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From: lee decesare [mailto:tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com]
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 5:55 PM
To: amanteiga@lagacetanewspaper.com; April Griffin; Bruce Burnham; Candy Olson; Dabonich@aol.com; edgecomb; Edith A Tobul; faliero; Frank Sanchez; Jack Lamb; Jade T. Moore; KPerezhsb2004@aol.com; Margie; montolino; rich; Stein; Tiger Bay Club of Tampa; Warren Rachels; 'Tom Gonzalez'; carol.kurdell@sdhc.k12.fl.us
Subject: FW: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on Email to Members of the Hillsborough County School....

There is a comment on my casting-roomcouch blog (below) worthy of your attention.

This teacher's comment shows the high level of teacher intelligence and why the public should trust the teachers, not the administration. Elia can't write a mature email to save her life and misuses punctuation to a faretheewell.

Hamilton, considered by the Board as superintendent candidate, is illiterate, not knowing the difference between "your" and "you're." Read his magnum opus of advice that he had a year to compose for new Board members on protocols they should know for Board service. This document with my corrections is on my blog.

This man claims a Ph.D. I believe he bought and paid for it. I will ask the Public Affairs office where he alleges to have got it and send his literacy forensics to the president and say that institution should be ashamed of itself for foisting this specimen off on the public school system as a graduate with a Ph.D. from the institution that gave it to him.

I still haven't heard from Linda Cobbe on whether the Professional Standards rule applies to lying Board members like Dr. Lamb. I will repeat the request. The apparatchiks clam up when it's up-against-the-wall time for them.

The teachers picket May 8 at 3 at ROSSAC downtown. Go down, picket, and support them. Attend the Board meeting at five to speak in their support. I will.

I especially invite CTA president Jade T. Moore and her staff to come and picket for these teachers. They need some union support. Hillsborough's CTA is in bed with the administration and does nothing for its teachers but rape them of $500 a year and refuse to put their salaries on the CTA information-lite Web site.

lee drury de cesare

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From: Goader [mailto:noreply-comment@blogger.com]
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 4:23 PM
To: tdecesar@tampabay.rr.com
Subject: [Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch] New comment on Email to Members of the Hillsborough County School....

Goader has left a new comment on your post "Email to Members of the Hillsborough County School...":

Steve Kemp, a Sickles High teacher of students with disabilities, is among those affected. When his department lost a teaching position, he was offered a chance to teach in an area that didn't interest him.

He said he wasn't told about the pool immediately. (Another administration failure to communicate) While that alternative provides some comfort, he remains upset about how the situation was handled.

"There's just a lot of frustration and tension," said Kemp, in his fourth year teaching as a second career. (This human vignette is good, Ms. Reporter Person. But what was his first career? Readers are dying to know.)

Thank you for the interest in my journey on our little planet. I must leave you in suspense a bit longer as to my first career while I comment further on my frustration (no peeking, read this first). I relocated within walking distance of Sickles so I would be a part of the greater neighborhood. I live here, shop in the area, and can be on campus quicker than a student can think of an excuse not to have his cell phone confiscated when caught using it in class. I am now part of the community. I'm a neighbor of Sickles High School. I had planned to stay at Sickles and enjoy a long productive career.

I have always taught students with learning disabilities. Next year, I was told to teach a self-contained Emotionally Handicapped and Severely Emotionally Disturbed class of students. That is not my area of expertise. Other teachers have experience in teaching students with these disabilities and have a repertoire of strategies for that purpose. No one asked me if I wanted the position, though my colleagues were well aware I did not, it was simply thrust on me.

Further, no one told this newer teacher in his second career that another option existed—the pool. Now, that does not ameliorate the fact that I up and moved over this way and am now firmly planted here. At least, I would not have worried so much over the long four-day weekend about my future in teaching. I would have known that I had an option, one that protects my employment—just don't know where that will be.

I suppose my situation was further exacerbated by the 6/7 teaching period, which was thrust upon all high school teachers. (What's the deal, am I learning that public schools like to throw situations at unsuspecting teachers just to see how they are handled?) Nothing in my four years of teaching ESE students, so far, lead me to believe that administrators would force me to teach student with disabilities of which I am not interested. I began my second career teaching SLD students, I have taught SLD students since then, and I am teaching SLD students now. Next year however, my options are to teach EH and SED students or leave. They obviously do not care what I want since no one asked me what my preferences were, nor did they consider my career interests to this point.

The suspense is over and you asked for it. My first career was in the wholesale business of selling steel. Actually, is was a bit more interesting since the products included stainless steel, free machining steels, alloy steel, aluminum, copper and brass, nickel, corrosive resistant metals of various types, and other exotic alloys used mostly in the space and aeronautical industries. Your curiosity is finally quenched. Speaking of quenched, I also sold quenched and tempered steel.

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Posted by Goader to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 1:22 PM