For those new to Teachers4Change, this website got started in October, 2006,
after veteran teacher Ron Taylor enrolled in the salary enhancement CTE program, in the technology class being offered by UNLV. On the second night of class, another CTE student came into the classroom to say good-bye to her fellow classmates. Apparently another program was being offered for the same
increase on the pay scale. However, instead of the $3,600 price tag that CTE
students were paying, her program cost only $810. Many in the class that night were flabbergasted at this huge difference, a lot of money to any teacher, and much of the class time was spent discussing this with the professor from UNLV. He explained exactly what UNLV was being paid for these classes, and he, himself, felt that teachers were getting shortchanged somehow. When the class started asking serious questions about this discrepancy, one student immediately reached CCEA Executive Director John Jasonek on a cellphone. Jasonek produced an explanation that the difference was because the other, cheaper class was not accredited; and also that CCEA had overhead expenses to pay for--which, according to some within the CCEA Senate, was far from the entire truth. Well, Ron Taylor went home that night to begin his probe of the situation, on the old CCSD InterAct teachers’ lounge. For his inquisitive actions, Taylor was suddenly suspended from InterAct until an investigation could be held. But CCSD Assistant Superintendent Karlene Lee later reinstated Taylor’s account. Then CCEA, unhappy at being questioned by one of its members, entered the picture. But in this process, CCEA leadership made a big mistake (what else is new?). CCEA Executive Director John Jasonek, according to official legal documents, phoned Fran Juhasz of the human resource division at CCSD. Jasonek asked Juhasz to have Ron Taylor investigated. In other words, a union official requested that a school district official conduct an investigation of a school district teacher (and fellow union member). Following this Joe McCarthy-like investigation, Taylor filed charges with the Employment Management Relations Board (EMRB), a case that is scheduled for May 31st. And by the end of this past October, Teachers4Change was up and running and asking questions neither CCEA nor CCSD wanted to answer. Questions like: Where is the additional $480,000 that CCEA received for the CTE program? Why are teachers, union and non-union, being charged such a large amount of money? Since then, Ron Taylor has been expelled from CCEA for probing these issues. Furthermore, CCSD has shut down the InterAct teachers’ lounge, as it used to be. Consequently, a combined eight additional charges have been filed against CCEA and CCSD by Ron Taylor. Because Taylor is determined that someone, somewhere, is eventually going to be answering some questions that are important to teachers in the district.

Teachers4Change is trying to give teachers a voice in determining their future. This website believes in the basic freedoms granted by the U.S. Constitution, which teachers have too frequently been denied, according to teachers, by the district and their own union. Too many teachers have been done dirty, over and over again, here in Las Vegas. True, a few people have been skeptical of some tactics here at Teachers4Change, which is their right, but perhaps they are not aware of what CCSD has been doing to keep teachers, silently and systematically, in their subservient places. CCSD, time and again, has proven it believes teachers are passive sheep and inept at raising their own voices.

But the days of teachers rolling over for the district to abuse them are at an end. The education profession here needs some serious attention, both financially and to deal with the issue of ongoing teacher abuse. When CCSD is finally forced to deal with its teachers, education in Las Vegas should be a much better place for all involved, including teachers, students and parents. The tyranny of site-based administrations has obviously not worked. So let’s try something else. If you continue to do what you always have done, you surely will get what you always have gotten. What teachers have now, in CCSD and CCEA, is simply not worth having anymore. Help us be a voice. Pass the word to others. Please, stand up and be counted when the time arises. And together let’s say, enough!