UTD President Karen Aronowitz Comments from the June14, 2006 School Board Meeting

All in Miami Dade are proud to serve in our profession.  United Teachers of Dade, our union, believes the achievements of our district exist because of the partnership between us and our district. 

Now, we are in contract negotiations.  It is time to demonstrate your commitment to the teachers, and support professionals who make this achievement possible on behalf of our students.  We are partners in reform, we are dedicated to professional accountability and we must now be acknowledged for our work by the re-examination of the scale and scope of our salaries. 

We can no longer wait for improvement of our wages.  We can no longer demonstrate the dedication, effort, and commitment of our teachers and support professionals without a recognition of those efforts in payment of dollars.  Gratitude will not serve, accolades will not serve, platitudes will not serve.  We will meet again in negotiations on June 20^th and we await the dollars that are our due. 

As Ms. Vidal stated, we anticipate a shortage of 300 teachers in this district.  We cannot attract nor retain our teachers in our system without a successful contract. 

We await our next bargaining session with the same determination we bring to our professional lives.