I ran into Pam Drake on Lakeshore and she introduced me to Mike Gallo. The result was this conversation on how the 26,000-student Oakland Unified School District's Adult Education program has not given their teachers -- including Drake and Gallo -- a pay raise in eight years, or since 2001.
Drake claims that the organization has a stockpile that it has amased but has used the money for costs other than giving better pay to its teachers; its spent the money, she claims, on supervisors and administrators and added teachers on "specal assignment" who are supposed to support the program but don;t.
In addition, according to Gallo, they had their health care benefits cut a few years ago. Drake says that when everyone else has a holiday, they get a day wihout pay, then tell the teachers that if the holiday is too long as it is for Christmas, then the teacher has to pay for health care because the program didn't pay the teacher enough money to pay for health care.
That's an outrage!
Drake reports that a proposal for more money has never come up before the administration. If you want to get involved in changing this state of affairs you can attend an upcoming school board meeting on Wednesday March 11th, at 5 PM at 1025 Second Avenue, Oakland.
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