lessons on top of that I need to be ready to start either instruction or building expectations and policies on Thursday on top of being ready in my building to start win time on Monday when I haven't seen any data yet or a class list I am a very dedicated first year teacher and I know that I need to
052do everything I can for either class if I were to stay with that cost or the cost that I'm moving to now so all I can say is that I'm very frustrated and this has been very emotionally taxing thank you thank you Mr protect Mr clapek good evening my name is Ed crapack I appreciate the opportunity to speak to all of you this afternoon uh this evening as as we move into it here uh not just for myself but on behalf of my colleagues I would like to reiterate a couple of points that have already been made and that is that the negotiating uh committee and that the School City of Hammond come to the negotiating committee with a plan for what the state refers to as ketchup especially those around the 10-year period who
053have seen their style salaries remain stagnant while new teachers move up into the same categories a teacher a teacher retention plan and the dollars to go along with that there are several examples around the state a teacher's salary and benefits plan that at least keeps up with inflation um while we can't control the ladder we can certainly take a look at the budget to try to keep that even there are things that that the district can do both District admin and building admin that can ease some of the issues that have been brought up here from our from our members from our teachers that are really that is on a daily basis that don't cost any money we understand the financial issues that all school systems can be under at times but there are plenty
054of things to do from the top down in the buildings from down here that again don't cost any money and that can really go a long way for Teacher attention and just the just the respect of the teacher uh also I know we'll be moving into um well every year there is a a new budget created um we would appreciate a budget um you know they say budget is shows a systems uh priorities and values and we ask that you know the School City of Hammond take a look at the students and the teachers in that budget to create for us all together A system that is um do I dare say fair uh and Equitable but again something that is going to keep both our students and teachers here we asked that the School
055City of Hammond go into negotiations and budget sessions with students and teachers priorities and values as their top priority we look forward to Progressive salary and benefits package to retain and respect every teacher in the school City of Hammond and every employee in the school City of Hammond [Applause] foreign by kind of turning around and taking a look at all of you and so many that couldn't be here tonight uh thank you for telling your stories to the school City of Hammond but there are a lot of other places you need to tell it to including Indianapolis you need and as you as you speak to other teachers who are not in our district and all across this state it's time people it's time thank you Vanessa veins okay sorry good afternoon my name is
056Vanessa veins and I teach kindergarten at Harding I love my job if I can say so I'm very good at what I do I work with a wonderful team at Harding however this is very frustrating and very disheartening because I was here last year voicing my concerns in regards to salary and a continuously falls on deaf ears and I have the speech right here but I am still trying to digest what Mr Anderson and his colleagues said it breaks my heart I'm going to start with my own salary like I did last year my take-home pay is 1564.49 you divide that by 10 days six and a half hours and 21 kids okay now I know that's not 30 or what it could it could be a lot more but please keep in mind this
057is kindergarten they're five years old they're extremely needy and when you divide all of that it comes down to one dollar and fifteen cents per child per hour that's ridiculous I work my back end off all of these people beside me work their back end off and if this is ridiculous that we keep hearing there's no money well there was money when Mr Miller wanted a raise foreign see in emails all these positions that are being created at 41 Williams you know the glue that holds this District together are the teachers as well as the support staff the secretaries the lunch staff and the custodial staff and without us we're not going to have a job and we're not going to have a district I need 41 Millions to stop creating positions at the admin
058level at the top if any of the if any positions should be eliminated it should be from the top you need to put the teachers first otherwise you are not going to have a school district we are on the path to implosion you know I was sleeping about every every time Teacher Appreciation Week comes around Mr Miller you express what hard-working and dedicated staff you have I need you to put your money where your mouth is the last thing that I want to say is about these gcn trainings and I brought this up before I understand that they are State mandate mandated I am more than willing to do them however and I have not done them I've not done one yet but I refuse to do them on my own unpaid time and I
059will not do them I need a day on a Wednesday where it is designated for PD I'm trying to do them then I need time during a staff meeting to do them because I am not going home and spending my own time to complete these again I do understand State mandated I will complete them but they should be completed on my time when I am here at school thank you for your time thank you good afternoon um my name is I am a teacher at Morton Elementary and I'm here to speak on behalf of my third grade team that was not able to be here so if you wouldn't mind I'm going to read what they've written yes our current and I also want to also say that this kind of applies to many other
060grade levels in my building as well our current situation is sadly and most likely not unusual but it is causing us to be ineffective in our teaching through no fault of our own in all three of our classrooms we have 27 students these students are extremely academically 50 out of 67 are labeled at risk per data from last year's second grade I read 3 test as well as behaviorally challenging this data doesn't include the new students that weren't previously tested in Hammond you literally cannot walk through our rooms without bumping in the furniture desks chairs or students bathroom breaks take 10 or 15 minutes and you cannot be informally given as some of our students have taken to flood in the bathroom when that has been attempted we actually try to teach modern student monitoring
061students is extremely difficult keeping all 27 attempted to being listening as they are talking coloring drawing digging desks Etc in different parts of the room when you're not a monitoring other parts transition between subjects starts an eruption talking that takes about five seven minutes or so again small group instruction is nearly impossible because the students are unable to work independently following instructions are difficult to ask for a group this group it takes us a great day great deal of time just to get a paper into its correct folder because the students are so distracted these students are the last set of students that had kindergarten virtually and it shows it is no wonder that they are in such need the how are we supported supporting some of our most needy students with the most crowded
062classrooms our students are wonderful children and we are doing our best with what we have but they deserve so much more than we can give 27 at a time [Applause] thank you for your consideration the third grade team at Morton Elementary School thank you [Applause] I said uh Center sorry that's fine and good afternoon Mary simko Joseph Hess Elementary AKA Susie so just so you didn't think somebody else was standing here um I've been called to address the transparency that our Administration is supposedly addressing and that we have to sit through PDS for um just a note that our kindergarten is not sitting at 21 our kindergarten is sitting at 30. they are three young teachers trying their best trying to grasp this what is going on the Administration has suggested that now he was
063a third grade teacher to move down to kindergarten again those relationships have been formed you're dragging them out of the room as a fourth grade teacher I can tell you I am dreading tomorrow morning when I get six more children in my room because we also lost a fourth grade teacher third grade teacher is the third graders and Senior teacher they will be at um 28 28 and 29 students in third grade but raise our scores by 25 tell me how tell me how you have no idea transparency my eye come to our buildings I'd love to see you walk through our buildings we need to have students throwing down flowing gas arguing with teachers and stuff and you're dealing more in our rooms how does that make sense how many administrators have been cut
064you're cutting teachers right and left again we are on the front lines and you are taking us out of battle decide there are 27 administrators at 41 million street that I've counted that's not their secretaries that's not their age because now we're creating positions where even positions that are being created they could AIDS as well I would love a maid I have five five special ed teachers special ed children in my room five I'm getting more thank you for your help thank you for transparency but again what you mean where your mouth is um I just want to say my enrollment is going up by a full third I wonder if Administration if their their offices were filled with a third more things to do would they just get through your brass checks and start
065working with their hiring more people thank you for your time thank you thank you thank you Mr Webster good afternoon good afternoon my name is Mark Webster I am uh one of the teachers at Morton High School math teacher department head uh chess coach a lot of things uh to to the to the new teachers who have had to go through this the big move this year hi me too when I was when I was uh it was the beginning of my second year when I was at Clark uh those of you who are at Clark maybe you remember hi I see a couple people yeah um I had gotten to about this time in the school year and voila now I met Morton I same thing about two or three days to pack up
066my stuff bring it over to you know across the city and uh start a whole new group of at the very least it was a lateral move I was teaching Algebra 2 at Clark now I'm teaching eligible to a Morton and here I've been ever since so at least it was just the one but I feel you I get it it sucks I am tired it's been a very long day for me um I usually get to school around 6 30. prep my lessons make sure everything's ready for the students to get here teach I have uh 45 minutes in which to do all of my you know classroom grading on top of the stuff that I have to do as department head today I had to find calculators for people and figure out why
067one teacher wasn't doing the one thing they needed to do and this other teacher needed this other thing left me about 10 minutes to grade papers Maybe and then over lunch I had a couple other things that I had to do instead of eating so I had a little protein bar it was delicious um but I that that's what I do all day I I teach and then I have other things that I have to do besides grading papers and so I sometimes I stay late usually 10 12 hour days today we had a staff meeting after school which is why I didn't get here right at the beginning I was hoping to get here at the beginning but uh staff meeting ended 3 30 3 35 3 40. drove across town here I am
068um so what can we negotiate salary right so uh we've had we've had people already talking about this we should be making sure that people's salaries are commensurate with their experience um I had I cannot count the number of people who have come to me as building rep as just one ear who's willing to listen smile nod I get it I'm sorry um why is it that people who are just coming to this District are making just as much as I do I've been here 10 years [Applause] suicide it's it's demoralizing as you might imagine right um I've had other teachers hey you know Mark I know that these kids need me but I have to actually plan for my future and make sure that I have a livable salary I cannot stay here when
069I don't know what my salary is going to be in a few years if it's going to go up is it going to stay the same not great uh so in addition to you know making sure that our salary schedules actually match like you know linear regression right math teacher hi um we could instead of being instead of being a very low r squared value scatter plot it should be a pretty tight linear regression that would be great Equitable fare right we should also perhaps be thinking about having teachers return it's great when we get new teachers new people in the field awesome great keeping our keeping our profession alive but um and this was oh 28 19 2020 that time-ish when we all went down the red for Ed thing I did a little
070bit of research and it turns out that low-income schools are significantly more likely to have inexperienced teachers because that's what we can afford right um people who have been teaching 15 20 and again those of you who have been teaching for 15 to 20 years that are still here thank you but those people those people don't stay here why because they wise up and they find somewhere that pays them better or they realize that if I go over here maybe I'm getting paid roughly the same but the caliber of students is different and it is what it is these are facts that we have to live with here in Hammond we need to think about how do we retain teachers with what we have so maybe consider stipends for saying bonuses some kind hey you've
071been here thank you something and people have been talking already here about manageable class sizes in my department walked into rooms that violate the fire code we've been I cannot count I cannot count the number of number of emails that I've gotten from people at all levels of administration that oh we need to listen to what the fire marshal says okay but when there are when when the rough size that you should be worried about for volume per student in the classroom is about 30 feet squared and and you have 33 students in a room that doesn't hold that you are also violating the fire code yes since we're doing all this new tech Network stuff we've got these prbls that the math department is supposed to do this is a really great problem-based learning
072exercise what is the volume of our room can legally be as the math department had I told my geometry teachers hey this would be a really great volume one okay we need we need to treat the people in our buildings with the respect they deserve because we need people to teach our students who are qualified to do it and if we communicate to those qualified people that we don't actually respect you we don't actually honor your commitments they're going to leave and we're going to be left with and again forgive me because there are people who are first-year teachers in here second year teachers we love you you're great we also need the people still here 30 43 47 years we need those people to be here because those are the people who have been
073around the block enough where we can trust them to have these great increases in test scores that we're looking for all right thank you very much yes to see if there's anyone else at this point uh We've concluded with the people that had signed up to speak so at this point we will conclude the public hearing before we go out on behalf of the Hammond teachers Federation thank you for being here tonight know that your concerns have been hurted by HTF they'll be shared to with the bargaining committee and on the 19th of this month we'll be meeting to exchange proposals so again thank you for being here after a very long day at in front of students I appreciate you thank you thank you [Applause]