Today, like many other West Australian teachers, I'm not going to work this morning.
It's interesting that our industrial action is represented in the media as about pay. We're not striking over salary - we're striking because the system is broken.
My son has had no Phys Ed teacher all year. He's had a procession of relief teachers which, for a special needs child, is extremely distressing. He attends an inner city public school, but staffing shortages are statewide.
Speaking of special needs students, I'd like to look after my own without having to skip lunch to ensure their needs are met.
I'd like the Education Department to give me a personal device so I can do my job
(more efficiently). If I want a laptop, I have to lease one.
I'd like an acknowledgement of how teaching has recently become more difficult and demanding, especially during #COVID19, when we kept schools open and tried to keep students safe.
I enforced the mask mandate far more often than a rank-and-file police officer. I've probably been threatened and assaulted more times than many police officers too. And the statewide mobile phone ban? Guess who enforces that every single day.
So many of my colleagues have left teaching: re-trained or resigned due to burnout and stress. Who suffers? The students.
It's not about the pay. We're tired, and we need support. We're underfunded and under-resourced. We need to improve conditions for students. We need to fix the system.
If you live in WA and ride a motorcycle, the lane splitting legalization bills are up for consideration again. Please write to your state representatives and senator and let them know you support the bills, especially if they're on the Transportation Committee.
Something missing in the coverage of the WA OSOS hiring an outside firm to monitor public social media posts for threats and the WA GOP hyperbolic reaction was that the monitoring came up with three actual physical threats.
Watch your school board races! I mean it! We have a couple of moms4liberty cult chapters and they're doing what they always do, running fascists in stealth mode, so pay attention! We can have bullshittery here too, and weird amounts of money are being dumped in. (Forex, the City of Kenmore council race. wtf is up with that?)
"workers confirmed the ship will head to Tacoma, Washington where it's expected to load up with military supplies before heading to Israel.
"We're hoping that when it reaches Tacoma, the workers in Tacoma will not load that military cargo, that people of Tacoma will show up to protest this genocide & that workers around the world will continue to stop ships...We are simply trying to call for an immediate cease-fire & stop the aiding of the genocide of my people"
They are specifically calling for an immediate #CeaseFire.
If you are in #CA, #WA or #OR (or really anywhere on the West Coast) would be helpful to call your Representatives & Senators & tell them to call for an immediate Cease Fire (link in next toot), & to back unions, not to crack down on union workers. Also discuss this with any longshore workers you know.
#Seattle Parks and Recreation is planning to demolish the #BLM memorial garden in Cal Anderson on Friday. There are meetings around the response the next 3 days (Black Star Farms is in charge of those, check out their website) but there is also encouragement to visit and occupy the space in the coming week.
The Memorial Garden is one of the last physical reminders of the CHAZ and the 2020 uprising in our city and it has been an important space for three years now. If you cant physically be there please at least send an email to andy.sheffer@seattle.gov protesting this idea.
@Gustodon the core problem here is that it is a little park. Cal Anderson Park is a stretch of land about 5 blocks long in Seattle that has a fountain, a soccer field and a skate park amidst a bunch of grassy english gardens.
Three years ago people in Seattle came together on the ocassion of George Floyd's execution to protest police murders and they did it in Cal Anderson Park. This became a months long standoff and at the time a garden was cultivated in that park.
“The rooftop solar record wasn’t the only one to fall on the weekend.
“According to GPE NEMLog2, other records to fall included record instantaneous battery charge in South Australia (334.7 MW earlier on Saturday at 10.30am), Victoria battery charge (390 MW), and record NEM-wide battery charge of 594.8 MW at 2.50pm (AEST) on Saturday.
“In NSW, battery discharge hit a record 174.5 MW at 6.30pm on Saturday.
“Other records included instantaneous wind output in Queensland (842MW), at the same time as a record amount of wind curtailment (854.7MW), and a record wind share (15.9 per cent).
“Also in NSW, black coal output hit a record low of 2,073.0 MW at 13:55 hrs on Saturday, and coal and gas together hit a new record low of 2,073.2 MW at the same time.”
So just imagine we let one man, and his company, buy most of the papers in our regional cities and small towns.
And that man was named Rupert Murdoch.
And that man decided to shut down the print editions, and instead put those papers behind the paywalls of his big right-wing metropolitan tabloids.
Want to read the local newspaper in Lismore? It's now behind the Daily Telegraph paywall.
And then that man gutted the editorial team for each online newspaper to just one person.
And then used generative AI to centrally churn out 3000 local news articles per week across all his local publications, overseen by four human journalists.
The Moms4Liberty cult are bringing anti-LGBT initiatives back to Washington State, starting with R-101, a bill to overturn protections for LGBT youth.
They are naturally - and like every previous iteration of this kind of hate group - lying viciously and continuously about everything, lying in particular that the laws allow the state to kidnap children out of your homes. This kind of lie is what they do, and what they have always done.
There is a Decline to Sign campaign underway. The best way to defeat these initiatives - and stop months of anti-LGBT hate campaign in advance - is to keep them from getting enough signatures to put it on the ballot at all.
Okay, well, we're fully back to the 1990s again - it's time to rev up Decline to Sign for an anti-LGBT initiative courtesy of the Moms 4 Liberty cult! This one attacks parts of our sanctuary state status - they're probing for weaknesses.
The referendum is R-101, and they're lying about it en masse, just like the same people lied about everything in the 1990s. You can get deets here:
Mark McGowan to stand down as WA Premier in shock announcement https://amp.abc.net.au/article/102406610
WA Premier Mark McGowan has announced he is retiring from politics in a bombshell announcement few saw coming.
Rumour has it that he's retiring due to burnout. My sympathy goes to him and his family. This reminds me of Jacinda Ardern having to quit as New Zealand PM due to burnout — you work your guts out for years, and then one day it hits you that you have nothing left in the tank.
I'd like to thank Mark McGowan for being a Premier who's strong on policy that encourages equality, jobs, much-needed honesty after the shitsow from the LNP, and overall giving a fair go for all. And — it should be noted — Mark McGowan held strong against pressure from the outside in order to protect the people of Western Australia from COVID.