Teacher's New Contract

[anapuni808]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

just curious - besides Scrivener, is anyone posting here on this thread a teacher?

[WindwardOahuRN]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

Since every teacher is basically a suspect, albeit of a random nature, what is to become of a suspect who cannot pee on demand? Is he or she considered guilty until proven innocent? Will she or he be suspended until the ability to pee presents itself, literally? Shouldn't someone be watching the presentation from start to finish to ensure the pee is from a genuine donor? Wouldn't the suspect/donor prefer to have a witness to prove the presentation is genuine and beyond question so that all suspicion could be arrested at the source? What is to be the nature of the enforcement official and the collection official? What will be their credentials as peelice officers for the State since the DoE should not be peelicing itself? Should students be trusted to turn in suspect teachers? Should teachers daily or at least routinely profess their disdain for nonprescription drugs to their students like politicians and some in TV media routinely profess their nationalism and wear miniature flags to dispel vibes of political incorrectness?

This random testing thing could prove to be a boon for mediocrity and homogeneity of personal expression and belief. In the end not only will no child be left behind, but no one will be left behind or in front! We will all be the same and it will not have required biological cloning to make it so.

Oh give me a break already.

Inability to urinate on demand would not be deemed a sign of guilt. Circumvention of testing is an expected part of drug testing. Modes and methods of circumvention are no big secret---inability to pee on demand is one of them but it is also expected that some people just may not be able to produce a urine sample when asked to do so. Please educate yourself regarding the parameters of drug testing before you post such a pseudo-righteous bunch of crappola.

Your obvious lack of knowledge regarding such procedures is glaring.

Rah-rah-sis-boom-bah. Hitch up the horses to the bandwagon.

[waioli kai]

practicing with detectable remnants, Re: Teacher's New Contract

.

--"Oh give me a break already." -- WindwardOahuRN

I did give you a break after your last post directed toward me but apparently you did not recognize the break. Sure I wrote "alleged RN" and why not? You think that sticking RN at the end of your moniker actually proves that you are an RN or proves anything? Certainly you have not posted anything which proves to me that you knew much about what you were posting in this thread and when confronted with legitimate inquiry you chose to take another offensive approach rather than to further explain yourself, justify your statements or shed some light on where you are coming from with half-baked knowledge presented as indisputable truth.

Maybe you are a registered nurse. I have taught classes of only nursing and pre-medical students, and worked in both private and public university medical institutions in the United States. For sure there is a wide range of personalities, competence and sound judgements in the medical profession that could easily include yourself since competence in the scientific field is far from being an absolute standard that must be met by all those admitted into and allowed to stay in the profession.

Let's try this again: In your May 1st 2:11pm post (during your shift?) were you not referring to a sub-topic (ie, random drug testing of DoE teachers) of this thread when you were writing to scrivener regarding the random urine sample drug testing of teachers and other professionals as being "practice under the influence is the issue" of the teachers contract? Then when I attempted to correct your misjudgement you chose not to recognize your misjudgement/false claim but instead chose to write "I honestly have never seen urine tests used for alcohol screening." which tests were not what I was even beginning to suggest in my post which you were citing.

So what is it? You still claim that this proposed random urine sample drug testing of teachers is about identifying teachers who are practicing under the influence of drugs which were not legally prescibed to them or if prescribed, their use of such drugs is being abused?

Please explain what you think is the difference (if any from your perspective) between drug use which is what these urine tests do identify and "practicing under the influence".

To scrivener you also write "Any type of harm at any level is unacceptable, given the trust that has been placed in us."

That appears to be a very inclusive statement. Are you including doctors? Shouldn't every doctor be tested prior to every surgery? Prior to a day's worth of diagnoses, prescriptions and referrals? Being the professionals such doctors are supposed to be and the responsibilities vested in their sober judgements, are not medical doctors in a position at least as great as that of registered and practical nurses and physician assistants to possibly do "Any type of harm" to those whom may come under their care should doctors be practicing "under the influence" , or even as is being shoved up public teachers' butts, not necessarily "practicing under the influence" but "practicing with detectable remnants of possibly 'having been under the influence' "?

[waioli kai]

Re: practicing honesty vs. deception in the Republic of lies and hypocrUSy

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--"Of 13,500 teachers, about 8,500 voted... So did the other 5,000 teachers not care? " --jtree

--'Isn't that kinda the same thing that happens in other elections in Hawai'i, too?'--miulang

Not voting is indistinguishable from not caring. One of the greatest lessons this so-called democracy demonstrates is that citizens' rights are not so much taken away from them as much as citizens relinquish their rights because they plainly just do not care enough to do the simplest tasks it takes to retain them.

--""just curious - besides Scrivener, is anyone posting here on this thread a teacher?"" --anapuni

After seeing what Scivener endured directly when not by poorly veiled innuendo why should anyone confess to presently being a public school teacher in this thread or any other?

[Pua'i Mana'o]

Re: practicing honesty vs. deception in the Republic of lies and hypocrUSy

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--""just curious - besides Scrivener, is anyone posting here on this thread a teacher?"" --anapuni

After seeing what Scivener endured directly when not by poorly veiled innuendo why should anyone confess to presently being a public school teacher in this thread or any other?

Hah? What does that mean?

[waioli kai]

Re: practicing honesty vs. deception in the Republic of lies and hypocrUSy

Hah? What does that mean?

It was a personal observation, ending with a question not a statement. Shouldn't an answer to the question have meaning, even if the answer is only frivolous, which the question is not?

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

anyone get the feeling that Waioli here is playing devil's advocate?

[Miulang]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

Lee Cataluna weighs in on why she thinks those 5,000 teachers didn't vote either way on the recent contract renewal:

Today's parents might recall the days when teachers smoked cigarettes in the classroom and the only ones who scolded and waggled fingers were the students. It was once common for kids to see public school teachers light up at their desks during lunch recess and after school (while using their break time and off-the-clock hours to counsel kids, help with homework, listen to yet another recitation of "Flowers for Algernon").

These were good teachers with bad habits, and they were judged on their ability to teach, not the nicotine in their system or the example they were setting. It should be so today. Testing for cause is valid and an important safeguard. Random testing is for parolees and residents of halfway houses. Can an addict really run a classroom without being noticed for "acting funny"?

Perhaps those silent 5,000 were just biding their time until the issue goes away. They know how the state works. What are the chances that those lidded plastic cups will ever be passed out to faculty members? There are repair requisition forms years old still pending within the system. If they can't get around to inspecting a dam, will the state get around to inspecting teachers?

This is another instance of shooting first, then aiming and then asking questions last, just like the No Smoking Bill...pass regulations that don't have any plans for getting it enforced from the very outset, or calculating what the costs will be. So those teachers who voted to ratify the contract, what exactly were they voting in favor of again?

Miulang

[MountainBikeMike]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

I am a teacher from TX making the move to HI this summer to teach high school math. I really don't see what all the fuss is about.

Them: Hey, if you wizz in this cup I'll give you more money.

Me: where's the cup?

If you have a problem with this and you are a teacher it simply implies that you either do drugs or don't like the idea of being paid more.

Quit trying to hide your pipe behind the Constitution.

Mike

[scrivener]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

If you have a problem with this and you are a teacher it simply implies that you either do drugs or don't like the idea of being paid more.

Another reason this drug-testing sucks. MountainBikeMike, you don't know me, and I don't know you, so I have to ask: Do you really think these are the only two reasons I have a problem with this? Have you read this thread? I can tell you in all honesty that I am completely opposed to this testing and yet I fall into neither of the two categories you list. If I take this test and prove I have no drugs in my body, yet reassert my opposition to the testing, does that mean I instantly fall into the category of people who don't like the idea of being paid more?

You're a math teacher. So am I. I suggest you review your logical fallacies and come back with at least one additional category, because I can prove I'm not in your (a) cateogry, and your (b) category is absurd -- you put it there to imply that I must be in (a). I'll piss into a cup right now if only to prove you wrong.

[Leo Lakio]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

Quit trying to hide your pipe behind the Constitution.

Yeah! Screw that whole "innocent until proven guilty" crap!

['i'iwipolena]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

Indeed. Rights are outdated.

[MountainBikeMike]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

Look guys- there's no denying it...peeing in a cup is not going to be fun. But the good that this proposal brings far outweighs the bad. Random drug testing will quickly expose and delete the heavy users who somehow are able to show up to class everyday with our kids and fly under the radar without being detected otherwise, it is going to force the casual user to rethink whether they value getting high from time to time over their career, it is going to allow us to receive better compensation, and it is going to put better candidates next to our kids who deserve at least one role-model that doesn't do drugs.

As for innocent teachers turning up false positives, that's why they are tested again - innocent until proven guilty. And perhaps people being put into the position of having to reveal embarrassing medical history after a positive result could be handled on a case by case basis? Besides, these will no doubt be a small minority of cases, no?

No system is perfect, but this one clearly serves the greater good.



MBM

[GeckoGeek]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

But the good that this proposal brings far outweighs the bad. Random drug testing will quickly expose and delete the heavy users who somehow are able to show up to class everyday with our kids and fly under the radar without being detected otherwise,

How is that so great or important? I don't see teachers as being in the same class as heavy equipment operators where one mis-judgment can kill someone. As for giving our kids good teachers, there are plenty of poor but drug-free teachers out there. How do we get rid of them?

Let's go after unacceptable performance and leave drug testing for when there's "probable cause".

[scrivener]

Re: Teacher's New Contract

Look guys- there's no denying it...peeing in a cup is not going to be fun. But the good that this proposal brings far outweighs the bad.

I'm encouraged by your willingness to discuss the issue, rather than make sweeping generalizations that are clearly incorrect. You're the first teacher to post here in favor of the testing, so your perspective is welcome. Thanks for that.

I cannot agree with "the good...far outweighs the bad," but for the practical reasons you offer, I can totally understand why others would feel this way. My question for you is, where is the line? Would you be willing to have your mail randomly inspected? What about your credit card transactions? If you have nothing to hide, and if the money were good enough, you'd accept these conditions for employment?

I won't lie: I have a sell-out price. There are dollar-amounts that would convince me to accept any of these conditions I mention, but 8% is not one of them. Every state employee is getting something in the neighborhood of 8% anyway, without the testing, so in reality, the teachers were stuck. Bruises are still tender from the last strike, so the teachers had to accept the terms in order to avoid a major public relations issue (since there's been so much news lately about teachers and drugs).

As I've said earlier in this thread: The teachers voted, the thing's a done deal, and I lost. As Pua`i points out, I'm not even a public-school teacher and therefore don't even have a say, and as Ryan points out, I'm not a parent and can't understand the concern parents have about their kids' safety.

But America is not about the rule of the majority so much as the protection of all its citizens. The fact that the majority of teachers accepts this contract does not make it right. All it does is placate the masses, who think that FOUR highly publicized cases of teachers and drugs out of THIRTEEN THOUSAND teachers in the state means there's an epidemic of drug use, and this in spite of the fact that as far as anyone knows, no student has ever been harmed or endangered by a drug-using teacher. All it does is further erode civil liberties at the constitutional level AND alter the citizenry's own view of what its rights are. Like the ducks and geese on Orwell's Animal Farm, we are letting the pigs change the writing on the wall and forgetting what was there in the first place. And if a few outraged horses have to be sent to the glue-farm, that is the price of safety.

Random drug testing will quickly expose and delete the heavy users who somehow are able to show up to class everyday with our kids and fly under the radar without being detected otherwise, it is going to force the casual user to rethink whether they value getting high from time to time over their career, it is going to allow us to receive better compensation, and it is going to put better candidates next to our kids who deserve at least one role-model that doesn't do drugs.

I can't argue with this, because it's probably true. My argument has never been that some good can't come of it, but that the means is in no way justified by its ends. If the government screened the phone calls and letters of every citizen with an Arab surname, the threat of terrorism might go down. But is this how we want to treat our citizens in the name of safety? I say no. Especially when no threat has ever been revealed.

No system is perfect, but this one clearly serves the greater good.

Clear to you and just about everyone else at HT. I say it harms the greater good, especially professionals in future generations who won't ever recall the days when "probable cause" meant something.