Parents, students rally for Pleasant teachers
MARION – Parents, students and former teachers attended a rally to support Pleasant teachers during a driving rain Tuesday in front of Pleasant Middle School.
The event, organized by parents and a handful of teachers, felt like a tailgate party, complete with grilled hot dogs, cookies, Spartan logo apparel and hand-painted spirit signs. Children played in the drizzle while classic rock music oozed out of a boom box beneath a bank of party tents, and much of the talk drifted to the Marion County Fair that ended last weekend.
But the signs waved at passing traffic reading “PHS: The Best Teacher Staff Ever” and “An Investment in Education Always Pays Interest” underscored the labor dispute between about 90 teachers and the Pleasant school board.
Talks between the Pleasant Association of Teachers and the board stalled after the teachers voted down a tentative agreement between the board and the union negotiators in May. The talks will resume with the aid of a federal mediator next week.
Teachers received no increases in 2013 or 2014; they received a quarter of a percent increase in 2015 under the current 3-year contract. That deal will expire this fall, according to high school government teacher Charles Martindell, who helped organize the rally.
Martindell said at least 18 teachers have selected to retire or accept positions in other districts since classes ended in the spring. Some eligible teachers have decided to retire to take advantage of changes to the state retirement pension system throughout Ohio. Some of those retirees have created openings in other districts with higher pay scales, creating a domino effect of teacher movement.
For the parents attending the rally, however, the talk wasn’t about wages but about keeping exceptional teachers they think help keep Pleasant schools exceptional.
Jan Chase’s daughter, Taylor, graduated from Pleasant High School with honors last spring, and is now a student at the Mount Carmel College of Nursing. Chase’s son is a sophomore at Pleasant.
“My husband (Dr. Tim Chase) graduated from Pleasant, so we decided to move back home from Columbus. We selected this district for the academics,” Jan Chase said.
“Pleasant has the highest graduation rate in the county and offers maybe the most dual credit classes in the area. We’d like to see our teachers brought up to the cost of living. I don’t think we can keep quality on low pay,” she said.
Dual credit classes offer joint high school and college credit.
Pleasant Local School District had 1,352 total students in 2014, with 914 resident students and another 438 open enrollment students from other districts, according to information provided on the district’s website.
The district has earned the top performance indicator ranking among all school districts within Marion county and ranked 232nd out of 881 school districts in Ohio. Pleasant’s four-year high school graduation rate of 94.6 percent earns an A, according to the Ohio Department of Education School Report Card statistics. The district’s K-3 Literacy Reading Guarantee of 100 percent also is a notable accomplishment, according to the department’s ratings.
The district’s successes in academics and athletics are sources of pride for parents and bragging rights for students, but the loss of popular teachers is alarming for some residents at Tuesday’s gathering.
Susan Almendinger has a son attending the high school. The former speech therapist at Pleasant resigned after the school year and will work for Marion City Schools this fall.
“I’m here to support my former colleagues. It takes a strong staff and strong community support to have strong schools,” Almendinger saod.
“I’d like to see the teachers here get more support and appreciation from the board. I don’t think they realize how much time, the nights and weekends, these teachers put in to do this job well,” she said.
High school government and mock trial teacher Charles Martindell was pleased with showing of support by those in attendance despite of the weather.
“We learned that parents were petitioning the school board on our behalf, and some parents didn’t know how to show their support, so we partnered with them. We were kind of inspired by them.”
“About a third of the high school staff will be new next year, and some parents are concerned we are losing good teachers. The parents wanted the school board to take those losses into account,” Martindell said.
Martindell, in his eighth year at Pleasant, agrees there is something special about the district.
“It’s a very unique community. The parents are really involved in their children’s education. I know several of the teachers that have left or are leaving, they are very conflicted. There is something special about Pleasant that you’re not going to find elsewhere.”
jsmiller@gannett.com
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Twitter: @motionblur56