The Monsters of McMinnville, Oregon: Radical Teachers’ Union Gets MEAn
by LaborUnionReportIf one bad apple spoils the bushel, what happens when the whole bushel is rotten?
In a sleepy little suburb outside of Portland, Oregon, there is a monster lurking in the classroom, teaching schoolchildren their three Rs—Reading, Radicalism & Reprisal. The monster is known as the McMinnville Education Association [MEA].
McMinnville School District is in negotiations with the MEA (hereafter to be known as MEAn) and has been since last year (with the occasional help of a mediator), with the parties having been millions apart. However, according to local press reports, with a state school budget crisis, while some progress has been made, so far an agreement has been elusive.
Nevertheless, as negotiations have dragged on over months, the MEAn has gotten…well…MEAner.
On Valentine’s Day, prior to the McMinnville School Board meeting, the McMinnville Area of Commerce’s Governmental Affairs Committee had sent out a statement (via e-mail) to hundreds of local businesses and residents. That evening, at the school board meeting, Leslie “LV” VanBlaricom (a member of the chamber’s board of directors) read the statement (text below the fold). Apparently, her reading of the letter did not sit well with MEAn, who then allegedly had her fired from her job:
Leslie “LV” VanBlaricom, who delivered a business community statement on this year’s teacher contract talks at a recent McMinnville School Board meeting, has lost her job as manager of OnPoint Community Credit Union’s McMinnville branch.
At the board’s Feb. 14 meeting, VanBlaricom read an e-mail the McMinnville Area of Commerce’s Governmental Affairs Committee had sent to hundreds of McMinnville businesses and residents earlier in the day. It urged both the district and union to quickly reach an agreement retaining as many teaching jobs as possible within the tight funding limits posed by the current economic shortfall.
[snip]
VanBlaricom, who delivered the statement in her capacity as a member of the chamber’s board of directors, told the school board the chamber had quickly received numerous replies to the e-mail from businesses supporting the committee’s stand. She said it had not received any expressions of opposition.
[snip]
In response to the chamber intervention, some individual members of the union contacted VanBlaricom’s employer. A delegation of them asked to meet with VanBlaricom at the credit union late last week, but was told VanBlaricom no longer worked there, according to the union’s Facebook page.
Here is the text of the statement that Ms. VanBlaricom read to the school board:
The Government Affairs Council of your Chamber of Commerce has identified an issue that we feel has potential lasting impact on our community and would like to share both a perspective and invite your feedback.
Currently, the McMinnville School District and the local teachers union are involved in month 11 of collective bargaining over a new teacher contract. State revenue declines have led to smaller projected allocations to K-12 schools. For current budget news, please see the News Register Article at the following link: http://www.newsregister.com/article/46806-school+budget+gaps+grows+more+6+million
The bottom line: both the district and the union are negotiating over money our district does not have and does not expect to receive. We feel the business community should provide a message of support for settlement of the negotiations (which are now in mediation) that maximizes the number of teachers the district can retain to keep class sizes smaller for our children.
The district should not spend any additional money towards teacher salary and/or benefits if doing so will require the district to reduce teaching positions and increase classroom sizes to pay for them in order to meet its budget. We should hope the union would see the benefit of smaller class sizes on their members workload and student performance but to date, they have continued to insist on additional wage and benefit increases even though the district indicates that such demands could mean the loss of as many as 40+ teaching positions.
We know many business people, concerned citizens and parents in our community feel, as we do, that they support teachers and appreciate what they do. We do not want to be perceived as opposing teachers and/or education but want to stand up to the unreasonable demands of the teacher’s union given the current state, local and national economic conditions.
We believe this has long-term community and business consequences. The Chamber and many of its member businesses have supported local education, including the $68 million bond measure that updated and expanded many of our educational facilities. Although we opposed Measures 66 and 67 last year, they passed and have not live up to the challenge of fixing the funding crisis. Our fear is that failure to hold the line on expenses will result in new calls for business taxes at a time when both the business community and the local economy cannot afford it. We urge that your voice be heard on this issue and we intend to share it.
Please let us know how you feel about this issue.
Pretty provocative, right? Well, the MEAn apparently didn’t bother wasting time, according to the above press report. The union and its sycophantic followers contacted Ms. VanBlaricom’s employer, OnPoint Community Credit Union (which has a longstanding relationship with the teachers’ union), where she was a branch manager, and she was fired.
[Note: A call to OnPoint's CEO, Robert Stuart, for a comment on this post was not returned. However, should you wish to contact OnPoint, their contact information is here.]
Following Ms. VanBlaricom’s removal from her job, the members of MEAn voiced applauded the brutish behavior on the union’s facebook page.
Imagine, teachers responsible for teaching kids not to be bullies behaving like schoolyard bullies themselves. In this case, though, it has cost a woman her livelihood.
Bullies or monsters? Apparently, there’s not much different in McMinnville.
________________
“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776
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68 Comments
Disgraceful.
"If one bad apple spoils the bushel, what happens when the whole bushel is rotten?"
Feed it to the pigs.
This is where I grew up. No kidding.
Several of these people I know and went to school with. They were your typical spoon-fed Liberals in the making raised by your typical 60's Liberal dolts.
They also have indoctrinated one of my Nieces. Pitiful
"We know many business people, concerned citizens and parents in our community feel, as we do,"
The Communist mantra!!
You think Wisconsin is progressive? Live in my state for a while. It ain't pretty around here.
Remember this is liberal Oregon. Next this is the teachers' union which will walk over its own to get what it wants – more money and bennies. Even job loses for teachers(40 or more) and a resulting heavier work load won't stop them. Tell me again that's it's all for the students when it's really more money for a greedy few and dues for the union. Yep, what I see in Oregon enforces my support for Gov Walker of WI.
Surely there is an attorney out there that would love to sue a credit union for wrongful termination. $$$$$$$$$$$$$
Fired, for reading a letter?
We just keep learning. We have been positively disgustingly behind in keeping up with Obama’s Brownshirts’ New Civility.
For instance, now we learn that the best and most civil, unhurtful way, if you’re a liberal fascist, to oppose the views and candidacies of individuals that you don’t agree with politically is to go after their children and try to have them thrown out of school, grab their research and claim it for your own and destroy their futures.
Because of the CIVILITY!
Meet the new Nazis, the same as the old Nazis.
This is getting way out of hand now!
This troubles me. Kill the messenger.
Let's look at the BIG picture, one that the people responsible for teaching our kids obviously have no intention of seeing. If multiple people and business, flee the district because of onerous taxes, then what?
Fewer people to pay the wages of public sector workers. Logic? Reason? Not taught in college apparently?
See the facebook pictures of "normal" looking individuals? One woman is holding and infant.
Pack mentality. Just like the animals.
Petro:
Did you get my response last night about Caribou? Let me know.
I was up at my cabin in the Mtns last night Crystle, I had sat issues and couldn't do much could you resend please.
Who would have thought that teachers would have turned out to be so selfish? They would prefer that other teachers get fired rather than not get a raise. Of course, many feel safe because of last hired, first fired. Teachers' motto, "I got mine scr*w everyone else, be they children (increase class size), other teachers or taxpayers.
She should sue the union for the loss of her job.
Fascinating.
A group of teachers angered by an individual reading a document which is in opposition to their point of view gets fired.
Yet, if I feel that one of the teachers of one of my three kids is not doing a good job…..I can make calls, write letters and complain til I am blue in the face……with NO results…because of union protection.
So, folks, the message here is clear:
Teachers making every possible dime they can make on tax payer funded salaries TRUMPS your kids futures.
It's that simple. No other message.
Also, I am about sick and tired of all this BS and propaganda telling us how dedicated and wonderful teachers are. I have 3 kids (7,13,15) and have been dealing with teachers for YEARS. Less than 20% have been above average or outstanding. The rest are average or BELOW average. Can we please stop pretending teachers are highly trained and highly educated professionals….because for the most part they are not.
the MEAn people did not like the lady from the Chamber reading the letter which basically asked for the adults to compromise so the students didn't suffer.
why does it seem like the last thing teacher's unions think about is the students?
Just the fact it has taken 11 months to negotiate should tell you something….
Another selfish, entitled class of folks.
So shortsighted, they cannot see the forest for the trees…
Going to be a lot of reaallly sad folks out there before long.
Simple, the students don't sign their paychecks.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. ~Lord Acton
Is there anything more instructive to take away from this incident, than the MEAn-ies openly celebrating
their victory?
.
The truth will NOT set you free if you are a LIBERAL!!!!!!!!!
It's a shame.
It is also why I haven't gone to a class reunion in 15 years.
These "teachers" don't give a damn about your kids. All they care about is "power to the people."
Perhaps Americans eyes are being opened by these union thugs.
The public school system has evidently evolved to be about the job/perks rather than Americas' kids. It is way past time to privatize and get the government and it's goon public unions out of the picture.
Atlas will shrug.
your niece will come around… have some faith.
my 19 year old daughter has been going up to Madison for the last three weekends to to express her angst with Gov. Walker, who is "owned" by corporate interests. i'm not worried. i was like her until i joined the military…started a family…paid my bills (and taxes)….
What angers me the most is she was never given a "choice".
I have to stop before my f$cking head explodes.
Try living in the Bay Area.
Agreed. My oldest made it into a charter high school only to be confronted with sub-rate california ex-pats that spend much of the day preaching liberal-progressivism.
I have dealt with numerous teachers in a business setting and I believe your opinion is correct regarding the 80/20 rule.
It is way past time to get the government out of the public school system and privatize. That, in and of itself will separate the wheat from the chaff.
Good article and yes, the teachers unions here are absolutely crazy with power over the people.
Trust me on this one, public employee unions absolutely own this state and they out spent Republicans here two to one in November to defeat Chris Dudley, Jim Huffman and Art Robinson.
I do have one correction request since I actually live in Beaverton, Oregon a suburb 13 miles to the southwest of Portland….
McMinnville is NOT a suburb of Portland, it lies 45 miles to the south of Portland and 25 miles to the west of Salem, it stands alone in its own little corner of the Willamette Valley completely separated from Portland.
It is one of Oregon's fastest growing cities but alas that is the problem in McMinnville, teachers there live in an alternate universe where up is down and two plus two equals five, just like those in Wisconsin.
No offense to LaborUnionReport, I'm just pointing this out as a resident of these parts.
Agreed!
Good Night and sweet dreams.
Is there any increase in the home schooling movement in that region, or are most of the folks there drinking the public education koolaid?
Here's hoping that a few more years of maturity and some real working-world experience will balance her viewpoint.
Actually home schooling is quite popular here but the legislature added fees equal to the amount of annual union dues for one teacher a few years back.
You can home school here if you like but parents here are forced to cover the union's ass and feed the indoctrination warehouse complex whether their kids are in their system or not.
To say that Oregon runs a ponzi scheme against the parents and taxpayers in this state would be an epic understatement.
Come on now, her heart is in the right place. Those who are left out must be helped. Please ask your daughter which poor students your money will be putting through college instead of her. After all that would only be fair.
Since I don't live in McMinnie I can't comment on their teachers. But I do live in Oregon and after two years finally won the right to have my two sons home schooled or allowed to go to a charter school. The teachers here in Medford suck, and think that a 80% graduation rate is fantastic. They were so smug and proud when we went to court and showed how they brought up the rate from 70% two years ago to 80% last year. So the loss of 20 kids out of 100 is an acceptable rate. I should say that they WERE smug until I showed them the graduation rate from my school in 1976, 97%. And I remember my teachers being ashamed at that number because they felt they let those kids down.
Those That can, Do,
Those That Can't, Teach.
Those that Can't teach,
become union leaders.
It is actions like this that make me dislike UNIONS even more. I figure they are all like this. The question should be asked should Unions be outlawed because they are acting like Organized Crime Family. I would say the FBI had better investigate UNIONS for Criminal Activity. If they can destroy someone's lively hood over a letter. Does that mean only UNION AUTHORIZED SPEECH is allowed. Only Union Views should be expressed. Does that not silence everyone else. Who gave the UNIONS the right to determine what a person can say or write. Is that not a violation of Freedom of Speech. The actions in Wisconsin and this action in Portland paints a picture in my mind that ALL UNIONS are the same. IF one union does criminal activity then they all must be guilty of criminal activity.
The libs are strangely silent right now.
True colors.
HEY! I was born there! (Went to Amity.) My dad grew up there. Hasn't that town become a Freakshow? My husband and I went back to see if we wanted to retire there. Eugene of the North. Hairy, dried up women in sloppy clothes with weaselly men. Not a lumberjack in sight. Everyone has a whiny victim story. No, we didn't move there,
I am not the slightest bit surprised. These Lefties are like the Klan used to be.
You had to fight to homeschool in OR? I know Medford is too close to Eugene for comfort, but homeschooling is not legal?
Well, what a small world. Good ol' Amity, the land of the Yamhill Mullet. My mom still lives in Dayton and I've family in Mac.
True when you mention lumberjacks, all of my closest friends growing up were timber fallers. They are all crack addicts now. Moved away when I went to college and never looked back. That area is a prime example of how Liberals completely destroy a community.
Hey Petroglyph,
Hell buddy you probably remember when Bandon was a fishin port and hardworkin poor folks could afford to live there. Oregon as a state is among the most beautiful but all the nuts fell out of California and ruined it.
Yes. Yes. And we the people allowed them the privilege of telling us what to do. The Unions are not yet a govt entity, so are not part of the Free Speech deal. (I recall that it only applies to govt). Mac isn't PDX, but it has been polluted by PDX politics.
Yeah ya gotta love all these open minded, all accepting, tolerant Haight Ashbury leftovers, unless your a conservative,constitutionist, patriot, christian.
I was born there. I grew up going to the mac Auction every Wednesday in the summers. Showed my livestock at the fair there. My dad grew up there. We lived nearby. You could see this coming back then…35 years ago after the Leftists killed the lumber industry and Carter killed whatever was left. Woohoo, those Mac girls thought they were the top of the heap with their daddy's credit cards and their giant hair. We see where it got them.
maybe bank employees need to unionize like teachers since these a-holes seem to be able to do anything they want except teach.
Wonder why these thugs need to come earth –
These people only care about themselves – our kids are only pawns – at best
Really…I feel your pain.
It really is kind of a joke. You don't have to be 'elite' to be a teacher. You just have to graduate college, and not be terribly motivated to have to find a competitive job.
That's about it.
Used to steelhead fish near Bandon. I played Bandon twice, hardest freaking course on the face of the earth.
Your right Larry, it's a beautiful state, CA Libs started pouring in back in the 70's, took them 20 years but they completely destroyed it.
Yet not surprising. +Hanzo+
Well Del Smith would just fire the lot, but then again he Runs Evergreen Helicopters among other things. And if you are a pilot, at one time or another you worked for as we call it with affection "Evercheap". He would fix there school problem in a right hurry. After all he has the Spruce Goose!
One thing moderate & conservative American people have going for them is that the self-proclaimed liberal elite socialist democrats and all their followers & supporters are doomed to extinction because of nature's second law of thermodynamics. To keep their group as a unified collective and prevent members from deviating, going off-point, or leaving the collective, the socialist democrats and their followers isolate and shield their collective from information & news that challenges their reality, agenda, and belief's (they even control the main-stream-media). Such isolation increases the entropy (the randomness) of their collective which will manifest as increasing numbers of members begin to feel pointless.
"The tendency for entropy to increase in isolated systems is expressed in the second law of thermodynamics — perhaps the most pessimistic and amoral formulation in all human thought." — Gregory Hill and Kerry Thornley, Principia Discordia (1965)
Thank you for clearing that up, cause I thought perhaps there was two McMinnvile. My husbands cousins live there, and it must have grown a lot in the last 10 years. Last time I was there it was just a tiny little town. Tiny or not though, what these teachers and unions are doing is just wrong.
Because the student do not pay union dues!!
One thing moderate & conservative American people have going for them is that the rigid self-proclaimed liberal elite socialist democrats and all their followers & supporters are doomed to extinction because of nature's second law of thermodynamics. Keeping their members & followers from deviating, going off-point, or leaving the collective, the socialist democrats must isolate and shield their collective from information & news that challenges their warped reality, agenda, and belief's (they even must control the main-stream-media). Such isolation increases the entropy (the randomness) of their collective, which will start to manifest when increasing numbers of members begin to feel & become stale, pointless and confused.
"The tendency for entropy to increase in isolated systems is expressed in the second law of thermodynamics — perhaps the most pessimistic and amoral formulation in all human thought." — Gregory Hill and Kerry Thornley, Principia Discordia (1965)
"Stupidity is far more dangerous than evil, for evil takes a break from time to time, stupidity does not." – Anatole France
It's legal but the rules and the fees are outrageous!
Oregon is an OBE (Outcome Based Education) state and you're required to teach your kids to take tests and agree with what they're told instead of demonstrating their knowledge and their skills.
The fees are basically equal to that of a government union teacher's dues that would be paid if one of them were doing the job instead of the parents.
It's stacked quite heavily against the parents.
B+stards. The proof that teachers' unions first priority is to protect their positions at the expense of everyone else. That state is an embarrassment to all that is Freedom. I am more than a little sad about the whole situation there. When I married and moved out, the state was in its decline, but one could still meet people in major cities who were independent thinking grown-ups. By the time we were choosing a spot to retire, the natural beauty and climate of Oregon called. We went to Mac, as my mom lives in the next county over by Salem and both of my brothers and many extended family members are there.
We went to a town beer fest. It used to be that when we went back we marveled that "even the poor people were clean and tidy." Now meth and Progressives have taken their toll. People look angry, dried up and messy. Not all, of course, but the whole attitude of the areas we looked at were silent screams of "victim, victim, victim." The schools are in a shambles and the govt has its hand in the most minute of details.
Colorado is only somewhat better. Our city's people finally got free of a regulation that calculated the run-off of rainwater from our land and the fee assessed for that run-off. We also can now collect rainwater in barrels if we choose. It boggles the mind to think that someone has a claim to the rainwater falling on my land. Once it gets to a waterway, I understand water rights, but from the sky onto my yard?
I am watching to see if the pendulum will swing back to somewhere resembling common sense in ALL of our states.
Yes, driving through I couldn't help but notice that people still live in Dayton
. I am certain you have driven by our small ranch in your day. Interesting. When I think of Dayton, I think f the Palmer House and the fact that I never ate there!
I still hold that the area is perfectly located to all that is fabulous in the great outdoors and the state is stunningly beautiful. Much like CA, it has been destroyed by parasites.
Moved out of Eugene to Cottage Grove to get away from the smelly Hippies and Liberals. I'll be damned if a bunch of them didn't follow me here!
Well, after all, it is Oregon. All of the pleas to not californicate Oregon have fallen on deaf ears. And if the people I have met around here (Amity) are any sort of barometer , they haven't been any better schooled than Oakland, CA. Pathetically inept and ignorant. Drugs are very popular, however.
I'm 73 years old. I went to genuine public schools–not government schools–where the teachers were competent. My father went to the same school, graduating in 1917, with a firm grasp of mathematics and three languages: English, Latin, and German. When I attended Indiana University as an undergraduate (60-64) the Education School was just getting started, and to acquire students it had to turn to flunkouts from other schools, such as Arts and Science. Teachers today are among the most ignorant of people I have known throughout my lifetime, except for those who taught from 1900 to 1960.
Teachers today, for the most part (not all), are simply people who want security. They want a job in which they have guarantees (ie, tenure) which preclude them from facing the realities of a competitive position. And, at the same time, they want consistent salary increases and benefit increases one would normally find in a competitve arena (ie, as your improvement improves you get more).
These are basically folks who could not survive in the business world. In a world in which your performance is measured against your colleagues and various metrics, and your compensate is connected to that measurement.
My mother was a teacher for 35 years in NJ. She has said for years that the change you see in a teacher once they are tenured is unbelievable. They perform and work hard to get that tenure….but as soon as they get that tenure, it's all over because they know that, short of molesting a kid, they are in there til retirement. So what's the incentive to perform?????
Funny. I actually asked a source in McMinnville if it could be described as a suburb…
Sorry!
I'd say I'm surprised… unfortunately, I live here. This is absolutely disgusting. The joke is on us, the tax payers (producers). They continue to loot under the guise of 'helping the children.' Take a look measures 66 & 67 that passed; it was all for the children and if it didn't pass then our education system would be on the brink. BS. 66 and 67, which passed by waaaay too high of a margin, especially during a recession, was really about filling the holes in their pensions. How could I say such a thing? Simple: they're back at the charge that the education system is on the brink and they don't know how they'll continue without passing the short falls onto the children. Think about this: the high school my younger brother just graduated from has four, yes FOUR, vice principals (Milwaukie High School). Need I say more? Absolutely disgusting. Did I say that already?
My only hope is that Oregonians, and others around this great Nation, wake up to the games and put a stop to them. Seeing what's happening in other states makes me the most hopeful I've been. Time will tell…
OnPoint Credit Union proves that the bad apples in their management team have caused their own basket to rot, along with our school systems. The bully-union members like worms are spoiling a great and civil society. It is sad that OnPoint let the worms rot the basket too…
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