Dear Teachers,
This is Teacher Appreciation Week, a time for us to reflect on the important job you do each and every day, now including two days in August.
I'm always hearing about the little extra things you do for our students that are not yet required contractually. Some of you hitchhiked and crawled through the ice to school during the transit strike. Others spend your vacation time helping students for free, and call students for hours before school every single morning. To show my appreciation, I plan to require all teachers to do these things when contract time rolls around next year.
However, my appreciation goes beyond that. Sure I propose contracts that eviscerate your rights and eliminate limits on class size. But I can't tell you how much I appreciate your work. That's why I rarely, if ever, bother to do so. And sure, I fight tooth and nail against pay raises, despite the incredible spike in energy rates and obscene prices of NYC real estate.
Still, I want to extend to all of you a figurative hearty handclasp. And if any of you should see me exiting a limo or gala luncheon, and are somehow able to penetrate my retinue of sycophants and bodyguards, I may even give you a literal hearty handclasp as soon as my bodyguards finish working you over.
That's the kind of guy I am.
So please, let's keep working together. Mayor Bloomberg and I appreciate that you soldier on with the highest class loads and lowest salaries in the area, and you can rest assured we're doing everything in our power to keep it that way.
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