[etni] Fw: sanctions again

From: "Ask_Etni" <ask@xxxxxxxx>
To: "ETNI" <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 07:39:13 +0200
sanctions again
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Sharon Tzur - sharontzu5@xxxxxxx
Subject: sanctions again

I really don't have time to write but if I don't, I won't be able to 
concentrate on anything else.

Nina threw out the gauntlet and asked what those who criticize her suggest 
she do. The response of "ask Ron Erez" is not a serious response. Ron Erez 
did not make the decision to give students whose teachers are on sanctions a 
zero. The ministry did. In fact, Ron Erez knows, like all of us, that the 
Ministry always bends over backwards to make sure that students do not 
suffer from teachers' sanctions, with the noted exception of this case. At 
any rate, even if sanctions were called off tomorrow, it would be too late. 
(Unless you're talking about letting the students slap together something at 
last minute). And why should the sanctions be called off before the goal is 
achieved? Why not call upon the Ministry to immediately complete 
negotiations and offer teachers a fair package.

The fact that the Irgun agreed that teachers not be paid for projects back 
in 2003 is irrelevant. Obviously it took some time before teachers realized 
what a bad deal they were getting and more time until enough complaints 
reached the Irgun to prod them into action.

Perhaps Ron Erez should have given the Ministry a period of grace of a few 
months before declaring sanctions. However, that's water under the bridge, 
and it seems to me that if an agreement hasn't been reached despite a year 
and a half of sanctions, then nothing would have been achieved had there 
been a period of grace of a month or two. At any rate, the union sanctions 
were not the first time that the Ministry was made aware of teacher 
dissatisfaction. I remember signing a petition that was passed around, I'm 
pretty sure of this, at the tidruch of moed bet summer 2008 - that would be 
about 2 months before the sanctions, if I'm not mistaken. The petition 
protested the growing workload on English teachers and related to both 
projects and the literature log. I don't know exactly how many signatures 
there were, but I think over 100. I for one complained to my inspector from 
day one (before projects were implemented) that it was not fair to demand 
that we do projects with students without extra hours and pay.

It's unfortunate that we have to fight to get fair pay. A g'mul for civics 
teachers for their paper was negotiated before the teachers began to do the 
work, and they didn't have to go on sanctions. We now have a precedent - the 
Civics teachers. They get a 0.5 hours of g'mul for doing papers plus 70 
shekels per paper for marking. I've looked at my daughter's paper - about 4 
pages of text (written in the students' native language, obviously) based on 
a bibliography of 3 sources and about another 2 pages reporting on a survey 
the students did. Plus bibliography, table of contents, etc - 10 pages 
altogether. I assume that since the bibliography is all within the 
discipline the teachers are probably familiar with the sources that the 
students had to read. The teacher met with the group several times during 
the year to check on their progress. The project was submitted on behalf of 
4 students.  If anything, our project requires more work, not less.

Yours,

Sharon Tzur


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[etni] Fw: sanctions again

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