Guest Column Gabrielle Girard It’s time for Middletown teachers, board to get practical Over the past few years I have followed the travails, contract disputes, strikes, public whining, and complaining by Middletown teachers. But upon reading in the Independent of the most recent "possible strike," I was too disgusted to remain silent. Middletown teachers claim to care about the children, but it seems that all they really care about are themselves. Diane Swaim says that the latest dispute is about once again increasing salaries and about the "unacceptable" idea of teachers having to contribute to their own health care. Well, Ms. Swaim, welcome to every other working person’s world. Wouldn’t we all love to not have co-pays? Wouldn’t we all love to earn the salary of a Middletown schoolteacher, which is among the highest in the state and higher than many more deserving non-teachers’ salaries, in addition to having summers and extended holidays off? It’s time for the teachers and the school board to get practical. I recently received the Middletown Township Public Schools District Newsletter, the front of which featured an article denouncing the defeat of the budget questions in the last election. Should I be sorry that there cannot be Internet access in every classroom? Why does every classroom need Internet access? Perhaps so that the teachers can teach less by having the Internet do their jobs. It seems to me that these teachers have gotten a little too comfortable to want to accept any change, all the while patting themselves on the back with public self-praise. Let’s not forget that the teachers who are threatening to strike now are the same ones who went on strike a few years ago are still demanding higher salaries and zero health-care contributions, while the students they care about so much were left to stagnate in classrooms with substitute baby sitters. How many times do the teachers have to make these threats before parents and other taxpayers catch on to the scam? I usually respect teachers and have fond memories of several New York City public school teachers who impacted my life in positive ways. But I have never seen anything like this redundant situation with the Middletown schoolteachers. I, too, am a teacher, but teach only part time at the college level while working full time developing high school curricula. I also have the credentials to teach secondary-school English and would certainly be willing to trade in my two jobs for one Middletown teaching position. I would gladly continue contributing to my own health care in order to have summers and holidays off, pensions, miscellaneous days off to attend conferences, and six-hour work days, rather than have my medical benefits subsidized by the township taxpayers, many of whom have no health benefits of their own. Yet there seem to be no teaching positions available, which suggests that while Middletown teachers are quick to go on strike, they are not quite ready to back up their bluster by vacating their positions in the system that treats them so unacceptably. I suspect there will be plenty of negative responses to this letter from teachers and their supporters, but I hope more people will realize how self-aggrandizing and self-serving these teachers are. Come election time, I am sure we will see a resurgence of the ubiquitous "For Kids’ Sake" lawn signs. But as Middletown teachers attempt to extort more taxpayer money for themselves, they are proving once again that it is not the kids they care about. Gabrielle Girard is a resident of Middletown