Taxpayer Sensitivity Training For GFPS Teachers?
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Yesterday a concerned reader sent E-City Beat some screenshots of an exchange on Facebook involving a teacher in the Great Falls Public Schools District who uses the FB handle of Tricia Henneberg which clearly says she is an employee of GFPS. Henneberg is Tricia Loucks, listed in the District directory as a Special Ed Teacher at CMR.
The exchange starts with a FB user posting a poll question asking if high school shooting sports should be allowed.
Henneberg responds:
First of all let me say that I know that Henneberg’s name-calling and disdain for someone who simply disagrees with her is not representative of the overwhelming majority of our local school teachers or District employees.
But if you have ever wondered why the GFPS District has fallen out of favor with many local taxpayers, this kind of stuff is part of the reason.
Amazingly, Henneberg then doubles down later in the exchange by responding to a different citizen who is in favor of high school shooting sports:
Okay, if you don’t like the idea of high school shooting sports, that’s just fine. But that’s not the troubling issue here is it? How can we support teachers who call us morons?
After a bit, Henneberg offers…what? A justification for her rudeness? An apology?
If this is what Henneberg considers to be an apology, or if she thinks “working without getting paid” buys her the right to call the very people that pay her salary “morons” (from a special ed teacher?), then quite frankly she shouldn’t be teaching in our school system. She is supposed to be an example to the kids. What kind of example is she providing here?
We all work hard. Many of us, especially entrepreneurs and business owners, work a lot of hours “without getting paid” so that we can provide jobs, pay taxes and take care of our families.
Maybe the District should institute a Taxpayer Sensitivity Training program for teachers and administrators. Because so far, when it comes to persuading Great Falls taxpayers to pony up another million dollars here or two million there, because of attitudes like that of Henneberg the batting average for the GFPS District has been abysmal recently.
And Henneberg just struck out, again.
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She shouldn’t have called Mr Matson a moron, she should have just said the idea was moronic. Absurd a better word? She should apologize. I don’t think the vast majority of teachers would approve of Mr Matson’s idea. I believe Tricia’s brother Mike is the athletic director, I wonder what his opinion would be. I received my hunter education at the now demolished old Paris Gibson school, I don’t know if it’s still available in our schools but that’s a bit different than school shooting sports. I also remember when Tricia and her brother Mike worked as unskilled laborers for the City, they were both well thought of. They worked for their education.
[…] A piece in E-City Beat last week got me thinking about our local teachers. Most of our Great Falls teachers are really good, honest, hard-working folks who just want to make a difference in the lives of kids and our community. […]