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Hernando Today

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 2, 2008

Fighting Words

Re: "Highly Paid Teachers Need To Improve, Too," by Don Plezia in the Nov. 27 edition of Hernando Today.

Mr. Plezia, you are treading on sacred waters when you write derogatory and disrespectful remarks regarding school teachers. You see the love of my life is a lifelong dedicated school teacher, therefore, I feel compelled to not only respond on her behalf, but on behalf of every school teacher in Hernando County.

Based on your comments, one could conclude you're spending way too much time reading crawlers on the bottom of the TV screen, which probably explains your confusion; your ears are hearing one thing while your eyes are reading another.

If you're really interested in putting forward factual information regarding the goings on of the teaching profession, I invite you to be at our home around 6:30 any morning of the school week. My teacher will be having breakfast and preparing for the upcoming day. She'll be in the car by 7:15 a.m., headed for work and arriving around 7:40 to begin preparing her classroom for the soon-arriving students. After daily teaching hours conclude around 3:45 p.m., she meets parents, makes copies (one machine for 85 to 100 teachers), and enters grades, just to name a few after-hours chores. She arrives home between 5 and 5:30 p.m. for an hour off for dinner (usually works through her lunch period at school), and then dives into grading papers and making lesson plans for tomorrow. Finally, her head hits the pillow between 10 and 11 each school day evening, and you suggest she's overpaid and want her to improve; how dare you.

Now for your math lesson, the last I checked Hernando County teachers are contracted for 197 days (plus or minus), that's a far cry from the one half year or the 130-day year misrepresentation you put forward. As to the hours worked comparison, a dedicated teacher puts in 10 to 12 hours every contracted day (no overtime), actually working more hours than the 52-week 8-hour-a-day employee.

Now throw in out-of-pocket classroom expenses that can easily exceed $500 annually, and summer educational courses, and you have a dedicated teacher. Perhaps you should look elsewhere in your quest for improvement. In conclusion, my friend, I hope you will offer a public apology to every Hernando County school teacher you've offended with your made-up statistics and despicable remarks.

Jim Gries

Weeki Wachee

Wasting Water

Imagine my surprise when I drove past Tom Varn Park at high noon Nov. 29 and saw the sprinklers hard at work putting lots of water on the softball field. I thought that watering in the middle of the day was forbidden because of wastage through increased evaporation.

Are the laws of physics different for the park or just different for the city of Brooksville?

John S.V. Weiss

Spring Hill

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