School board should return to classroom

The teacher’s hands were full that January morning.
Her Exceptional Student Education class at Blackburn Elementary School had its share of distractions and interruptions as she patiently settled the kids down so I could read to them for Read Across Manatee.
Her calm was admirable.
The ESE teacher’s job isn’t easy, one few of us could do.
Or want to do.
You can’t pay a teacher like that enough.
I cannot imagine paying her less.
Yet that’s the predicament in which the ESE teacher and 2,800 of her Manatee County colleagues find themselves after a fractured school board voted 3-2 for a retroactive pay cut and furloughs at Wednesday’s contract impasse hearing.


Read more Sunday in Mannix About Manatee on Bradenton.com.