Whom do we serve

 Whom do we serve?

 

We were told that August was the great resignation month as people were leaving jobs they just discovered they didn’t like.  Then came September and the resignations continued.  October was the month of strikes.  Workers realized that they had more control than they thought and that, even though union membership had declined, there was some muscle left.

Those muscles were flexed in early August and September by school bus drivers who – must be the pandemic- all got sick at the same time.   In some counties, the drivers called it a strike, in others a “sick-out”.  Really matters not, kids still couldn’t get to school.  Parents schedules were upended.  People scrambled for child care and/or didn’t go to work themselves.  Oh, and by the way, children suffered a further disruption of their education.  It also didn’t matter that the failure to provide transportation to school for children with disabilities is a violation of federal and state law.  The school districts are required to provide these students with a free and appropriate public education (FAPE).  The Supreme Court has ruled that unless transportation to that education is provided the provision of FAPE is mute. No one seemed to notice amid the cries for drivers to get back to work.  Parents were not offered reimbursement unless they asked and did the leg work.

School teachers have also left their jobs in droves and they, too, are flexing muscles.  It seems that large numbers of teachers have already realized that they will be sick on the day before Thanksgiving and so will not be able to come to work.  How presient is that?!   And since there aren’t enough substitute teachers, major districts in Maryland have announced calendar changes that include closing on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  Parents are annoyed to say the least because once again there is not child care and besides teachers have enough time off.  And yet again, no one seemed to notice that kids would be missing another day of school after 18 months of pure disruption.

We have already learned we can no longer count on the U. S. Postal Service.  Bus drivers are not paid enough for the jobs they do.  Many are considered part-time even though it would be almost impossible to find work in the middle of a day.  Teachers, on the other hand, are paid a comparable full-time salary with good benefits and work about 4.5 weeks less than in a year than the rest of us.  Schools are closed for all major holidays, sometimes multiple days.  They close for snow and it seems heavy rain.  It appears now that they also close for the convenience of the teachers preparing a big dinner.

Whom do we serve? Well I think that is clear, we serve ourselves and the students get the left-overs and that isn’t turkey.