Oh, god...get a sense of humor, my peeps.

Cecilia To be honest with you, is much easier to blame someone else for our mistakes. I went to public schools all my life. I can tell you that the teachers are not to blame or the school system. Simply the fact that, students don't want to learn. My father always said to me, "Don't matter what school you go to, if you're bright and smart you are going to shine anywhere."

One of the problem with our schools being broken is the type of teachers hired. In 1985 my husband was injured on the job. It took surgery and healing for one year, two years of physical therapy and then working with a Labor and Industries counselor for another two years to get him to where he could go school and retrain for a different occupation. He would no longer be able to return to hard physical heavy labor and did not even fit in to L&I or SS criteria for Sedentary work. Meaning sitting at a desk job all day. He has to be able to sit, stand, walk around and have a couple times a day he can literally lie down for a few minutes. The ONLY job they could find he could do and he was interested in training for was that of becoming a school teacher. Then we had to wait one more year as our then 18 year old son was injured during a baseball game and was in a body cast for year. Finally June 1991 we sold our home, packed lock and barrel, sold our live stock, left family and freinds and our home town. Mine for 41 years and my husbands after he met and married me for 23 years. He had been accepted in the Eastern Washington University Education program as a student. A year later he found he needed open heart surgery just before fall quarter started in his Sophmore year. But I literally drove him to and from classes for 3 months while he recovered from surgery that first quarter of his second year. In 1995 he was to graduate he had good grades but he had to qualify according to the EWU teaching standards. They dismissed him from the teaching program and refused his certification " reason he was disabled and they felt he would not be good around kids because of it or he might be an endangerment to them or visa versa" They wanted to give him a "General Degree" Which basically means it was worth nothing . We contacted the Federal Office of Civil Rights and we Won his case and EWU had to give him another year of schooling at their expense and he graduated from the teaching program the following year 1996 with a 3.7 grade average. He was also advised NOT to close his file because people like to discriminate and a closed file allows people to say things about you without your being able to know who said it or why. Basically a way practiced by Education to slander and defame someone without suffering the consequenses of being sued. Under the quise of confidentuallity. Which violates one of the US constitutanal laws in that " we have the right to face our accuser". So that is one excuse schools used to not hire my husband full time. Schools have been claiming they desperately need good quality teachers. School officals, administration and teachers all agree and have agreed my husband is a supberb and excellant teacher. When he got his degree he was endoresed to teach grades 4-12 that was in 1996. In 1997 he went back and added 3 more endorsements to his degree. He is endorsed to teach Science, Earth Science, Life Science, Physics, Biology, Botony, Geograpy, Social Studies, Geology and History. However that same year the paramenters for hiring teachers changed, our law makers decided that unless someone had an K-8 endorsement that they could not be hired. Even thought the 4-12 required more education. On top of that my husband has to pay out of pocket from our still SS check ( he has not been able to be hired full time) For clock hours of education every 5 years earning 150 clock hours to keep his certification. If he had a contract as a full time teacher however he would have this as part of his perks or benefits and not have to pay. Subs also are not allowed due to a 1959 Federal law to draw unemployment benefits as long as Schools give them a letter of reasonable assurance they will be rehired come fall. Meaning live on 0 income for 3 months or get a summer job. Nice for someone younger and able bodied. My husband is disabled and they know it. Social Security limits his working to less than 6 days a month or he would lose the only source of income we do have. He does not want to stay on Social Security he wanted off which is why he went to school. But inspite of his being able to teach, having a good teaching degree. Being considered an excellant teacher they won't hire him. They won't consider his 4-12 endorsements. They would hire him in the high school level IF he had a math endorsement or so they say. Which he does not have and takes 2 years to achieve. having used up all his financial aid benefits he does not qualify for more aid. Not to mention he has had to deffer his School loans and Put them into forebearance due to not enough income to pay them. Which due to interest over the last 10 years went from his owing $24,000 to $38,000. Now he is in default because we cannot pay $400 a month to them on his $997 month SS check income supplemented in the school year with 4-7 days a month work or around another $600. Our mortgate alone is half his SS check without considering utilities,auto insurance and groceries and other living expenses. We seldom go out or do much. Now to add insult to injury he has been told by some teachers that the school districts simply will NOT hire anyone unless they have had tenure built up which you get by being hired full time. If they are over the age of 40. Schools also hire right out of college, young initial certification teachers. Who are NOT more qualified or more experinced and schools admit that. They admit those teachers are green but the reason they hire them is because they don't have to pay them as much as someone who has a continuing certification as my husband. Intital teachers get paid depending on school district between $19,000 and $24,000, a recertified teacher even if a Sub and not yet hired full time has to be paid, $34,000, to $39,000 and up from there. More if they have gone back and got a masters degree. But when my husband applies he gets a canned letter "Thank you for your interest, however we have found someone more qualfied" What a lie. They have found someone younger and who they don't have to pay as much for. So that is partly why our school system is broken. It has to do with greed and money not teaching students.