On the next BOE Rep

Update: There was a meeting to debate, discuss and vote on this matter, and naturally less than six people showed up, and none of the people who made the fuss. I told Betty I had it with ACT months ago, but I went tonight for her. Another waste of time.

This post won't be of much concern to non-teachers, but in that group a debate is raging about the next teacher representative to the BOE.

The worst kept secret is that a lot of teachers don't like Ambrose Bennett and haven't liked him for a long time. I am actually not one of those people, though I think he hasn't even been trying as teacher rep for a while. Teachers were trying to get him out of office since he got into office. Last Spring that effort intensified again. ACT comes and mostly goes largely based on whether Ambrose has pissed off many teachers.

Last year was a non-related come. As a result of salary cuts related to Praxis at the beginning of last school year, some teachers wanted to be heard. Given that teachers never did anything for years, there was no organization to assist them. Some small momentum had ACT going again, and then kept alive later on almost entirely via the efforts of Betty Miller. Some members wanted Ambrose out right away, and there was an effort to that effect put forth that never went very far. This effort was not Betty's idea, but she was the person people wanted to replace him. Now Bennett's term is really ending and he is putting up a major fuss because Betty is also serving as acting Vice Principal, he blames Betty and he needs something to write three letters per week about. He related today how he is a well known constitutional scholar and the Constitution is in peril over this nonsense. You heard it John Marshall, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Ambrose Bennett. Here is Ambrose's statement: "Furthermore, I have been recognized by the U.S. Congress as a Constitutional Scholar and only people with "Law" degrees are considered to have a better understanding of our Constitution - meaning the "lay" interpretations that ACT is creating to address the Constitution don't carry any weigth nor will the be considered as a "qualified" opinion."

About six or seven people are out opposing Betty Miller on grounds that she is now serving as an administrator. Anyone interested in this debate can check the ACT blog. Here is my take on this fiasco.

James Yangetmai makes some good points in his email, and if this were a union and we were really doing collective bargaining, his argument would be even stronger. However, this isn't the U.S. mainland, ACT isn't a union, and regarding this statement: "The credibility of our organization and teaching profession are at stake, and I believe that’s what all of us would want to protect," we have no credibility because so many people have sat around and done nothing for years that all ACT is now is Betty Miller trying to herd a group of disinterested cats. No one even wants to run for crying out loud. How sad a statement is that? The last election there was no campaign, no one voted, and we've since had four years of many people being angry that Ambrose won, so they just sit it out. It's only nonsense like this that brings people out of the woodwork.

Remember how last year the salaries were cut over Praxis and people were now upset and they had nowhere to turn? That was because there was no ACT in reality, and even a few months after it was reformed with all that paycut mojo, it has officers that don't show up to help, a membership that doesn't show up at meetings and virtually no one, in ACT or not, that could be bothered to show up at a Board of Education debate and other educational debates that Betty spearheaded.

Betty Miller has gone to those board meetings, actually represented teachers in a fair and professional manner and tried to make something of ACT while 99 percent of you sat on your ass, and now because she got promoted a few people don't want her to be teacher rep and turned this into some Supreme Court procedural argument. It's sad.

And for Ambrose's edification, it was other parties, certainly not me and not Betty, who wanted him removed from office last Spring, so don't take it out on her now, which is obviously happening. And even if you cling to the argument that Betty can't be in that position, the lone alternative isn't retaining Ambrose. There are other choices. The issue is do you trust Betty to relate the views of teachers and watch and relate those interests on the board and back to teachers, and we all know she can. Can we please stop the dramatic Constitutional Convention and show some real world awareness of what we are (a fledgling organization at best) and are not (a union).

Throw in the towel on ACT

We've had four roundtable discussions with candidates at SVES. Last night for the most important discussion with all the Board Candidates, we had less than ten people show up, even though it was in the newspaper several times and distributed via email to all ACT members. It turned out to be a great discussion with a wonderful exchange of ideas. Two of the four officers, Pastor Gagaring and Carmen Ada as well I'm pretty sure, didn't make it to one of these discussions, and apparently those two officers offer no assistance to ACT whatsoever. The teacher's representative to the board of education didn't attend any of the roundtable discussions, either.

At the same time, Betty Miller has been breaking her chops trying to get something done with ACT. I don't see her getting any support from teachers or her officers. As Betty's friend, I must advise her to put her energy into her own family and her own school because simply put, the mass of teachers here isn't worth her time or a warm bucket of spit, but Betty is more generous than me so she probably will continue working without any help. Betty didn't say anything to me about this, and these aren't her thoughts. I just wanted the officers to know that at least one person noticed you ran, got elected, and aren't doing anything at all.

Educational Roundtable

There will be an educational roundtable featuring Board of Education candidates 7:00 pm Wednesday 10/17 at the San Vicente Elementary School Cafeteria. This will be the third, final, and I believe, most important of these discussions I will be moderating. Audience questions can be submitted as well.

Education Roundtable with Tina, Cinta and maybe others tomorrow night

The Association of Commonwealth Teachers is calling for all interested community members to join in for a Pre-election Educational Round Table Discussions with the candidates starting Wednesday Sept. 26 at 7:00 pm at the San Vicente Elementary School Cafeteria.

The purpose of these events is to ensure that teachers, parents, and the community are able to meet the candidates and ask questions regarding their plans for education. This will allow voters to make informed decisions in casting their votes for members of the Legislature, Senate, and Board of Education. Round Table discussions will also be held on future Wednesday evenings at 7:00 P.M. in the cafeteria of San Vicente Elementary. Please look for announcements of specific dates. Candidates Cinta Kaipat and Tina Sablan from Precinct One are confirmed to participate in this Wednesday's Round Table.All interested members of the community are invited to join us at these gatherings. You do not have to be a registered voter or a resident of the specified precinct in order to attend. Should you have any questions, feel free to contact The Association of Commonwealth Teachers at cnmiactnow@gmail.com.

Herding cats with Sisyphus

There is about to be a small pissing match between Ambrose Bennett and ACT. Many people want a new teacher representative, and frankly, have wanted one for a long time. This story here describes the efforts to make the ACT president the teacher's representative to the board. I'm surprised it took this long, but I've already seen Ambrose's forthcoming letter to the editor, in which he is "shockingly" not so happy with this plan. He says anyone should be able to run for teacher rep. who is HQT with five years experience and gets 50 nominating signatures. He complained he wasn't part of this process. His term ends in January. You can read his thoughts very soon if you so wish. Here are mine, which I shared with a few concerned teachers.

A few thoughts on this. Ambrose, knew about the meeting, and certainly could have attended if he so wished. He didn't even have to be an ACT member to attend. Having said that, Ambrose's point that a person should be eligible to run for that position without even being in ACT, I believe, is valid theoretically. Practically, teachers are a disorganized, apathetic mess that a small number of people are trying to fix. Given the size of our bureaucracy, we should be the dominant political voice on this island. Instead we are an embarrassment of lost opportunity and lost potential for influence. And having said all that, this is actually an appointed position, so the election, including the one that elected Ambrose, is really more of an advisement to the governor, who may choose to ignore it anyway.

Bottom line, I feel it is pretty clear from the election that the teachers wish Miss Miller to be their voice. The time frame I suppose of when they want it could be debated. I think they want her there now, but I don't have data, other than the election and a strong show of hands at our meeting to back that up. I think the ACT election shows Miss Miller has a lot of support. Also, these are serious times for teachers, and Ambrose is in a lame duck position. Ambrose has done a lot, especially early in the term. One thing he has not been able to do, and I don't fault him totally on this, is organize a mass of teachers. That clearly isn't an easy job. Ambrose acknowledged this in his letter: "To represent all the teachers, ACT must have the majority as members or they will face the same challenges I faced, which is speaking for all the teachers WITHOUT their support," Bennett said.

I think Miss Miller would have much more support. It won't be easy for her, either, galvanizing teachers, and it isn't all on her shoulders, as it wasn't on Ambrose's shoulders. Again, teachers have been a bitter failure at standing up for themselves and there is no sugarcoating it. Now there are things going down with layoffs and 90 day notices, and there is only a beginning system of support for those who sat from the sidelines for all these years.

A big fight here will create a lot of noise and little else -- and these are serious times. It will doubtlessly turn off teachers from participating. Then we are back where we started. Again. Getting teachers to do much as one is like herding cats with Sisyphus.

Citizen participation needed

After years of poor planning and mismanagement, this community is facing some drastic decisions that will have enormous implications for many CNMI citizens. The more the community participates in these decisions, the wiser I believe these decisions will be. The less the community participates in these decisions, the more likely the usual factors of nepotism, re-election interests or just "bending over" for whatever the garment factories want will influence these decisions. I hope it is not the latter.

There are several community groups sprouting up, growing or reforming that will assist in this democratic process. These five groups and entities are all operating with different focuses and in different ways, but all of them are doing work that will benefit the CNMI and lead to more citizen participation and better decisions. I do not speak for any of them, but have participated in each in some small way, very small actually, but I would like to support them all.

After Tina Sablan’s manifesto was published, she followed through and has had open forums at various locations to solicit and organize ordinary citizen input into fixing the many problems with our government. This group is currently putting together voter’s guides for November that hopefully will lead to educated voters making decisions on issues, not on lawn signs and waving. This group is actively soliciting signatures to establish a run off election so the next governor will be elected by a clear majority and will have a clear mandate. Beyond that, this group is trying to make sure the Open Government Act applies to the legislature. Right now, the legislature is exempted. I can't imagine that anyone could read the minutes of the past meetings, on the website, and not come away convinced that ninety percent of the positions and suggestions by the public are infinitely better than anything that ever came out of Capitol Hill. There is a lot more information available at http://www.thecnmi.com/.

Next, there is a rise in the number of bloggers here in the CNMI. There are at least twenty different people writing about the CNMI from many different perspectives such as school principal, environmentalist, legislator, scuba instructor, lawyer, teacher and even student. There are many links to these blogs at http://www.welovesaipan.com/ or my own blog at http://turbittj.blogspot.com/.

Third, Beautify CNMI continues to grow and has received many awards for their efforts to clean up the island. The next cleanup will be on Saturday May 26th at 8:00 am at the Okinawa War Memorial. People can find much more about this group at http://beautifycnmi.blogspot.com/.

Beautify CNMI is also working with PAWS, the Pet Assistance and Welfare Service. Improving the plight of suffering animals isn’t just a moral issue, it is an issue of health, safety and economics. My friend Katie Busenkell recently wrote an extremely sensible, well reasoned opinion article on why solving the issues of our animals is in our economic and health interests, as the current state of the dog population lowers property values and is a turn off to tourists. More can be read here at http://www.paws-saipan.com/.

Finally, after a long period of indifference and infighting, the Association of Commonwealth Teachers has a set of new officers paving the way for a greater voice in education for actual teachers. ACT is meeting on Thursdays at San Vicente Elementary School at 6:00 pm and a new website is currently under construction. Inquiries can be made at cnmiactnow@aol.com.

All of these entities need and deserve more community involvement. The mechanisms are in place for more citizen involvement and more democracy. The people of this commonwealth need to get together to turn around and fix the many problems we face. Don't leave it just to our elected officials. They've had their turn and the reverse Midas Touch is evident.