Almost over

The strike that started three weeks ago is still underway…if you’ve been watching the news, you’ll know exactly how badly our government is treating teachers and all public servants for that matter. At my school, we’ve been really lucky with regards to not being intimidated by strikers, until yesterday morning. Before she even came to school, our principal received a phone call at home (which is really scary) threatening the safety of the school, pupils and teachers who are attending. She told us first thing yesterday morning.

I was seriously scared…to know that they can get the principals home number and try and intimidate us and the kids is not cool…the principal is not allowed to officially close the school without government permission who (surprise surprise) were uncontactable!!! Anyway, we got all the kids (on 50 or so of them were at school) into the hall. The principal said we could go home, but it was a decision we had to make for ourselves. I was really concerned about the safety of the kids (although they are the government’s responsibility) so I decided to stay.The principal called the cops and security companies etc, so we all felt pretty safe, but it was still nerve wracking. Anyway, we kind of stood around a while while the kids contacted parents to fetch them; you should have seen it, completely surreal, like every time someone left it was like one of those hostage scenes from the movies. About an hour later the school received another call threatening our safety and trying to intimidate us into closing the school. Quite a few of us teachers left.

I felt terrible and as I got into my car and dove away I was beside myself in tears, I was shaking and just felt so helpless. I’ve heard so much on the news over the last few weeks but you never really feel it’ll happen to you…and then it does. Anyway, I have no idea what is going to happen, we just have to watch the press and see what happens. The government and unions are not much further forward on the salary issue and negotiations have petty much failed – the government have offered teachers an ultimatum or else they go back to their previous offer and will not enter into negotiations again – this is now when things start to get violent...

Now – how democratic is our country really???

Anyway, school ends tomorrow, which will give everyone a bit of a breather…think it’s needed and well deserved all round.

Siobhan