East Millinocket school head gets vote of no confidence

EAST MILLINOCKET – The teachers union here has followed its Millinocket counterpart by voting no confidence in Superintendent Sara Alberts, union officials said Wednesday.

Taken Dec. 5, the vote was 32-1 among the union’s 36 members, said Greg Friel, president of the East Millinocket Teachers Association. Three members were absent.

“I was quite surprised that it was that high, but the frustration level has gotten to people,” Friel said. “We’ve never talked about a no-confidence vote before, and I have been here for 20 years.”

Alberts has not responded to media inquiries for several weeks. Robert Leathers, chairman of the East Millinocket School Committee, could not be reached for comment on Wednesday. Board member Gary Morin declined comment.

According to Friel, teachers have been increasingly burdened with changing and increasing demands that cut into their teaching and classroom management time, producing heavier take-home workloads and greater strain.

“They have introduced a hundred things that you have to do on your own while teaching,” Friel said. “It’s all a piling up of pieces of workload that make it difficult to teach because a lot of the pieces don’t go together easily. We have a saying for it: ‘We’re fixing the plane while we’re flying it.’ That’s scary.”

Among the changes are a new standards-based grading system that has had to be repeatedly revised and a new computer grading program called Powerschool that teachers have had little training time on, Friel said.

Some budgetary problems have frustrated teachers, Friel said. Cuts made in the 2007-08 budget due to forecasts of a state funding shortfall weren’t altered when the shortfall didn’t occur.

Alberts changes aren’t necessarily bad, Friel said, just rushed. Requests for more time for training have been met with temporary reprieves and empty promises of cooperation, which eventually forced the vote, he said.

“We were pretty proactive on these issues and talked to the board and Mrs. Alberts, but nothing changes,” Friel said.

Millinocket’s vote occurred last month and was disclosed on Dec. 11. The teachers listed 24 points of contention which centered mostly on nonpayment issues. Town officials described the situation that led to the payment problems as a temporary aberration that since has been fixed.

Staff also are assigned tasks outside job descriptions, special education assistants monitor regular study halls when they should be with special education students, and teachers are implementing standards-based grading even as the new system is being designed, making multiple reassessments necessary, the Millinocket union said in explaining its vote.

Millinocket school board and town officials responded by reaffirming support in Alberts and offering to meet with the union. A meeting between board Chairman Thomas Malcolm and the union was set for Dec. 19.

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