My Thoughts on DCSS

I’ve been sitting on this blog for a while because I hate the idea of possibly coming across as a whiner. Other adjectives I can handle, even the not nice ones, but with something like this tone is very important and surprisingly I try to keep my mouth shut more often than not on topics like this.

What am I going on about? The Dekalb County School situation. I’ve got a couple dogs in this fight. Taxpayer, parent, spouse of an employee. I know at least one board member personally. I worked under a different board member in a former job. Due to knowing everyone in this corner of the universe I've learned I don’t always mix well with politics (especially local ones) and I’ve skirted away from this drama for a long time. I learned a long time ago that my brain and the governmental thought process does not always jive. It’s why I no longer work for the Department of Juvenile Justice. It was never the kids. It was the bureaucracy. I just don’t understand it. If something doesn’t work you fix it. If something costs too much, you spend less, but the last thing you do is let a bunch of murderers out on the street to solve your problems. Oh wait. That’s exactly how the state and county governments work. Hence me stepping away from that career quickly.

But whatever. We’ve all know the DCSS board has made major, serious, horrific (illegal) decisions. There isn’t even really an argument about this. How can there be? So I’m going to risk the reputation of being a whiner and vent a little.

Here’s a shocking fact: Teachers don’t get paid a lot. I know! But to be fair, you do not have to be a rocket scientist to be a teacher (or a social worker—trust me, I know.) They do not (always) have to have multiple degrees to teach, or a huge knowledge in particular subjects. And yes, sometimes their college homework was something like “make a bulletin board. (But really, I'd love to see an engineer make a bulletin board on language arts. Ha!) They also get some pretty awesome time off. Spring and Summer break. Christmas. It’s a trade-off of course. Most work more than 40 hours a week, sometimes on weekends and there is no such thing as over-time or bonuses. Or if you live in Dekalb, a raise of any kind.

But on the flip side, most teachers go into teaching knowing they will not make a ton of money. They go into it because, for some reason, they have a drive to work with children in a learning environment. Most people cannot do this job. Take that rocket scientist. They can figure out how to send a rocket into outer space, but fifteen minutes in an elementary school cafeteria would most likely send them running to the hills. Not to mention parent conferences. Or trying to explain to 30 kids, over and over again that you can get 50 cents out of a dollar. Every day. For a month.

Don’t even get me on middle schoolers. Jeez.

Kids+Hormones+Learning+Parents=KillMeNow

But most teachers like kids! (I said most. You are welcome to fire all that don't. I can list several) They like teaching them new things! They “get” what kids are going through and want to help them become better and productive members of society. Plus teach them how to read.  So they take a lower paycheck and live in a smaller house, and drive a less expensive car to do this job.

At least this has been our experience. But this week has been hard. I’ve no longer been able to ignore the DCSS dramas. When you find out that for the fourth year in a row your income taxes will report a smaller income than the year before, even though your family cumulatively works 4 jobs (including over those infamous summer breaks and on top of those 40+ hour weeks) you have to wake up and think about your choices. Because sadly, even though our income is less (and every extra dollar we bring in goes to replace one lost) our expenses continue to increase. Huh.

Many years ago we agreed to make less for the jobs we wanted to have and the lifestyle we were willing to live. But people, there is only so much you can cut. Cable? Nope. 2 iphones? Cut. Extra activities for the kids? Sorry. Retirement? Well, I guess we handle that on our own, since the county is too broke to add to it. But yeah, we’ve been cutting and cutting and cutting trying to make our ends meet yet oddly this feels kind of one sided with the school board. I know it has to come from “somewhere” but I can’t figure out why the school board seems fixed on getting blood from a stone. And that doesn’t just mean the teachers, that means the schools and the kids.

Because of this we are thinking about new choices and new decisions. We are having to look outside Dekalb County. Look outside teaching. Reach beyond helping kids. It may not be the worst thing for us, but in the end I don’t think it will be the best thing for the schools. If we are thinking about this I can only imagine many others are also. It’s not out of anger or even annoyance. It’s out of not having any more hours in the day to work and raise our family while raising and teaching other families.

To summarize, our family is having to reevaluate our lives due to the DCSS mess. What I wish is for the DCSS to stop in-fighting and stop lying and looking out for themselves. To look at what they are doing to families, to children and to this community. I want them to realize that with every cut, that teacher will most likely have to take a second job, which gives them less time and energy to focus on the children in school, and that it brings down morale, spreads discontent and fear. I know selling some county property or cutting back on cable access television stations would be difficult. Not to mention ordering text books when the old ones are still very usable (seriously, this is an embarrassment) or eliminating waste across the county is a challenge. These things can be hard to agree on when the people making the decisions are sitting on self-righteous agendas, petty grudges and possibly their own dirty hands but the clock is ticking and the bad decisions from five years ago are crushing us now, and the ones made now are going to tip the scales even further in the future.

Good luck with all that DCSS.

Let us know how it goes, I'll just be sitting over here trying to figure out how to get more blood from the stone.

*For the Record, I was going to blog about Wayne Williams but couldn't get excited about it. THAT's how much this whole thing is making me crazy. Wayne Williams!