Teacher (Lack Of) Appreciation Week

Next month will be quite hectic for the hard-working educators in our community, even by the standards of their regularly busy schedules. Between final preparation of students for high-stakes end-of-course exams, plus proctoring said exams, and helping the senior classes through their final few weeks of life in the K-12 galaxy - and, of course, the whole “teaching bell to bell” thing which is a part of their daily ritual - we understand if some need to enter “breathing” and “sleeping” as reminders in their daily calendars.

There are two additional, very important events taking place in May on which teachers across the district are keeping an eye. The first is Teacher Appreciation Week, which is May 1-5 in the School District of Palm Beach County. This is a golden opportunity for our communities, parents, and students to salute educators whose job it is to help prepare young adults for their future as leaders in business, agriculture, industry, the military, and politics.

Yet, somehow the school district’s own website fails to acknowledge this celebration of teachers. Yeah, there's a link to a story about this year’s six William T. Dwyer Award for Excellence in Education recipients, and a link to Volunteer Appreciation Week (which was this past week, in case you didn’t know). And maybe there will be some sort of announcement when the calendar turns to May. But for those educators who find it difficult to believe the district for which they work really does care about them - and the yearly battles over seemingly far-too-minimal pay raises, combined with far-too-hefty increases in health care premium costs, contribute to this perception - then the lack of publicity by their employer only serves as one more example of a disconnect that exists within the county borders.

Meanwhile, the district is trying to put on a good show for its Saturday, May 20, job fair at Park Vista High School. Human Resources Director Gail Williams said in a press release the job fair “is a great way to meet with hundreds of candidates - whether they are new graduates, transitioning from other careers, or interested in moving to the area - to join us in Palm Beach.”

A major change made by the district in advance of the job fair was approval of the 2017-18 school calendar, which removes those pesky half-day workshops and adds several vacation days to the week of Thanksgiving (making it a full week off from classes, barring implementation of hurricane makeup days). But there are many educators who scoff at the idea the district can entice new faces in the classroom until the salary situation is rectified.

At the Dwyer Awards ceremony April 25, Superintendent Dr. Robert Avossa pointed fingers at the state Legislature, and encouraged continued communication with state lawmakers to open the fiscal pursestrings and make education funding a priority. But I still believe there is plenty of wasteful spending within the Taj Mahal on Forest Hill Blvd. that could be reduced and applied toward salaries and other true enticements for current and future educators. If the district truly wants to celebrate teachers, both current and future, it needs to find ways of making them feel like Palm Beach County is worthy of their being here. It takes more than lip service to make that happen.

Johnny Hates Jazz

High school students these days are incredibly creative with their “prom-posals,” the invitation to take a fellow student to the end-of-year prom. Since most area high schools’ proms are all in April, it’s safe to say the majority of such elaborate requests have already taken place.

The key word in that first paragraph is “safe,” which is what school officials, along with area law enforcement and safety personnel, hope will be the pro-active word among teens attending the festive dance. This explains the annual incorporation of “Shattered Dreams,” a dramatization of the impact of distracted driving and the effects that it can bring into anyone’s life.

The Shattered Dreams program began some 20 years ago by St. Mary's Medical Center in an effort to educates students about the need to be an undistracted driver through a multimedia presentation that begins in a school's auditorium or gymnasium, and ends in the football stadium. It includes video and live testimonials, as well as an enactment by students (usually on the school’s football field) as accident victims, in an attempt to increase awareness about the effects that texting, substance consumption and other factors can have while driving. The area’s Trauma Hawk unit is usually part of the enactment.

Many schools in southeast Florida mandate juniors and seniors who purchased tickets to their prom to attend the powerful assembly, which usually takes place one day in advance.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, distracted driving is any activity that diverts attention from driving, including talking or texting on your phone, eating and drinking, talking to people in your vehicle, fiddling with the stereo, entertainment or navigation system - anything that takes your attention away from the task of safe driving. Distracted driving, whether from texting or driving under the influence, is one of the reasons that teen drivers are four times more likely to be involved in a fatal car accident than adults, according to statistics from St. Mary’s.

Now, I'm not here saying what students will or will not do on prom night - or on any other day (or night) of the year. But I also cannot say what non-students will or will not do, either. What I can do is urge everyone to be safe on the roads, regardless of age, gender, or destination; some 2,500 accidents involving teen drivers happen in Palm Beach County annually, and not all are the fault of a teen driver.