SOUTH BRUNSWICK – Editorial off the mark

By Debra Frey, Dayton
To the editor:
    I would like to make some clarifications regarding your editorial “Teachers should have taken freeze”.
   For starters, district employees were asked to take a wage freeze for the 2011-2012 school year.
   They were told it was an all or nothing deal as the board did not want to negotiate again. The supervisors agreed to a six-month pay freeze but we were not offered that deal. Had that been an option, the unions would probably have agreed to that.
   The Board of Education proposed a 12.2 percent increased school tax in order to keep the school budget the same as it has been for the past two years. Any monies saved by wage freezes would not go back to the tax payer.
   That money was to be used to save jobs or programs.
   Therefore, many employees living in the district are” looking at paying a potential 20 cents per $100 of assessed value more this year for their property taxes” regardless of whether they take a pay freeze or not.
   You stated how “many in the private sector have had to take unpaid furloughs and have not seen an increase in pay for several years now”. What you didn’t say is that many others have seen raises and bonuses that certainly are more than my yearly salary.
   I personally resent Dr. Speesler’s comment of saying that “the teachers, by voting to not accept the freeze, were thinking more of themselves than about the students”.
   As a paraprofessional in the district, I get paid very little money. I do my job because I truly love what I do.
   Seeing the smiles on children’s faces when they discover they can do something they thought they couldn’t, their pride in a school accomplishment, the tears we erase when their world is “crumbling”, these are the rewards I get for what I do.
   Am I exhausted when I leave? Usually…but our children are our future. Each one of them are special and deserve the very best our school district can give them.
   And finally, Mr. Editor, I really resent your comment that “unions that did not take a freeze this year may be acting a bit selfishly in terms of the harsh realities we all are facing”.
   Do your homework before making such a statement. I have worked in the district for 10 years and yet my salary for full-time work is less than $17,000. Do you really have the nerve to ask me to take a pay freeze?