AP and staff reports

At least one union may be willing to call off the teacher ”flu” epidemics that have closed schools at one time or another in more than a half-dozen parishes. The Louisiana Federation of Teachers, representing about 13,000 classroom teachers, will decide Saturday if the sickouts should stop to give lawmakers and Gov. Mike Foster more time to raise teacher pay, LFT president Fred Skelton, said Thursday.

Meanwhile, the largest classroom teacher group, the Louisiana Association of Educators, will not budge. The LAE chapters are the ones that have conducted most of the sickouts.

In Concordia Parish, Concordia Association of Educators President D’Shay Rushing said she believes that action might be taken on teacher raises in a legislative special session to be held in March.

&uot;We’re still holding out hope that something we do will hit home&uot;&160;with legislators, said Rushing, who teaches at Vidalia Junior High.

Earlier this month, CAE members held a &uot;yellow ribbon&uot; rally in front of the old parish courthouse to call attention to the need for teacher raises.

Jo Anne Gardner, president of the Concordia Federation of Teachers and School Employees – the LFT’s local chapter – could not be reached for comment Thursday evening.

Skelton, addressing the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education Thursday, noted that the Foster administration is planning a $2,000 pay raise, still not enough to get Louisiana teachers to the Southern average.

To get the $140 million required for the pay raise, Foster wants the Legislature to raise riverboat casino taxes in a special session by $70 million. He also wants lawmakers to require that a $70 million increase in money that is supposed to go to 66 school districts for general purposes be dedicated to teacher pay.

A number of elected officials have good intentions but ”teachers have reached the conclusion that George Bernard Shaw did – the road to hell is paved with good intentions,” Skelton told the board.

Louisiana teachers, among the lowest paid in the nation, ”feel the process has not worked,” Skelton said.

”So you are seeing sickouts from anger. They are angry at BESE, angry at the governor and angry at the Legislature.”

Susie Boothe, an English teacher at Vidalia High School, can identify with that. &uot;I’m skeptical of anything that comes from Baton Rouge these days. They talk a lot and come through with a little,&uot;&160;she said.

Boothe said she knows teachers that have been teaching for more than 20 years and still make less than $30,000.

&uot;And teachers still have to patrol the grounds during recess and lunch and are expected to do ball game duty without extra pay,&uot;&160;she said. &uot;And while we’re at it, we’re supposed to teach the children about character … and meet new accountability standards.&uot;

But pay and duties are not the only issues that impact Louisiana teachers’ quality of life, Boothe said. She noted that there is also a debate on the state level about doing away with teacher tenure or enacting merit pay.

&uot;It’s not just about raises,&uot; Boothe said. &uot;We need some job security, too.&uot;

Skelton noted that his chapter presidents would be meeting Saturday ”and I suspect” the sickouts will end as long as they see progress being made.

”If we begin to see the $70 million in school system money whittled away in the Legislature, you’re going to see sickouts,” Skelton warned. ”If the legislative process breaks down, you’ll see sickouts. Teachers’ patience has worn thin.”

The Louisiana Association of Educators, representing about 19,000 classroom teachers, has not made any agreement to call of the sickouts.

Carol Davis, president of the LAE, said the BESE resolution complaining of the sickouts does nothing more than try to paint teachers as villains.

”The work actions are short term inconveniences aimed at bringing long term resolution to the shortage of certified teachers in the state,” she said.

The average pay in Louisiana is just under $33,000, about $6,000 to $8,000 less than paid in neighboring Texas. A $2,000 raise for Louisiana teachers would still be about $1,000 short of the Southern average.

While some school superintendents have pretty well resigned themselves that all of their additional money will be used for state pay raises, Concordia Parish Superintendent Lester &uot;Pete&uot;&160;Peterman balks at the idea.

Extra money added to the Minimum Foundation Program – the state’s way of funding local schools districts – was supposed to help those districts fund measures to bring their schools up to state accountability levels, among other things.

Foster’s plan &uot;isn’t the way it should be,&uot;&160;Peterman said. &uot;Here’s what we want the state to do – to provide raises for teachers without taking it out of the MFP.

&uot;And what about support employees and administrators?&uot;, he added. Such employees are not covered by Foster’s plan – only teachers.

Concordia Parish received $13,203,948 in MFP funds this year, which is $424,077 than the previous school year.

State money is distributed to local systems through the MFP formula, which is drawn up each year by the Legislature and then approved by BESE.

The systems have been getting extra money for the past few years under a plan to bring more equity to school funding. Of the extra money, just over 50 districts of the 66 get a share. The wealthier systems do not share in the largesse, but the Legislature can order that teachers in those systems get the same raise.

The less affluent systems use the extra money to help cover inflation – increased costs in utilities, insurance and other areas of routine school system spending as well as cost-of-living raises for teachers.

The bulk of teacher pay, however, is paid by the state in an allocation totaling more than $2.2 billion. Some parishes are so poor that their teachers get only the state pay.