Letters to the editor

Make MSBSD great again: Support teachers

To the editor

If you've heard grumblings in the MSBSD recently and haven't yet heard why, it's those sneaky teachers complaining about...(checks notes)...not wanting to die on the streets without money or adequate health care. Huh.

On the last day of Teacher Appreciation Week, the school district decided to show their appreciation by 1) shutting down all contract negotiations with teachers, 2) removing our health care plan, 3) offering a 2% increase, and 4) granting themselves an 11-24% increase. Oh they also gave us FREE Winter Games merch with a push that we should volunteer our free time next year to help out.

Why should this matter to you? Well, without proper health care teachers get sick more often, which means more subs for your children in a sub shortage. When teachers have to dedicate what little free time they actually have to fight for the right to be treated like human beings, we have less time to do all of the things we already do UNPAID every day after school and on weekends. Tutoring, grading, lesson planning, reaching out to families, working with the community--all of this happens after our workday officially ends. We cannot continue to do the unpaid parts of our job for a district who sees teachers as expendable and takes that work for granted. ESPECIALLY as the district continues to push "AP For All," a program for which All of our students are not equipped for.

Don't have kids so this doesn't apply to you? The kids of today are your employees tomorrow, the future generations of Alaska who DESERVE to have teachers fighting to be part of a district that values their contributions, not looking at options elsewhere.

Trani's way of treating people may have worked in his last district, which was--feel free to look this up--a grand total of three schools. MSBSD has 42 schools. In Trani's old district, if students couldn't complete the AP requirements, or teachers felt mistreated, they could switch districts. If Trani (who, by the way, makes over $200,000 a year) and the School Board continue as they have been, they will leave our district a ghost town populated only with the few who can't afford to leave. Is this the kind of education MatSu's children deserve? Is this the kind of treatment children should see their teachers subjected to?

Make MSBSD great again. Support teachers.

Kluonie Frey,

Wasilla

The District and School Board are behaving shamefully and irrationally

To the editor:

Teacher strikes in the Valley are rare–we haven’t had one in over thirty years. We’ve only even come close to a strike three times: about 15 years ago, four years ago, and now. In the first two cases, the contract was settled either just before the teachers voted to strike or just after. Teachers are famously unwilling to strike, and even taking a strike vote usually takes months of preparation and discussion among the membership. Four years ago, 85% of the members voted to strike, and that was considered an overwhelming percentage. This time? It was over 90%, and the vote itself took place with blistering speed–no months of preparation and discussion needed. In less than a week after the District imposed its last, best offer, more than a thousand teachers voted that they were willing to walk off their jobs over it. Do you know how hard it is to get a thousand people to agree about anything these days?

The biggest issue is that the District chose to force teachers out of the Public Education Health Trust–a local insurance provider--and into Premera, a national company promising deceptively low rates for the next two years. Previously, the negotiated agreement stipulated that teachers chose their health care provider, but in the last contract, that was changed so that the provider is supposed to be mutually agreed upon. The District has refused to negotiate, though, telling the teachers it is Premera or nothing. This has left teachers, who typically schedule major medical procedures during summer, so they don't miss classroom time, scrambling. Network providers are different or nonexistent, procedures have been canceled, pharmacies have changed, medications are not all available at the same cost–the change has been chaotic, stressful, and completely unnecessary.

The cost of health insurance for Valley teachers and their families is about $40 million annually. That cost is not expected to change with Premera–and in two years, when rates go up, it will likely be significantly higher. The School Board had the opportunity, when faced with overwhelming testimony, to delay the change or stop it altogether. They chose not to do so. They rejected the opportunity to hear the teachers' side of the argument. When two members of the School Board asked questions or suggested alternatives, they were shut down by other members. The District and School Board are behaving shamefully and irrationally.

Prudence McKenney,

Wasilla

Conflict of interest by Tew, Yundt, Fonov and Bernier

To the editor:

On July 18 the Borough Assembly will consider changing the water body setback from 75 feet to 25 feet when they vote on Ordinance 23-049. This is truly an egregious conflict of interest by those Assembly members Tew, Yundt, Fonov and Bernier who are contractors and will benefit from the change. The public spoke in opposition to the Ordinance at the Planning Commission meeting on May 5, and the Commission failed the Ordinance

The setback was established at 75 feet in 1973, was briefly lowered to 45 feet in 1986 by the Assembly, and then increased back to 75 feet by voter initiative in 1987. The residents of the Borough did not wait 6 months to return the setback to 75 feet after it was lower by the Assembly. This new Ordinance 23-049 ordinance is sponsored by Assemblymen Tew and Yundt, and while it professes to be correcting a violation of 800 residences that are within the 75 feet setback, the solution proposed is to let new construction occur within the 75. How do you correct a violation by allowing new construction within that limit to be deemed legal? If there are residences in violation, there should be an ordinance to correct that situation, with penalties and correcting buffers required. But the setback should not be changed to reward those violators.

This legislation:

1) penalizes those people who have followed the legal setback of 75 feet. They are not going to move their homes closer.

2) gives a pardon to those people who have violated the law, allowing them to finance the sale of their home even though they are in violation of Borough code.

3) benefits those people who work in construction, those people who build homes, do excavation, gravel and concrete work. Interestingly that is the occupation of 4 of the 7 members of the Assembly.

This change will bring damage to our lakes, to fishing in the valley, to tourism. The long-term effect will be devastating to our Valley.

I urge everyone who loves fishing and loves our beautiful lakes to please speak out against it.

Show up at the Assembly meeting on the 18th and protest this gross Conflict of Interest on the part of the aforementioned Assembly members.

Patricia Fisher,

Mat-Su