The Antelope Valley Times

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Palmdale teachers to unite at TNOTS, urge public to pressure school board

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During the packed to capacity meeting, the school board voted 4 to 1 on a resolution to impose the District’s proposal from June 12, which includes a 3.8% salary cut in the upcoming school year, an additional 8.4% cut in the following year, and nine furlough days in each year.
During a packed to capacity meeting Tuesday, the school board voted 4 to 1 on a resolution to impose the District’s proposal from July 12, which includes a 3.8% salary cut in the upcoming school year, an additional 8.4% cut in the following year, and nine furlough days in each year.

PALMDALE – The Palmdale Elementary Teachers Association (PETA) will unite at Thursday Night on the Square on July 18 to talk to the public about what is at stake following the Palmdale School Board’s vote for salary reductions, furlough days and a hard cap on health benefits for teachers for the upcoming school years.

“We will be handing out flyers and we will be asking [people] to contact the school board and ask them to rescind their decision,” said PETA President Hugo Estrada. “The public has the last word. They’re the ones that need to put the pressure on the board.”

Teachers, parents and supporters are hoping the public can help pressure the Palmdale School District’s Board of Trustees into rescinding a decision made at Tuesday night’s board meeting.

PETA is urging the public to contact the Palmdale School Board and urge board members to rescind their decision.
PETA is urging the public to contact the Palmdale School Board and urge board members to rescind their decision.

During the packed to capacity meeting, the school board voted 4 to 1 on a resolution to impose the District’s proposal from July 12. The proposal includes a 3.8% salary cut in the upcoming school year, an additional 8.4% cut in the following year, and nine furlough days in each year. It also includes the implementation of a $15,550 cap on District expenditures of health benefits for teachers, with the teacher absorbing any additional costs above that amount (read the proposal here).

The Palmdale School District has maintained that the reductions are necessary to allow the District to present a balanced budget for the next three years to the Los Angeles County Office of Education (“LACOE”), as required by law.

PETA is asking supporters to unite at TNOTS on July 18.
PETA is asking supporters to unite at TNOTS on Thursday, July 18.

This proposal “is identical to that agreed to by CSEA [California School Employees Association] and overwhelmingly ratified by our classified employees, and also identical to what is being applied to all management and confidential employees so that more than half the District will already be experiencing these identical reductions,” Gallizzi said in open letter to the Palmdale School District Community last week.

The board’s decision will have a devastating impact on the community, Estrada said.

“The average loss of income [for Palmdale teachers] will be between $900 to $1,100 a month,” Estrada said.  “What it means is that 900 local people will have less money to go out and spend in our community, which is bad for our businesses.”

“The furlough days will impact instruction dramatically and many of us are worried about our benefits… it’s a really big impact,” Estrada continued.

Teachers, parents and supporters will be wearing PETA’s colors and gathering at 5 p.m Thursday at Poncitlan Square, just before the Thursday Night on the Square event.

The gathering is not a demonstration, rally or protest, Estrada stressed, but a way for PETA to solicit public support for teachers who are facing an uncertain future.

“Many of us are devastated, and I know many of our members are in tears right now looking at their situation and hoping for the best still,” Estrada said, adding that PETA is still hopeful that both sides can return to the negotiation table.

“The best way the public can help is to contact the board members requesting them to rescind the decision,” Estrada said. “Ask [the School District] to return to the table with good faith intentions, not the intentions that we’ve seen lately, which is more of a bullying approach… They really need to come to the table ready to negotiate and look at every option.”

A strike is the last resort.

A status report on PETA’s website explains the steps that would be taken leading up to the union’s decision to strike this fall.

PETA will conduct informational meetings for all unit members once the 2013-14 work year begins. Zone meetings are scheduled for August 14, 2013. It is likely that PETA will conduct a strike authorization vote after holding those informational meeting with unit members. This would not be a vote to strike, but rather one that authorizes the PETA Executive Board to call a strike if it deems necessary. If a simple majority vote yes on the strike authorization, the decision to call a strike then rests entirely with the Association’s Executive Board. A strike is always the last resort. The PETA Executive Board must weigh all factors and work in close consultation with the Rep Council and with CTA advisors prior to calling for a strike.

For status updates from the Palmdale Elementary Teachers Association, visit their website at http://avpeta.org/.

Previous related stories:

Palmdale School District, teachers remain at odds

Factfinder backs furlough days for Palmdale teachers, PETA responds

Palmdale teachers, parents stage protest

77 comments for "Palmdale teachers to unite at TNOTS, urge public to pressure school board"

  1. I feel for most of the teachers impacted by this. However I will say that unions are insane sometimes and will ask for the impossible. The bigger issue that I would like to remind people of is how ineffective government is. It should be clear to everyone that they were lied to during the last election. Does anyone remember measure dd? How about prop 30?
    We were told that dd would help better our schools and 30 would fix our schools. What happened? Havent seen any school improvements. And apparently the funding issue wasnt fixed. This is why I will never vote yes on a tax or bond initiative. How about that high speed rail? People need to realize that when they give up their money to government it fails!

  2. How many teachers are in the Palmdale SD? Mr. Gallizzi was on Time Warner newsTuesday night and proudly announced that he ate dinner with 70 teachers. FYI, he also might find more money in the next couple month’s?!? Is he shinning or sinking?

    • At the fund raiser he hosted at his house for Gaines who is trying to get on the school board? The good ol boys strike again!

        • So it wasn’t actually for the teachers…not surprised. A house full of the a@# kissing politicians who flock together…that’s the game and no one plays it better!

          • No brainiacs…if you paid attention to the TWC News you would have seen that the dinner he was talking about was for some special teacher program called avid for students in his district. The people present were those avid teachers, getting a free vacation in San Diego. Warp and lie, and keep taking those shots.

            You want to keep the pressure in things that don’t matter in order to keep it off the fact that you teachers are failures at your high paid jobs. You know the truth of what you do all day long. Read the news on the computer, check out you tube, show a video, chat with the kids, assign silent reading, eat lunch and talk trash about how much you hate your lazy job, head out to kick the ball around, go home. We all went to school. We all saw what you do all day long. You can’t fool us. The truth will eventually set everyone free.

          • Yes we all went to school and I’m pretty sure youtube nor classroom PCs weren’t existant at the time. I did plenty of learning activities while attending public school K-12. Every day started with D.O.L. (Daily Oral Language), which was grammar and punctuation activities, did plenty of math exercises, did physical exercises as well, not to mention Mini City (where the classroom was a metropolitan setting, where all the kids had an occupation and salary with faux money in which we learned how life as a grown up could be. And that was just elementary school right here in the AV. Why not stop the bickering and show these allegedly bad teachers how to teach? Could it be that you’re on the board yourself, and have more than a spectator’s interest in this matter?

          • Devonte, old news from 8/6….rewind it and play it again. Gallizzi said he “had dinner with 70 of his teachers” and “their mood was up beat”. No mention of Avid….but thanks for informing all of us! The blog you jumped on, a little late, was regarding the AVC Board of Trustees fundraiser dinner to elect Barbara Gaines, which was held at Gallizzi’s house on 7/26. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

  3. Greedy unions have no shame, and no common sense.. Strike as long as you want, or even better – quit! There is a lot of people who will happily accept the teacher job!

  4. I was originally agitated and disgusted with many comments made because of the lack of research into the actual situation. Being an educator, I whole-heartedly encourage my scholars to share their ideas and thoughts, but remind them to back up everything with evidence, otherwise their ideas are merely unfounded opinions. We live in a society in which we are blessed with the freedom of speech; Patrick Henry was attributed with stating, “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend, unto the death, your right to say it”. I agree with him. However, another great leader, I believe it was Tacitus, though I may be wrong, basically said a statement is worthless if a man is unwilling to put his name to it. I appreciate the fact that so many opinions are shared, but I find it ridiculous that so many are willing to hide behind eponyms and screen names in a country where men and women died to defend your right to speak freely. Is it really surprising, then, that our youth behave the way they do? Our children learn from all of us, professional educators or not. We are all teachers because our actions serve as examples as to how they should behave. Name calling is childish and an issue that adults reprimand their children for, but many of you have reverted to such childish measures because you feel you must share your opinions and revert back to childish antics when you have nothing to support your claims. So, if you are unwilling to put your name to your statement, is it really worth sharing? Ask yourself why you are unable to proudly proclaim that your opinion is yours, that your comments are yours, and “a lo hecho, pecho.” Until then, you are doing a disservice to yourselves, your children, and those that fought for your right to bravely speak your truth.

  5. For a crime to take place, the police look for means, motive, and opportunity. I keep hearing the unions say, “the money’s there, the money’s there,” and that there will be some sort of an audit (like the PSD doesn’t have audits all the time!), but the thing that I can’t figure out is, if the Palmdale School District is awash in cash, why would the Superintendent and the Board not just give the teachers all of the money they ask for? Are they suggesting that the Board is skimming or something? Is the Superintedent getting paid several million dollars a year? Shoot! If you totally eliminated all of the administration positions, how much would that be? $2-3 million? That’s not even going to make a dent in what the teachers want. The teachers have Cadillac health care plans that the average joe can’t even imagine getting. I would be a lot more sympathetic to the teachers if they could somehow articulate why they think the administration won’t just give them the money. They just look like a bunch of whining cry-babies who didn’t get their way.

      • I notice that the question presented was not answered. What is the MOTIVE behind not giving the teachers all of the money that the District is supposedly awash in. It’s kind of interesting that they JUST NOW noticed all of these supposed discrepancies in the PSD budget RIGHT WHEN budget cuts were suggested. When your argument is weak, yell louder!

    • Oh and didn’t you just mention something about name calling in another post? Practice what you preach sir. I am angry parent and I support our teachers 100% but I will not resort to calling Gallizi a hoarder or his board a bunch of kiss &$$es. Especially that Corrales lady. As a parent all I have ever seen her do is show up for pictures at events. How about we cut her insurance? After some investigation I was informed that she also receives benefits for attending a couple of meetings a month. How about they start by cutting there?

    • The only reason any of this is happening is Mr. Galizzi wants a hard cap on benefits and for us to move to SISC instead of CVT. Interestingly enough, CVT is a company in which former PSD superintendent Namcy Smith serves as a board member. Nine days after the contract was imposed, he sent an email telling us the district received “unexpected revenue” to the tune of 2.4 million dollars and 2.8% was restored to the salary reduction. This imposed contract takes five instructional days, eliminates BOTH parent conference days, and the first two required fays for teachers; days which teachers use to prepare safe learning environments for their students and were to receive more professional development for the implementation of Common Core Standards during the school year; professional development that the district reportedly received a grant of 3.7 million dollars to implement, yet is cutting from the teachers and from students. The motivation is a blatant lack if respect for educators and classified staff in the Palmdale School District. In a recent audit, PSD had its hands slapped by the State for playing fast and loose with budget. There is a new formula, which most districts have already figured out how to use, that for some reason, the powers that be in PSD just haven’t quite figured out how to use. All the other districts figured out the LCFF and restored furloughs, salary reductions, and staffing positions, yet PSD can only cut, cut, cut.

      Do you have any clue as to what it takes to become a teacher? Do you know what it is to be a professional educator? Before talking about how great our pay and benifits are, look into the hours, money, and daily effort we put in to educating your children, as well as our own. The return is not quantifiable measurable as that of the “Average Joe’s” job, so of course to anyone who is not a teacher, we are “crybabies” when we ask for our compensation to be left alone. This situation has nothing to do with the money being there, but everything to do with a man who has decided to take a page from Machiavelli and use whatever means necessary to place a hard cap on benefits because “every other district has a hard cap”, so PSD teachers should to. Unfortunately, the four board members that voted to impose did not observe negotiations, did not question the contract, and did not care to really even read the entire 23 page fact finder’s report and suggestions. Why would we not thrust four of the five board members? Take a look at their Facebook pages and see who is in many of their pictures; it certainly isn’t certificated staff.

      • Two sentences from the end of your diatribe you ask, “Why would we not thrust four of the board members?” Thrust? C’mon, by your own admission teachers are supposed to be highly educated. thrust?

        • You are absolutely correct. I made a mistake, though I would not qualify said error an indication of any lack of education on my part. I decided to write from my cellular phone and did not catch the error until I had replied; had I done so, or had the ability to edit after posting, I would have replaced “thrust” with “trust.” Thank you so much for reading my statement and catching my error, though your manner in directing attention to said mistake is rather lacking in tact, is it not?

          • Teachers…greedy, selfish… I work 260 days a year and make $43,000. You work 180, and average $70,000. I work 10 hours a day and commute for 3. You work 6, maybe 7 if you hang around to grade papers. I pay $630 a month for my family’s health benefits, you pay $0. My copay at the doctor ia $40, your’s is $20. So lets’ see, you work less than half of what I work for almost twice as much. You’re no professional educator, just another public servant feeding off my tax dollars and complaining about not getting more. Selfish.

  6. These teachers will feel the wrath if they think they can strike and then come back like everything is OK. The union leadership is ignorant.

    • Actually it is Gallizzi and his lying pack of financiers that are already feeling it. It’s to late…the broom and the rug are gone, and soon those who were involved will be as well….I just heard a cork pop?!

      • Where is your concrete evidence that Gallizzi is and his cabinet are all liars? I keep hearing this rhetoric, but have yet to see hard core evidence that they are liars.
        Prove it!

        • Mr. Fred their will be an audit, and the findings will be released to the public. The auditor’s will prove it!

          • Interesting. So you claim there is “hidden” money. Why would they “hide” money and squirrel it away. What are they going to do, wait ten years and say, “Oh look…we found 2 million dollars!” For anyone to think there is hidden money is to think ignorantly.

          • Fred what do you have to say now about the money? They have mysteriously found or miraculously come into over $10 million in the last couple of months. Who is the ignorant now?

      • Explain to me why you think that Gallizzi and his “lying pack of financiers” won’t just give the teachers the money. Answer that question, or you will be exposed as a blowhard who actually has no facts to back up your statement. People resort to name-calling when their arguments lack merit.

        • You user name pretty much says it all! Mama alway’s said “patience is a virtue”….it won’t be long and then you’ll get it!

  7. Let’s be clear about PSD’s mismamagement of taxpayer dollars, and the subsequent devatsating cuts to ALL PSD employees. PSD’s business office habitually “loses” millions of dollars in their books. The most recent “accounting error” was $8,000,000.00! Prior to that, $2,300,000.00 twice, $1,700,000.00, which cost most of our librarians and tech support their jobs. Finally, $7,000.000.00 in “Jobs Bill” money just disappeared! This current board rewarded the Chief Financial Officer with a raise! Taxpayers should be aware and ANGRY that their money is being mismanaged! This mismanagement has resulted in Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) placing PSD in “qualified” certification (like a credit rating). If PSD did not impose these cuts, LACOE MAY have certified them “negative”. In that case, LACOE would terminate the Superintendent, and take over the board’s authority. What does that mean? They would all lose their jobs, and LACOE would take control of the money!!! So, the $240,000 a year superintendent and the people who reward mismanagement of public funds,PSD Board members imposed these ridiculous cuts to keep their jobs. Who is greedy?

      • So PSD has mismanaged taxpayer dollars. You fail to recognize that every single district in California has gone through furloughs and cuts. Wake up and stop blamingl PSD’s mismanagement of taayer dollars. We need to work together, everyone take equal cuts, and stop being greedy and stop trying to blame PSD! Again, every district in California has been hit with cuts, it has nothing to do with mismanagement!

        • Did you not read my comment? PSD “lost” $21,300,000.00. How in the world is that OK with you? If your bank “lost” your deposit, and you couldn’t make your house payment as a result, that would be just fine with you because it has happened to many other bank customers throughout the area? WOW!

          • Where is your unmitigated proof that they “lost” 21 Mil? You got your facts from whom? Your union leadership? That’s self serving. Do you honestly trust them? I can say anything and purport it to be truth. Is it really? Show me the hard cold facts on a spread sheet. Have you seen them? Oh, you’ll just take their word for it…Smart
            No wonder our education system is so screwed up.

          • I believe “self serving” should contain a hyphen, as in a “self-serving approach” and “Mil” does not need to be capitalized as it is a common noun rather than a proper noun and “mil” is Spanish for one thousand, not the proper abbreviation for “million.” In addition, “…Smart” is not a proper noun either and should end in a period as it is a part of a sentence, thus reading “…smart.” Furthermore, if your screen name is an acronym for something as “F.R.E.D”; otherwise the “red” should following the “F” should be written in lowercase letters.

            I hope this corrections are as useful to you as your comment was for me. I was always taught to pull the log out of my own eye before attempting to extract the splinter out of the eye of my neighbor.

          • Oops, another mistake on my part that I need to correct. In the second-to-the-last sentence, the third word should read “these”, not “this” as corrections is a plural noun. I would hate for you to believe that I am not educated because of a grammatical error.

        • Are you kidding me?

          It is not only $240,000, Palmdale School District pays not only their portion of his pension/retirement and also his portion of Medicare. Who of us get our bosses to pay our portion of Medicare and retirement/pension? The answer is none!

          1. Cut his salary
          2. Have him pay his own portion of his pension and Medicare
          3. Since he became Superintendent he has added numerous positions at
          The District office. Let him do his own work. Eliminate those
          Unneeded positions.
          4. Look at the attorney fees spent by this man. $900 per hour…really. He had an attorney present for 3 days during negotiations for 8 hrs. Per day. Do the math. $21600. The media should do a public records act requesting the legal fees pertaining to that same firm since Gallizzi became Superintendent. That would be a scandal of enormous proportions. I suspect the yearly fees are over $1,000,000 per year. Palmdale School District is not Beverly Hills or Malibu. The is a public school funded by us…taxpayers.
          5. Teachers are acting in good faith…Gallizzi is not he is a bully and the Board allows this.
          6. He threatens classified and management staff.
          7. The Board members benefits need to be taken away. They each receive $15,550 in health benefits. $15,550 x 5 Board members = $77,750 for being at a board meeting twice a month sometimes less.
          8. Vote these Board members out in November. Stand behind your teachers.
          9. Demand the Superintendent be removed.
          10. Give teachers your support.
          11. The people of Bell were outraged, shouldn’t we as a community want to review all the frivolous spending being brought forth by the Superintendent and approved by the Board Members?
          12. Remodeling of their Boardroom $500,000 are you kidding me.

        • You are dead on Francisco. What makes PETA think they are so special that they don’t have to suffer like the rest of us? CSEA took furlough days and pay cuts. Do members of PETA think they are better?

  8. School district employees have been bilking the tax paying public for years.

    It’s time for them to take some big cuts and learn to live with it.

  9. Gallizzi really needs to shut his mouth if he is not going to man up, and turn this district in the right direction. He states “overwhelmingly ratified by our classified employees”. Forgot to mention that the classifed had no choice because Gallizzi had already sent pink slip layoff notices to 250+ employees…the only way to rescind the layoffs was to vote for salary reduction & furlooghs. As for management and confidential employees….they’re screwed! Gallizzi is their representation, so they will remain as his puppets in order to keep their jobs, and what a great job you’re all doing!

    • He also forgot to mention that he reduced the hours of our health aids so they are no longer eligible for insurance! The audacity of Galizzi and the board is epic.

      • They were included in the cuts so had to vote yes in order to keep their health benefits. The Classified employees were held hostage! A ratification of b@## sh@# and everyone knows it!

      • Sounds like bullying, intimidation, retaliation, vindictiveness.
        off the backs of employees and taxpayers.

        • Los Angeles Unified School District just barely experienced it’s first school year of no furlough days in almost 6 1/2 years. Certificated and classified employees had furlough days and no cost of living increases with massive lay offs in the five digits EACH year for the past 6 1/2 years. Additionaly, thousands displaced.

          Look at Chicago School District. The teacher’s union went on strike and appeared to have gained what they wanted last summer. Now over 50 schools shuttered for the upcoming school year. Our American education system has been gutted for almost a decade and it is abominable.

          What happens in the educational system is unfortunately a mirror of the overall economy. Students tend to matriculate where their parents work. When parents are laid off or can’t make ends meet because of furloughs and otherwise, the parents will commute to work elsewhere, which means the students will be pulled from their current school district. The declining enrollment then again negatively impacts the school district, which generates even more cuts/furlough days.

          If indeed the district has lost money in the eight digits, sue them. Call for an investigation. You’d be surprised at how fast they start “finding” money.

  10. P.S. Molina cowered under the pressure of the PETA people. She cannot represent the stakeholders because her skin is very thin and is easily to manipulate by PETA. So sad too bad.

    • 2 possibilities exist here:
      1) you are one of Roger’s many puppets including one of the 4 board members on PSD board or
      2) you are so uninformed that you dont know that Ms. Molina was the one and only PSD board member that took the communities best interests to the next level and actually went to the last set on negotiations and listened to both sides. No other board member has even tried to sit down with both sides.

      Green is a cover up- Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.

    • Mrs. Molina is the only board member that has shown any integrity and represented the public that elected her. She is the only board member that did not rubber stamp what the DO wanted from day one. She did not support the teachers, she supported the community that elected her. Her vote taught students that the best way to resolve a conflict is to sit back down and compromise. She is the only board member that went and observed the negotiations on Friday. The other four just accept, without any reason, what their cronie tells them to believe. She has thicker skin than the other four because she stood up for what she knew was right. She is braver than so many because she took a stand and opened herself up to harsh criticism from people like you, people who will hide behind a screen name and take no accountability for their words.

      Check in to how many Palmdale teachers live outside district boundaries. Most of us live outside of the district, so we could not vote to elect her or any other board member. You lack of information but abundance of opinion is, quite frankly, unfathomable.

  11. These PETA people think they are somehow better than the rest of us. No cuts is a insult to people that have had to survive in this recession. Wake up! I hope they strike so we can all turn on them for thinking they are better than the rest of us. Bad form on their leadership!

    • Green is a cover up- Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt. Redundant, yet still applies here. The more you speak, the more you prove you have not done your research. Do yourself a favor a do the research. If you have been buying everything the PSD board (aka Roger’s puppets) have fed you, then you are not paying attention. All Caliornia tax payers are paying on Prop 30 which has been confirmed to keep budget cuts away from schools, yet this board is one of very few that is cutting student and teacher days and pay and cutting benefits. So, in your “wisdom” you can justify cuts in pay for teachers, custodians, administrators, etc during a time when your and our tax money has been promised and confirmed to avoid exactly that? Students with 9 less days of school? Bad form on your research skills.

      • You guess that the parents will not hold all teachers accountable in the end? you guess wrong!

    • I concur with vote out psd board, you truly are uninformed. Never once have we said that we believe we are better than everyone else. Did you see the last PETA proposal? We offered two salary reductions, instead of three. Be honest with yourself: would you take unnecessary pay cuts even though your employer had the money available? In addition, we accepted a contract last year that included four furlough days AND downgraded our benefits while upping our contribution. If the money was truly not available then we would have settled out a long time ago and taken cuts. Don’t bash teachers, or anyone for that matter, unless you have facts and evidence to support your arguments. It just gives you the appearance of being a fool.

      • The public is fed up with teachers whinning. I listened to a group of teachers who were drinking in a bar last night. This is all about them and has nothing to do with our kids.

        It’s about time they tighten their belts and suck it up like the rest of us.

        PSD teachers do not deserve the publics support this time. They lie as much as the administrators. To hec with them all.

      • The fools are the public that keep voting for tax increases THAT DO NOTHING FOR THE KIDS.

        We know it’s all about you, and nothing about the kids.

        • All I can do is shake my head at the venomous words that you both use. Yet again, those not involved in the educational field are calling teachers names. The lack of empathy is symptomatic of the society in which we live. It is about the kids, about fairness and about respect. The double standard held for teachers is maddening, but is par for the course. When our children read your comments and posts, what will they learn? Name calling is acceptable when you don’t agree with another’s point of view? Standing up for yourself is intolerable? Basing your statements on unfounded evidence, rhetoric, and vague suppositions are adequate points of discussion? Empathy is weakness?

          It is about us and every single one of our students, their families, and the community. Without our students, there would be no teachers; with no teachers, there would be no students. Without education, we are doomed to failure. You do what you do in life based upon your education, which you received for free if you were a public school student. That education was funded by taxpayer money, including money paid by your educators. Think about the most enlightening day that you had in a classroom. Now, erase that because there was a furlough day. Think about that one teacher who corrected that one error that in turn changed your understanding of a concept. Now, toss that memory in the trash because that day never happened; your teacher called in sick because they were moving because they just list their home or could teach that day because they could not afford healthcare. Don’t worry about having to listen to PSD teachers in the stores or restaurants anymore, because we won’t be there, and don’t worry about those bars, restaurants and stores being around either because PSD just eliminated the spending power of over 1,500 teachers, administrators, and classified workers. So, I guess you’re right, it is about us.

          Rick, publics should contain an apostrophe because it is a possessive noun and heck is spelled with a “k”. But what do I know, I am just an educator.

          • Natalie know that the majority of the community do not think negative of our teachers. You all deserve our sincere thanks and our utmost respect for what you do for our community.

            My child always says “God does not like ugly”. This is true. I pray for all of you and hope that this gets resolved.

            People Need to know the facts.

    • Better? No friend the claim we make is that we have been responsible in helping the Palmdale School District survive the bad economic times. Be informed PETA has taken cuts. The last an ongoing savings of 2.5 million dollars by restructuring our benefits this year. PSD on the other hand support a charter school that tales away from the district, pays a lawyer $900 an hour to sit in megotiations and “finds” 8million in their books from One day to the next. Better? PETA may not be better but our leadership is transparent. PSD’s is either inept or just plain malicious.

      • Wasn’t this money found after benefit reductions were agreed upon? I bet after the money was “found” those benefit reductions were never reinstated were they?

    • Greedy, greedy teachers. It has been confirmed that there is no money and that these cuts are needed. Was Molina put on the Board by PETA? Does she not understand?

      • Actually, it has been confirmed that there is money. I suggest you read up and find out where all of your tax money is going. The cuts are not necessary. I think you should instead write Greedy, greedy, Gallizi.

        • Please note, “A state-appointed factfinder has recommended that the Palmdale School District and its teachers enter into a multi-year agreement (three years), during which salary reductions and furlough days be taken as necessary to balance the District’s budget, according to Superintendent Roger D. Gallizzi.”

          Again, greedy, greedy teachers!

          • Read the actual report instead of taking the word of someone else, whether it is Mr. Gallizi, PETA or anyone else. Both sides agreed and disagreed with the fact finder’s report. Again, how childish are we as adults to call each other names. It’s sickening.

      • Only the teachers like Molina now, real people have lost faith in her ability to represent the voters.We will not support whatever she proposes from now on. We will remember!!!!!!!!!!!

  12. I hope PETA either has a “booth” at TNOTS or someone from their organization contacts the City prior to the event to find out if they are allowed to pass out fliers. Although it’s a public event, I’m not sure if it is allowed. Just to clarify, I was a vendor at TNOTS several years ago and I vaguely remember something like this coming up. I’m not suggesting this because I disagree with PETA, I would just hate for them to show up and not be able to achieve what they set out to do.