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Kingston/Forty Fort Little League reaches Section 5 final

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Lottery numbers for Sunday, July 16, 2017

<p>Dallas School District Education Association President Mike Cherinka didn&#8217;t like what he heard at the latest Dallas School Board meeting, so he left. In a huff.</p><p>After hearing the board&#8217;s decision to deny a union grievance in response to its June decision to deduct seven unworked days from teachers&#8217; salaries, Cherinka decided he had had enough. So, he abruptly left the room and dropped a copy of the meeting&#8217;s agenda on a table.</p><p>Cherinka told Times Leader/Dallas Poster reporter Eileen Godin the next day, he was &#8220;frustrated.&#8221;</p><p>How do you think the taxpayers in the Dallas School District feel, Mike? Do you think there&#8217;s any frustration on their part?</p><p>All they want for their kids is a good education from good teachers. There are plenty of good teachers in the Dallas teachers&#8217; union, but we can&#8217;t help but wonder who&#8217;s driving the bus out there.</p><p>Is it Cherinka, the man who takes his ball and goes home when he doesn&#8217;t like the way the game is being played? Or is it John Holland, the man from the Pennsylvania State Education Association who allegedly browbeats teachers into doing things his way?</p><p>Look at Holland&#8217;s record. It seems whenever there are heated contract negotiations between teachers and a school board, Holland is right there in the mix. Perhaps he doesn&#8217;t want to be the guy in charge when a teachers&#8217; union is forced to pay a portion of health care premiums.</p><p>Either way, it&#8217;s a lose-lose situation for everyone involved &#8211; teachers, students, administrators, parents, taxpayers. No one wins in situations like this.</p><p>What kind of message is Cherinka sending to the students he is charged with bringing along in this world when he storms out of a meeting because things aren&#8217;t going his way? Guess what, Mike, most people in this world don&#8217;t get paid if they don&#8217;t work. That isn&#8217;t a new concept.</p><p>And, when taxpayers hear you complain because the school board wants your union members to pay a portion of their health care premiums, they don&#8217;t have a whole lot of sympathy for you. Why? Because all of them are paying toward their health care premiums &#8211; that&#8217;s not a new concept, either.</p><p>Education is sometimes a cloistered environment. The participants forget what the real world is like. In the real world, workers pay a portion of their health care premiums, and they either take benefit time when they want time off or they don&#8217;t get paid. That&#8217;s the reality of the working folk of today.</p><p>We refuse to believe that every member of the Dallas teachers&#8217; union is on board with the way Cherinka and Holland think. We&#8217;d like to believe there&#8217;s a lot more common sense and understanding among the members of that union. But, how much longer are they going to follow these two men like sheep? Isn&#8217;t it time the members of the Dallas teachers&#8217; union start to think for themselves?</p><p><em> &#8212; Times Leader</em></p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Dallas Education Association President Michael Cherinka walked out of the most recent Dallas School Board meeting when he learned the board would not honor a union grievance. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/web1_TTL111516DallasSBmeet_1-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Dallas Education Association President Michael Cherinka walked out of the most recent Dallas School Board meeting when he learned the board would not honor a union grievance. </caption0><photoCredit0>Times Leader file photo </photoCredit0></div></div>

Our View: Dallas teachers need to think for themselves