Justin Katz
I heard an eye witness account, last night, of the daily start-of-day ritual at Tiverton High School. Apparently, the teachers all sit in their cars until exactly the time at which they have to report to their classrooms, and then they all march in as a group. As anybody who has ever worked in a…
Here’s what the NEA’s man in Tiverton, Patrick Crowley, had to say when I suggested that a particular legal claim of his — that a failure of the administration to pay the teachers for their day of striking proved that they were not considered salaried and were therefore entitled to overtime — was, well, deceptively…
An apology may be in order for my having not been fast enough on my feet as I’ve attempted to keep track of Tiverton teacher union negotiations amidst all of the other things on my schedule. I should have caught the accounting trick in this, but the reporter’s and the union’s presentation left me merely…
Reading Thomas’s comments to my “What Profiteth a Community” post, I thought, at first, that we’d solved one area of disagreement. Consider: Isn’t there a real chicken-and-egg problem here? Justin’s right that, if we don’t have decent jobs in RI, our well-educated children will flee for greener pastures. On the other hand, what potential employers…
Sometimes I find myself shaking my head at how teachers — of all people — are willing to allow themselves to appear: Teachers changed their proposal from a three-year contract to a two-year contract, but deMedeiros said the percentage salary increases did not differ much from a previous proposal. Instead of asking for 3.75 percent…
Disagreements would arise later in the conversation, but Mark Shea makes a point that too often (nearly always) goes unexplored: Two-year-olds Zola and Veronica Kruschel waddled through Folsom Street Fair amidst strangers in fishnets and leather crotch pouches, semi and fully nude men. The twin girls who were also dressed for the event wore identical…
You might be interested in some of the events on the URI College Republicans’ schedule for the semester, especially during Islamo-Facism Awareness Week later this month. I’m going to try to make it to both Donna Hughes’s lecture on “Women’s Rights and Political Islam” (October 23) and Robert Spencer’s lecture the following evening (October 24).…
The Providence Journal editorial board is dead on in its criticism of Sheldon Whitehouse for furthering delays of judicial appointments in Rhode Island: Two important local federal judgeships on the U.S. District Court in Providence and U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (a seat long held by a Rhode Islander) have gone unfilled for 10 months.…
Tiverton School Committee Vice Chairman Michael Burk offers the following response to some late night positioning from the NEA’s spinner for Tiverton: Yes, the School Committee did decide to go to arbitration — which by state law is not binding for financial issues but is binding on non-financial issues (most of the non-financials were settled…
I certainly don’t want to raise opposition to men battling cancer, but I’m a little confused, and not entirely assuaged by this: Providence Firefighters James Petersen Jr. and Jay Briddy have colon cancer, and Lt. Steven Schora has lymphoma. All three are out injured — Petersen since 2005, Briddy since 2004 and Schora since 1997.…