On Saturday I noticed an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. It is on the fron page if you get the Cleveland Plain Dealer and if you don't, then here is a link to the article

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/07/cleveland_teachers_contract_li.html

I wanted to point out this article and do it now as a favor to the Administration and Staff to our
Streetsboro School District.

The article denotes concessions the union has been willing to accept in order to bring back at least 660 of the teachers who were laid off from work.

To teachers these may seem like some pretty tough concessions to where those outside of the teaching profession may think it is not enough.

I think if the district wants to pass a levy, they, at a minimum, must do the same things in our district, with the Union, before school begins in August or September of 2010 and before the levy hits the ballot.

This would build credibility of the district to the community. These changes must be at the same level or more if they expect the levy to succeed.

They have to put it in an unbreakable guarantee to the community and the tax payer. This would be both Staff and Administration.

Now, if the Administration would have volunteered to take a 10% pay cut or at least pay 100% of their employee share of retiremen back in February, the levy in May might have passed. But they didn't.

Remember, the Administration flatly declined making any concessions back before. Remember the video Ms. Keller put out on the schools web site and broadcasted on the schools channel 16?

The teachers union contract comes up 2011. Now, if the teaching staff considers the minimum of what the Cleveland School district has done before the contract expires, they will be much further ahead.

If the economy continues on the path it is on now, the concessions the teachers will have to take at the time of renegotiating a contract will be tremendously more that what the Cleveland teachers are will to forego right now.

The economy will be most likely worse than it is now. There would be no room in the economy for a strike. It would be like trying to get more money for you job during the Great Depression.

Now, many of you will say this is ridiculous that I even propose such an idea.

Maybe so, but all indicators I see of the economy now shows that is the way that we are most likely going to lean. It is inevitable. No doubt about it.

Even if our economy does begin to turn around any time soon, it will still take at least 3 or maybe 4 years to recover.

So how about it Administration and Staff, will you make your concessions now or will you suffer greater for it later? The ball is in your court.

Now last month, the Board decided to raise participation fees for Sports. Two members of the board didn't want to raise them for the felt it would be too difficult for the students to pay that amount to play sports. Now those two board members indicate to the community that times are tough right now and families cannot afford the rate increase. What about those same families paying a higher rate in property taxes to support the district? If they can't pay for the sports, then how are they going to come up with the money to pay the taxes? Isn't that a paradox of sorts?

Pay freezes for Administration and Staff reduces our school buget by around $200,000. It reduced the schools budget by less than 1%. Thanks guys, that really helped.

Changing the subjet, now I too have to accept the hybrid schedule is going to be a failure. Citizens have come forward and posted on the RecordPub indicating the flaws in the concept and I beleive them. Their documentation and research is far superior than what the District's committee presented and those citizens should be highly commended for the research they have done.

I had my doubts about a committee made up mostly of staff members to determine whether Block Scheduling is worth the effort. Wouldn't you think there would be some bias there? Come on now, the techers love the block scheduling and it is not because it enables them to deliver a higher quality education. I believe it was Mr. Boardwine who informed us that since block scheduling has been in place, our scores increased by .02 percent. Pretty impressive improvement no? Sorry for the sarcasm.

However, those citizens who are against block scheduling deliver a very, very strong argument against it and I am now siding with them for they delivered actual proof that shows that Mr. Boardwine might have been a little to enthusiastic about that .02 percent increase.

Again, this is my opinion and predictions for the future. You can scoff at them if you want, you can ridicule them if you want. Doesn't matter.

Yes the school district has made cuts but they have made many of them in the wrong areas. They felt they would punish the community but all it has done is angered the community even more. This will make it extremly difficult to pass any levy. It may be salvageable if they do what Clevaland has done before the levy goes on the ballot again.

It is a shame they are waiting to take it to the level Cleveland has to now. Practical, no-brainer decisions are difficult to come by in this district.

Now some of you will say we are not Cleveland, but let me remind you, many have been very adamant in the fact that we are considered a sub-burb of Cleveland. Here's your chance to support the idea. Shouldn't we follow their example if we are this so call "sub-burb of Cleveland". Remember posters, you said it. I didn't.

Martin Fleming

Unfortun