should swim at the falls. Turn down 15% pay hike over 5 years and 15% premium on health care...

When 4000 people show up to take an exam for 20 jobs, you start to understand supply and demand. Or you probably don't as you have a 2 year degree AT MOST and the IQ and work ethic of a dead cat. Average CSEA salary is already OVER average income for WNY. Tax base is declining at same time.

This place blows...I hope the revolution comes soon.

1) Who is CSEA? and 2) 15% over 5 years isn't even inflation.

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CSEA is, I believe, the teacher's union.

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mechaphil

CSEA is a teacher's union, but that's in Cali.

Around here it's the Civil Service Employees Association. All those cushy government jobs that pay too much for too little work anyways.

like ACORN?

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I'm not in favor of power brokering unions, but I'm not so sure we can put a price on being a teacher/social worker/baby sitter/bouncer/top scapegoat/assault victim. Four years working as the officer on campus showed me there is one other job that I'd never have beside zoo janitor...and that's a public school teacher.

The teachers would often tell me how much they would hate my job - having to deal with the same bastard cretins every day and their fights, assaults, weapons, stealing, sex offenses...etc. I would look at them funny and explain how I could transfer back out to the street (which I did) whenever I wanted to, but they were stuck around these thugs for another 20 years.

Public school is an absolute fucking catastrophe - an utter political and social failure. Teachers are on the business end of a sledgehammer to the gut every day. I don't begrudge them for partaking of the union slease routine.

I think it's a little ridiculous to call public school an utter social failure.

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mechaphil

Unions should be outlawed.
We have laws that afford the reasonable protections they once fought for.
They're a product of the last century...of the industrial revolution. We've moved past this garbage.

Organized and legalized extortion is their business and they rule over our elected officials.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

No. ACORN is not a governmental organization. It's an umbrella group that guides different community-based organizations.

Compare us to some other nations, and we're head and shoulders above; others (Japan, anyone?) we can't even scratch the surface of the material they cover.

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Tell that to Walmart. They're scared to death of their employees organizing, because then they wouldn't be able to force their employees to work overtime without compensation. Or they might have to actually give them real health benefits.

I find your statement to be laughable frankly, we've "moved past" companies exploiting their labor? Fat fucking chance.

Forced to work overtime? Depends on if you live in a right-to-work state or not. Most companies, if they find a shortage of work, tell employees to work harder, hire someone that WILL work harder, or hire someone else.

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Well sure, they used to be a fine learning establishment...not anymore.

The SRO division in my jurisdiction was square in the middle of so much political stupidity over everything an SRO did. If there was a use of force, pepper spray, or (dear god no!) a taser use on a poor child (ie - 220 lb 17 yr old freshman with a violent criminal history) half the school board and every damn so-called community leader would jump on the soap box and call for officers to be removed from campuses. That served their BS skewed political, race baiting agenda. Fortunately teachers and all parents of the under-represented good students would have a public freak session to counter that crap and sway the school board to remain under contract with the police department.

The school district superintendant, half the school board members, and on down to principals, would do everything possible to hide violent incidents and go so far as to literally hide drugs and guns from officers if they found them first. Fudging or simply throwing away incident reports was/is common place, and it takes the police dept showing how their records don't match the under reported crap that the school board shows in order to shed light on the issue.

What people need to do is to actually spend time in these buildings while school is in session. See with your own eyes what a damned circus it is, see large scale fights, hear about off campus fights with weapons, thugs skipping class to break into area homes/businesses, rape in the bathrooms, drug dealing all day every day. Talk to the SRO and find out what the crime stats are for these schools. The SRO will be the only person that won't lie about it.

If you think for a second that public school is anything like it used to be 15-20 years ago you need a reality check. I know most people on these boards are younger and not far removed from that scene, but city schools are little more than public funded daycare for career criminals in training. The vast majority of students are not that bad, but the % of criminal students is much higher these days, and that group causes a HUGE amount of turmoil. I happy I had the experience to find this out, so now my daughter will be somewhere else where the worst thing that happens in the day is a kid calling someone a name.

Dude, I don't even know where to begin. For one, schools in small towns or suburbs aren't anything like that. At least not in my experience, and I've been all over the place (between 4th grade and graduation, I was in three different districts and about six or seven different buildings).

In my opinion, private schools (secular or religious) are worse for a child's social development than public school. But hey, that's your call. Me, I'm making sure Joshua goes to public school.

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mechaphil

I think schools are too big; that one that opened in NF was a merger with Niagara Falls and Niagara-Wheatfield, wasn't it?

I went to Newfane, graduated with little over 100 kids in my class, and feel like I got a quality education and great experiences. There weren't weapons in school, almost no drug involvement, and it was a great atmosphere. The teachers there cared about the education of the students. I remember looking forward to some classes.

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So does Walmart use a gun to the head to "force" their workers to work overtime with no compensation?
Maybe a baseball bat?

And this whole "overtime without compensation" thing....show me how that's possible, legal, or didn't end up in a giant lawsuit.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

Nope.

That was a merger between Niagara Falls and LaSalle, both city run high schools. NF wasn't large enough for two schools, so they made the smart decision to put everyone in one place.

I guess I didn't specify enough. County or rural public schools aren't as bad as what I described. City schools are what I was talking about, and they include the majority of student enrollment in most counties.

I went to Niagara Wheatfield, 1988-1992, and we didn't even have an officer on campus. They have one now but still it's not too bad there, or anywhere else outside Niagara Falls. The newer campus that merged NF and LaSalle is a mess though. Any big city in North Carolina is just like my jurisdiction - full of pathetic city schools with thugs that literally skip all their classes so they can sell drugs on or just off campus. I understand your perspective because it used to be mine...now I know different.

It's not gonna be a case of "now I know better" because I do pay attention to these things. I just don't have a sad, dour outlook on things.

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mechaphil

I thought the school was going to have something like 4000 kids in it?

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