Webmaster's Note: This letter was sent to the Berkshire Eagle by Charlie Bradshaw and never printed.
We are proud to publish it here.
Teachers in the Central Berkshire Regional School District have been working without a new contract since the opening of school, and after almost a full year of bargaining, an agreement remains elusive. As one who has spent more than half of his forty-two year teaching career in the district, I feel compelled to set the record straight about the recent decision teachers have made to suspend all volunteer activities that occur outside the scope of their contractual obligations. This action has been taken with the deepest regret as one of very few legal options for teachers under Massachusetts law. Some would argue that teachers are "using the kids" as a means to justify dissatisfaction with the bargaining process. Nothing could be further from the truth. I can personally testify to the fact that the very idea of staying away from the year-long planning of the 2008 Senior Assembly at Wahconah Regional High School is painful and abhorrent to me and to those of us who voluntarily create this unique and special event for our graduates, now in its twentieth year. If any taxpayer in the district were to add up the thousands of volunteer hours annually spent by many of its teachers in behalf of children K-12, he would find that they would have a very high price tag. Yet year after year the district's children are feted to a host of events that enrich their lives, make their education more palatable, and give them opportunities they would often not otherwise have. For all of the teachers' efforts above and beyond their mythological seven hour day, the reward is another sorry state of contractual impasse.
More than fifty years ago as a youngster growing up in the city of Haverhill, I can recall a very hot summer that found my father an unlikely participant in a strike called by teamsters at the local Western Electric factory where he worked all of his adult life. For several nights he came home from the picket lines covered with sweat and without his usual good humor. I know I asked him more than once what the strike was all about, but he preferred not to involve an eight year old in a lengthy discussion concerning unfair labor practices. He simply told me it was something "he had to do." As a result, we ate a lot of baked beans that summer, but my father taught me a lesson about justice and the importance of standing up for individual and collective integrity. Years later he was able to attend a Senior Assembly I directed at Ludlow High School. After the program, while getting into his car for the long drive home, my father said something I will never forget. "Those kids have sure made a success out of you." Once again the man who had come from a family of eight, had known the Great Depression and World War II in his youth, and had never even dreamed of a college education, taught me a lesson profound in its simplicity. Be grateful to those who make you what you are.
While presidents, congressmen and governors propose and pass high sounding legislation that purports to leave "no child left behind," their talk of raising teacher salaries has been empty rhetoric. They walk away from the responsibility of adequately paying for these proposals, leaving local communities the unenviable and daunting task of fulfilling numerous unfunded mandates. Our national priorities make a mockery out of this supposed "commitment" to America's children.
Central Berkshire Regional School District teachers are doing something they have to do right now. Their goal is to achieve fairness and justice, not to empty the district coffers. They are acutely aware of the enormous roles they play in the fundamental intellectual and social development of students in the district's six schools. Almost a year has passed since negotiations began and the time to resolve differences has come. The clock has been ticking far too long. There is time to ensure that the current contract malaise does not have a deleterious effect on the lives of hundreds of children. Nothing but rancor will result from creating them and us camps in the CBRSD village. The district's reputation and future place among Berkshire County's public schools is at stake, and all of us who shape the lives of children, especially parents, must demand that its place be at the top. As one who could have retired with full benefits three years ago, I will cherish whatever time I may have left with my CBRSD students. They are some of the most delightful, creative, intelligent and down to earth kids on the planet. I hope that young teachers will want to flock to the district in years to come to make their own significant contributions to children's lives. Quality candidates will not do that if there is a sense that their work will be undervalued whenever it is time to negotiate a new contract. I know that the volunteer spirit of the district's teachers will flourish once again upon the settlement of a fair and equitable contract. That spirit is the way they reward our kids for, as my late father put it, making such a success out of us all. They will show their appreciation for justice and fairness by doing both what they are paid do for the children, and what they willingly volunteer as well! I believe that we must and will find a way to achieve contractual justice and move forward with the district's mission to serve the children of its seven towns with characteristic excellence. Anything less would be shameful.
Charles A. Bradshaw,
CBEA Member
Wahconah Regional High School
