People freezing to death

HUNGER OR HEAT

SCOTS COUNCIL FIGHTS FOR 365

FREE SCHOOL MEAL DAYS

By Stephen Wilson

 

'Coal all spent : the bucket empty : the

shovel useless;the stove breathing out

cold ;the room freezing: the leaves outside

the window rigid, covered with rime: the

sky a silver shield against anyone who

looks for help from it. I must have coal;

I cannot freeze to death ; behind me is

the pitiless stove , before me the pitiless

sky, so I must ride out between them and

on my journey seek aid from the coal

dealer '.

The extract comes from Franz Kafka's

short story called 'The Bucket Rider'

which captures the desperate plight of

a man freezing to death because he

can't heat up his own room. The story

has an unreality about it in the sense that

the man attempts to maintain his fragile

dignity by flying on a bucket to beg for a

free piece of coal from a coal merchant.

The story captures many of the sharp

anguished emotions of a poor person.

Kafka was from Prague but readers can

be forgiven for believing that he was

Scottish. For every year more old

people die in Scotland from the cold than

in the whole of Siberia ! The reason is

because they can't afford central heating.

What strikes the foreign visitor is how

cold many houses are in Scotland. It is

not uncommon to witness some couples

watching television huddled under a

blanket. As a student at university I recall

I studied in the library during the winter

because it was warmer. My mother told

me: "It does not matter how much I heat

up this house. It still feels very cold. I wish

it would get warmer."

One great plus about living in Moscow is

how warm it is. The pipes are bursting with

warmth and the heating is relatively cheap.

According to some reports, Scots cut

down on healthy eating in order to heat

their homes. Frank McNally an education

convener for a Lanarkshire council stated;

"It is horrendous to think that in the 21st

century Scotland children are coming to

school malnourished , but it is a sad reality

that some families face the choice of

heating their home or feeding their

children". 

An April 2017 survey by the National Union of Teachers found that 80% of teachers noticed 'holiday hunger' with as many as a 1/3 of pupils showing signs of malnutrition. Teachers are rightly concerned as this hunger impairs their school kids' performance by negatively

influencing concentration and cognitive

abilities.This is why Lanarkshire council is

going to introduce a new pilot scheme,

titled "Food 365" , at Easter, in Coatbridge

where children can take free meals

every day including the holidays . The

proposal costs an estimated 50,000

pounds. Many teachers support

extending this scheme on a nationwide

basis, but the British government hell

bent on their austerity program,

predictably opposes it.

After almost thirty years of austerity, in

Britain, which has included cutting

social benefits off completely should

an official deem it proper, has led to

a mushrooming of 'food banks' where

poor people queue up to obtain free food

from charities! It is a real indictment

of the British system of government when

their own people now feel hungry and

often have to choose between heat and

hunger. The Bucket rider might as well

have been written in the 21st century

Scotland.

 

HOD FEB MEETING

February House of Delegates Meeting CTU

By Jim Vail

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) held its Feb. House of Delegates (HOD) meeting in a simple fashion.

The CTU Financial Report by James Gillmeister stated that the union is currently analyzing the future financial ramifications from the upcoming Supreme Court decision in Janus that may result in no longer automatically deducting union dues when you join the union. How much fair share revenue will the union lose if teachers do not want to pay the union?

The CTU has currently sublet about one-third of the space it was renting at the Merchandise Mart. The union had anticipated to sublet at least two-thirds, which has created a hole in the budget, Gillmeister said.

The Financial Secretary Maria Moreno said about 80 percent of the teachers voted in favor of merging the charter school teachers into the CTU. 

There are 29 new CTU retiree delegates and ten are 85 years or older, Moreno said.  

VP Jesse Sharkey gave his report. President Karen Lewis was not in attendance. Lewis had also missed the Jan. HOD meeting.

Sharkey told the delegates that the CTU intends to stop school privatization by joining up with the charter schools to make a stronger team. Former charter union president Chris Baehrend noted that the charters have also negotiated good contracts, including one charter that has a 23 student class size cap.

Sharkey said to beware of the Illinois Policy Institute - a pro-business, anti-union, right-wing, anti-tax group which will send out info. to CTU members to try to convince them they shouldn't pay their union dues. Since these clowns represent businesses, that's like telling consumers not to buy products. If enough union members decide to not pay their union dues then the union will cease to exist (and teachers will earn Catholic school wages).

"We need to build our base of power," Sharkey said.

There is a Working People's Day of Action Saturday, Feb. 24 at 11am at the Federal Plaza at Dearborn and Adams, CTU wear red that is a response to upcoming anti-union ruling expected by the US Supreme Court. The CTU flyer reads: "No mayor, no court, no governor, no president, and no corporate bully can stop us when we unite to fight for our rights, our communities and our futures."

Teacher Fired

FIRED FOR TELLING THE TRUTH

By Stephen Wilson

 

A Russian professor has been fired for

sending a letter demanding that the

current Prime Minister clarify why the

wages of local teachers have not been

adjusted in line with inflation since 2012.

But no explanation was forthcoming.

Instead , the teacher was dismissed.

Perhaps the prime minister felt he had

better things to do such as feeding his

adorable ducks on his estate. The teacher,

Victor Makarenko, is a professor from

Taganrog Matellurgical college, who was

dismissed by the director, has 40 years

of teaching experience behind him. The

open letter ,which was published by Red

Vesna news agency, completely exploded

the myth that the May declaration of 2012

which promised to double the wages of

teachers had been fulfilled. Even

President Putin, in what was a crass

understatement, claimed at a conference

last year on 14 December, 2017

that 7% of teachers had not been given

the promised increase.

In the letter, the teacher asks why the

Rostovskoi authorities violate article 134

of the Labor code which stipulates that

salaries of teachers must be increased in

line with inflation. The letter declares:

'If absolute pay for 5 years has not grown

by a single kopek the reported rate of

inflation has reached double figures... the

real existing pay has decreased one and

a half times. ' In fact teachers are existing

below the poverty level earning as little

as 8,289 rubles. Makarenko points out that

just to raise salaries to the poverty level

the state would have to increase it by 40%.

 

The government claims that it has raised

the national average of teachers to

30,000 rubles a month, but whenever

anyone mentions those figures to teachers

it evokes laughter. To acquire the official

salary teachers would be forced to work

day and night in schools 7 days a week.

They would cease to have any free time.

In fact school teachers are often doing

60-70 hours week just to get by. As a

representative of the Union teacher

succinctly put it to me : "Teachers are

slaves". 

A teacher stated : "Yes, it is

possible to earn 30,000 rubles. If you

forget about your family, forget about

children, work without exception, take

on administrative duties, do a lot of

overtime, and literary spend a lot of

time , day and night at school.'

The reasons for the pay problem has

long been evident. Pay has fallen due

to a deepening crisis, austerity, and

the rising debts which local governments

have been amounting.The total regional

debts which local governments owe

come to a staggering 2.2 trillion rubles.

In order to pay teachers, local

governments are being forced to draw on

private creditors whom they often can't

pay back. The crisis of teachers' pay is

likely to intensify as the crisis deepens.

 

Of course, the likelihood of a pay increase

on the eve of the presidential election can

not be dismissed, but this would represent

a cynical move by the state. Most ministers

live in a world of their own where they

prefer to hear what they want to hear!

 

To borrow a phrase from Charles Dickens,

'A leprosy of unreality' surrounds Russian

members of the Duma. Some of them

only learned about the plight of teachers

one year ago and even then they found

this injustice difficult to grasp.

Victor Makarenko only published what

was well known to most teachers and

what even some ministers actually admit

though prefer to understate or play down.

 

Victor Makarenko must be reinstated

immediately and the Director called to

account for grossly violating the law on

freedom of speech and the press. If

need be, mass protest in the form of

demonstrations and strikes may have

to be used to wake up some deluded

directors that that they can't fire teachers

on a whim just like a spoiled child breaks

up a toy which hurts him at a nursery!

Medvedev should start feeding teachers

and not just the ducks!

Burns Under Assault!

BURNS UNDER ASSAULT

By Stephen Wilson

 

When it is someone's birthday you try to

make it as pleasant as possible for him

or her by offering greetings, cards ,

presents and best wishes. You certainly

don't insult, deride or denigrate a person

on his birthday. This is especially true if

he died over 200 years ago and it is the

centenary of his birthday on the 25th of

January ! For during this time and into

February , many Russians and Scots all

over the World honor the poet Robert Burns

by organizing traditional Burns Suppers in

his memory. At those gatherings, people

gather to hear his most popular poems

recited such as : 'Honest Poverty', 'Ye

Jacobites by name' and 'Toast to the

Haggis' where a haggis is carried in a

plate before a piper then the poem recited

and the haggis stabbed ! Guests gorge

themselves on portions of this dish and

drink glasses of whisky as well as dawn

kilts. The stiff, formal and respectable

atmosphere surrounding those well-dressed

and affluent guests often seems at odds

with a poet who struggled as a farmer in

back -breaking poverty ' and recited sharply

radical poems attacking money as 'a cursed

leaf ' where the poet declared :

'I see the children of affliction,

unaided by your cursed restriction

I see the oppressor's cruel smile,

Among his hapless victim' spoil' .

Burns appears to be popular in Russia

where suppers are organised in his honor.

The Caledonian Clubs, Saint Andrew's

society and many schools mark the

occasion. A parent of one of my students

even told me : "I'm going to a Robert Burns

Supper tonight. I have been to 5 such

events ! Burns popular here because he

was well translated into Russian."

Unfortunately, just a week ago , the

Guardian, and other British newspapers

started to savage the poet's reputation for

his alleged debauchery , drinking and

alleged abuse of women. Burns being

conveniently dead, could not respond to

those allegations or take those critics to

court for libel.

The articles attacking him are reminsicent

of a tabloid newspaper. I mean it is not

some article you would have expected in

the guardian ! For example,

one article declares : Was the Beloved poet

a Weinsteinian sex pest ?' One critic,

Stuart Kelly writes : 'Burns is a rascal, a bit

roguish, roister - doisterer . But here is

another r word - rapist .'The poet Liz

Lochead also joined the attack quoting a

letter of 1788, to a friend , where he

boasted about giving his pregnant girlfriend

Jean Armour, a 'thundering scalade ' where

she later responded with joy'. For Lochead,

this boast seems like a rape ! Some critics

go further and ask ; 'Why do we all raise a

glass to the boor bard of Scotland?'

Well maybe because he is such a great

poet with a real soul!

However, some sober academics think

those claims are not only over the top but

impossible to prove. Catherine Czeikawka

a Burns expert states : 'To label events

described in the letter as rape is to

oversimplify a relationship of great

complexity'.

The Russians I spoke to are perplexed and

astonished that people from 'the Me too'

campaign have decided to attack someone

who died over 200 years ago. Burns had a

daunting and difficult life. Why not let him

rest in peace ?

If you read the poems of Burns you will find

a rare and warm sensibility to women

which was seldom shared by other poets.

The poems indicate someone who highly

respected woman and worried about their

plight and felt immense guilt at not aiding

them enough. Burns might not have been

a saint or angel but he was no monster !

Those attacks on the poet are not new.

The first biography of Burns attacked

Burns for his alleged debauchery , drinking

and class hatred of the better off. If you buy

Robert Burns Selected Poems , in Penguin

books, in Moscow , you can read in the

foreword : 'His overwhelming popularity

was revealed strongly in the adulation

shown by his fellow countrymen , but

MacKenzie was also to praise him as 'a

Heaven taught ploughman '. Unfortunately,

this great acclaim went to Burns 's head

and he led a life of dissipation and

debauchery. '

The best answer to all those slurs is

the biography written by the German Hans

Hecht who wrote 'Robert Burns , the Man

and His work ' 1950 , William Hodge and

company , Limited . In this excellent

biography, Hecht mentions how Burns

helped reinstate the unfairly dismissed

school teacher James Clarke. Second

City Teacher published an article about

how Burn's defended teachers {See article

April 12, 2014 Burns Defends Teachers}.

The comparison to Hollywood producer

Harvey Weinstein is plain absurd. Whereas

Weinstein blacklisted promising actresses,

Burns was an implacable opponent of

blacklisting and abusing people of any

kind. And women were no exception!

Burns, by the way, is a highly under-

estimated poet where they don't even

teach him in Scottish and English schools.

Yet they teach him in Russian schools.

Burns appears to have found some sort of

refuge in Russia.

 

Film Soviet-American Olympics '72

FILM REVIEW OF 'GOING VERTICAL'

A BLOCKBUSTER BREAKS RECORDS

By Stephen Wilson

 

MOSCOW -- A recent Russian film, 'Going Vertical', launched

from Last December, about the Soviet Basketball

victory against the Americans in the Olympic

games of 1972, has proven an unprecedented

box office hit . In just less than a month it has

made an almost staggering 2 billion rubles.

Unfortunately the film has provoked embittered

controversy over its dubious depiction of

the major players' characters not to mention the

misleading performance of the players. Two

widows of the former team are even taking the

producer of the film to court.

Why has the film provoked so much controversy?

Perhaps because the film starts with the usual

absurd claim that ; 'The Film is based on real

events 'then goes on to show numerous invented

stories within stories with no relation to what

actually happened.

So what events is the film claiming to be based

on? The actual events of how the Soviet basketball team won against the United States at Munich is bizarre in itself ! It is such a great story that one wonders why on earth it needs either embellishing or over the top distortion in the first

place. At first, the American basketball team

presumed the match was over after they won by

one point ; 50 to 49. They even started jubilantly

celebrating. However, an indignant assistant

coach complained to the referee and judges that

the game was not finished as they had been

not granted : 'The Time out' they deserved.

Someone had made a poor job of the time

-keeping . So the judge ordered the game to

continue and during the last three seconds , to

the amazement and awe of all spectators the

Soviet team scored the winning points . They

won 51 to 50 ! The American coach and players

began angrily protesting that the Soviets should

not have been granted 'Time out' . While all this

arguing was going on the Soviet team retired

to their changing room and tensely waited for

the judges to make a final decision . The judge

decided to accept the Soviet team had won. But

the American basketball team have never

acknowledged they were defeated. They still

have not collected their silver medal!

The awarding game winning-points were scored by Ivan

Edeshkov passing the ball to Alexander Belov

who threw into net! it was all so sweepingly

sudden!

The film is directed by Anton Megerdichev

and the coach played by Vladimir Mashkov. As a

film ,which stretches over two hours, it never

has a dull moment. This in itself it quite a rare

achievement. There are a lot of moving and

amusing scenes which captivate an audience.

The basic plot is that the Soviet coach

proclaims that the Soviet team can beat the

American basketball team . "We have to instill

in all our players that they can do the impossible

even if you don't believe in the impossible' he

retorts to the defeatist assistant coach who

always 'puts him down' by accusing him of

being reckless , mad and too ambitious . The

coach Vladimir Garanzhin states he will only

agree to direct the team if, "We use a new

American methodology to beat the Americans."

But Garanzhin is facing many huge problems.

He needs to save enough money to pay for

an operation to help his disabled son who is

on a wheelchair. Not only this . Most of the Soviet

officials conspire to sabotage Garanzhin's efforts

to win the games by threatening to withdraw from

the games under a false pretext. The players

are even threatened with potential legal action

for smuggling illicit items into the country such as

a Bible and an enormous amount of clothes.

The American Basketball coach is depicted as

a ruthless man who directs his players to beat

up and injure the Soviet players. Not all the

American players agree and retort: "I'm not

a wrestler but a basketball player " and "I have

done enough boxing for today." When the Russian

players protest against foul play, the judge

answers : "You have to understand that yes, they

are playing dirty but they are not breaking the

rules." This is the same Judge who at an earlier

game sending off a Russian player with a tut tut

tut scolding : "basketball is a gentlemen's game."

Yet at the end of the film, this same judge

allows Russia 'Time out' allowing them to win the

match at the Olympics!

The film has a great cast, witty dialogue and

a lot of tense moments. It is a moving film.

A young student of mine called Roman, told me

"It was a great film . After the Soviet team won

during the last three seconds everyone in the

cinema applauded."

So why has the film provoked such controversy?

The poet Pushkin once stated: 'The tale is a lie'.

in this case, the film is a lie as it claims to be

based on real events. The widow of Alexander

Belov,{ He died of a rare heart disease in 1978,}

stated: "The only thing true about this film is

the last three seconds . All the rest of the film

is just false." 

She stated that her late husband did not sleep around with other girls or suffer from any dizzy spells where he fainted during his time in the team. The Soviet doctors would

have disallowed him from playing as they had

very strict rules and were subject to many strict

medical tests. That the Soviet team would have

lost to a group of street youth over a bet also

appears ludicrous as "Sasha was a genius at

basketball." How the game was performed

on the film is highly misleading. The stunts

of leaping up in air and hurling the ball into the

air through the net was forbidden by the then

rules of basketball. 

"Whoever wrote this script has never watched a game of basketball or knows anything about the game ," declared

basketball player Alexander Ovchinnikov.

She also stated that there was no woman's

Olympic basketball team in 1972 as it had not

been founded.

How has the film director Anton Megerdichev

responded to those allegations ? He claims that

if they told the story as it actually happened it

would be so dull nobody would want to watch

the film. In other words 'Truth is more boring

than fiction!' He certainly would not agree with

the old cliche that 'Truth is more fascinating than

reality'. To be fair, he is not the only director to

present a film purporting to be based on true

events but blatantly false. Daniel Ogen, a

storyteller, told me that: "Hollywood has produced

more false legends about the American Indians

than the Indians themselves".

Does it matter? Do cinema goers really believe

this game was 'based on real events?' Well,

some gullible Russian school children under the

age of 12 do tend to tell me they believe the

events portrayed in wartime films are true even

when I point out some inaccuracies. Many war

veterans don't even attend war films because they

are inaccurate to the point of absurdity.

So what might be a solution to at least avoid

troubled court cases? Why not use a bit of

honesty and declare at the beginning of the film:

'This film is very loosely based on events and

is not the literary truth.' But such an honest

confession in the eyes of many producers and

film directors risks profits. But it would be better

not to make the old misleading claim that:

This film is based on real events'. More often

'The film is a lie'.

HOD Meeting

House Of Delegates Meeting

By Jim Vail

The January, 2018 Chicago Teachers Union House of Delegates met Wednesday to discuss two resolutions and endorse six candidates for office.

VP Jesse Sharkey chaired the meeting because President Karen Lewis is still home recovering from a stroke. He said she is feeling better and they had spoken for two hours.

Sharkey said good riddance to former Chicago Public Schools chief Forrest Claypool who was brought in to destroy the union. He made his name in civic office as a union buster, having helped gut the unions in the Chicago Park District and the Chicago Transit Authority.

Did Claypool fulfill his duty in the schools? He was forced to resign like his predecessor, but not go to prison this time, but he did fire union activists like former Saucedo teacher Sarah Chamber, further the privatization of school services and threaten to layoff thousands of teachers and implement furlough days. Claypool believes in vouchers, Sharkey said, (so does CTU endorsed House Speaker Mike Madigan) and hung a picture of free market wacko Ayn Rand in his office.

What about new schools chief Janice Jackson?

"There are a number of ways she'll be better than Forrest Claypool," Sharkey told the delegates last week. "You don't go up by being the enemy of the system."

The first resolution passed was to support Black Lives Matter School Week of Feb. 5th. The first two or three teachers from CORE who spoke in favor were white, to show solidarity between white and black teachers for this resolution.

The resolves (what the union pledges to do if you hold its feet to the fire) include the CTU will participate in Black Lives Matter School Week to kick off Black History Month the week of Feb. 5, 2018, CTU will host events aligned to national demands for ending the pushout of Black teachers in our schools, restorative practices in schools and ending zero tolerance discipline, teaching Black and other histories and ethnic studies curriculum (important since this country has swung so hard right to eradicate the curriculum of minorities forged in the radical 60s), and encourage teachers to wear Black Lives Matter at School shirts to school that week and teach lessons about important Black topics.

The next important resolution passed was to Reclaim the Paraprofessional and School Related Personnel (PSRP) in CTU. The discussion about this centered on how CTU lost a lot of teacher aid positions when the jobs were reclassified to SECAs, and then moved to be under the SEIU union. Some teachers demanded the CTU leadership do more to ensure the many aids who have lost their jobs because of this. Sharkey said contract enforcement is the surest way to do this.

The CTU noted that after CPS created the new category of SECA (Special Education Classroom Assistant) outside of CTU membership (just like charter teachers), the number of SECAs, like charter schools, has been growing "astronomically" while CTU PSRPs have fallen greatly - a switch of 3,200 members from CTU to SEIU, and CPS is also reclassifying PSRP positions like early childhood coordinators into jobs not performed by CTU. The resolution resolves to explore ways to regain these lost positions and "CTU will aggressively accrete the thousands more CPS employees that are eligible for union membership in the Central Office, Network Offices, and School units of CPS into the CTU as part of re-carding in preparation for the 2018 Janus court decision." 

The upcoming Janus Supreme Court decision is expected to whack the unions again hard (how else to further the divide between the very rich and rest of us?) by not automatically collecting union dues, you can refuse to pay your union dues.  

The last item for action was endorsing the following names for office - Kwame Raoul for attorney general, Ram Villivalam for state senator, Theresa Mah for state senator, Kelly Cassidy for state rep, Mary Flowers for state rep and Bridget Degnen for Cook County Commissioner.

Yours truly as delegate of Hammond Elementary asked why wasn't Aaron Goldstein considered as a candidate for attorney general. Goldstein is a progressive who upset Ald. Dick Mell for 33rd Ward committeeman and has pledged to take on the banks, something the union has fought hard for when it was discovered Bank of America made millions off toxic loans to the city while closing many schools. The CTU said it was unanimous to endorse Raoul, part of the machine, who has received $100,000 from big tobacco, tens of thousands of dollars from big utilities (watch our rates continue to rise for electricity, water and gas!), voted for the pension bill to whack our pensions hard - everything CTU preaches against!

Exciting mayoral candidate and principal activist Troy LaRavier has endorsed Goldstein.

Board arrests teacher

AMERICAN TEACHER ARRESTED AT
SCHOOL BOARD MEETING

THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD WATCHES

By Stephen Wilson

 

A teacher who has been asked to leave by

School board officials peacefully walks out

when a marshal {school resource officer}

approaches her. When she enters the corridor

the officer pushes her against the wall and

even shouts : " You are arrested for resisting

a police officer " . Her comments : " What are

you doing ? " Why are you pushing me ? " fall

on deaf ears as she is handcuffed and led

away to the local police station. Where did

this actually happen ? No, not in Russia or

Mexico but at a school Board meeting in

Vermilion, Louisiana on the morning of 9th

January. The case has made International

headlines due to social networks which allow

a recorded film of those very events to be

watched on U-Tube.

The American School Board and their officials

were accused of not only using : 'Excessive

force' but violating the teachers right to freely

express an opinion under the First Amendment

of the American Constitution. However, a

representative of the Board went so far as

to defend the action of the marshal on the

grounds that a certain amount of decorum has

to be observed and that it was the teacher who

was out of order and preventing discussion.

But if you watch this video attentively what

surprises me and perhaps many of my Russian

friends is how ' excessively polite ' the teacher

Deyshia Hargrave behaved by some Russian

standards. She never swore or loudly raised her

voice and calmly left the room when a marshal

asked her to go. Hargrave was detained but

finally released and the prosecution publically

declared they would not press charges. However,

the damage has been done . Now many people

can point to this incident and claim : " There is

no real freedom of Speech in America ! The

Americans are just a bunch of self-righteous

hypocrites when they are always lecturing

Russians about how they should maintain

freedom of speech. Put your own house in order".

When council officials were facing much stronger

language and abuse from local people opposed

to their renovation program, Russians did not call

the police and arrest people but tactfully tried to

calm down the crowd . They even made an effort

to listen to grievances. If you watch this video

what strikes you is how the school board makes

so little contact with the audience and just appear

to speak among themselves. It is as if they

follow the line : 'The officials must decide while

the teachers must remain silent '. Or rather :

'Cadres decide everything !'

What was Deyshia Hargrave protesting about ?

The main point of issue was whether a top school

official's pay be raised. The School Board voted

by 5 to 3 to increase Payau's pay from 110,130

dollars a year to around 140,000 dollars thus

representing a 30,000 increase . Payau argued

he deserved it because he had done a great

job, raised the rating performance of schools

worked hard and had not a raise for 5 years.

Deyshia Hargrave disagreed ! School class

numbers had risen from 20 to 29 a teacher

and conditions for both teachers and students

had worsened. In fact , teachers at Vermilion

earn an average of 47,522 a year and have not

had a raise for ten years.

Debbie Meaux , the president of Louisiana

Teachers Association stated : " I think it should

not have happened at an open public forum. We

expect to be able to speak and have our opinion

heard" . The local teachers at Hargrave's school

are shocked by recent events and feel as if it is

an assault upon all teachers. They back their

teacher 100 percent.

Rosemarie Faye stated : " The teacher did

nothing wrong and kept with protocol. She waited

to be addressed . She was acknowledged , and

then spoke in a respectful way and wasn't out of

order".

Deyshia Hargrave declared :"I'm appalled at

this and you should be too..... I'm hoping you

choose to speak out and don't let it become an

intimidation".