President’s Report to Rep Council - December 2008
President’s Report to Rep Council
Welcome New Representatives
Thank you to all of our new Site Representatives – we will be scheduling more Rep trainings in the coming months, and invite you to become more active by joining a committee, stopping by the OEA office to volunteer, or calling on any of the OEA Officers, Executive Board members and Executive Directors for support and advice.
Post-Election Thoughts and Plans for OEA’s Bargaining Campaign
Last Rep Council was the eve of this very historic election, and I said then, “If Barack Obama is elected, it won’t be an end but hopefully a new beginning in the struggle to take back our country and take back public education. It certainly won’t happen if we don’t raise our voices loud and clear against the abuses that are being heaped on working and poor people nationwide, and teachers and students under Oakland’s unique combination of No Child Left Behind, state administration, and the business model of education promoted by wealthy ‘education reformers’ like Broad, Gates, and others.” Well, that day has come – and we have an awesome opportunity and responsibility to act.
Public education is under attack, and we are at a crossroads. No Child Left Behind will be up for reauthorization under the new administration, a new Secretary of Education will soon be appointed, and the forces of so-called “educational reform” are prominently in the news with their latest brand of teacher-bashing. The latest Time magazine features Michelle Rhee, the Chancellor of DC Public Schools and former head of The New Teacher Project, on the cover, with an eight-page article inside extolling her Sarah Palin brand of tough talk and quick fixes for systemic problems. Notwithstanding the fact that she taught for only three short years (with Teach for America) and has no experience running a school, she’s grabbed the attention of other “education reform” luminaries like Joel Klein of New York, and got positive reviews from President-Elect Obama during the campaign. If we don’t act and speak up against her platform of merit pay, ending teacher tenure, and blaming all of public education’s woes on ineffective teachers and teachers’ unions, we can be sure she’ll continue to be promoted in the media as the answer to what ails education. Send letters to Time, cc them to our local newspapers – we are the only ones who can tell the public what it is really like in our schools, and what is needed to make them successful.
What else can we do? The Executive Board is proposing a winter/spring campaign that brings together our struggle for a new contract, plans for a progressive new parcel tax for public education, and our “ASK a Teacher” outreach to members and the community. We recently approved the formation of a new committee on Education Resources that will help lay the groundwork for this campaign, and we need more members to do the important work it has set for itself. The Executive Board also voted unanimously to schedule a membership meeting and an action in January or February, and you will hear more about these in the coming weeks. In the meantime, personal stories are critical – send your stories to President-Elect Obama and to the newspapers.
District Updates
School Safety Survey: If you haven’t done so already, please fill out the very short questionnaire on School Safety with your colleagues and return it to us as soon as possible. You AND your students have the right to be in a safe and supportive environment, and we will support you in any way possible if you are being scapegoated for the lack of a responsible safety/discipline policy at your school site. After the recent gun incident at
Restructuring at PI 4 & 5 Schools: Schools in Year 4 & 5 of Program Improvement have received a letter from Brad Stam outlining the process of restructuring and calling on them to finish a revised School Plan for Student Achievement by December 19th. The good news is that the district is clearly supporting “Option 5” as opposed to the other NCLB options for so-called “failing” schools (closing, converting to charter, reassigning all staff). The letter also cited the OEA contract calling for per diem pay for members engaged in helping work on the restructuring plan. Again, be sure that you have active OEA members involved in this work! This is an opportunity to push back against some of the specific restructuring options being proposed, and to propose our own more teacher and student-centered plans.
Payroll: We need the names of all members who have been audited and told they either:
<!–[if !supportLists]–>1) <!–[endif]–>Owe money to the district due to being placed on the wrong step/column;
<!–[if !supportLists]–>2) <!–[endif]–>Are owed money by the district for the same reason.
As those of you in that situation already know, the district claims that by Ed Code they can go back 4 years to collect from you, but YOU can only go back ONE year to collect what they owe you! We are having CTA lawyers look into this, and need more names of members who have been affected.
If you have not yet been paid for services rendered (in-services, summer PD, etc.), let us know. I have been emailing the district on behalf of teachers at a number of sites, and have been invited to attend the “Pay Accuracy Steering Team” meetings. Send us your payroll issues, and we’ll see if we can get this district to live up to their claim of following a business-oriented model in the area of Payroll!
School Board meetings: Thanks to Cluster 1A for a small but strong showing at the last School Board meeting! Highlights included two reports on Results Based Budgeting, both of which essentially upheld the concept but found fault with some of the implementation… One of the more interesting observations from the American Institutes for Research report was: “To make room for innovation in planning, need culture shift to move away from compliance mentality.” As one interviewee for the report stated, “There’s more accountability for how you spend the money versus the impact of what you spend the money on.” We could have told them that…
There are meetings December 3 and 10, so check to see when your cluster is scheduled to attend and get members there. December 10 promises to be particularly important: they will be discussing reports on the first Interim Budget, FCMAT, and charter schools.
OUSD Changes: Kirsten Vital, Chief of Community Accountability and member of OUSD’s “Cabinet” (formerly known as the “Strategy Group”) has signed on as Superintendent of Alameda USD. Meanwhile, Chief Financial Officer Leon Glaster has finished his contract, and been replaced with former OUSD employee Vernon Hal.
Successes
Measure N: This is a significant victory for OEA and our allies in the labor movement and on the School Board! As we suspected, this parcel tax failed to get the 2/3 required for passage, garnering 61% to 39%. Clearly, our generous
Early Childhood Centers: Recently one of our ECE teachers called to report that the next day she would potentially be in charge of 24 3-year olds by herself! After a few phone calls to administrators, two substitute IA’s were miraculously found and on duty the following day. DON’T allow yourselves to work under unsafe conditions. Call OEA and we will support you in any way we can.
Lesson Plans: There still seem to be some administrators who haven’t gotten the word that lesson plans are NOT in any given format and that they are primarily for the teacher’s use. If your principal hasn’t gotten that email from Troy Christmas, feel free to use this excerpt from an email I recently sent to a principal on this subject:
Please be aware that the District does not yet have a standard form of lesson plans for all sites, and until any such forms are agreed upon by the District and OEA, any suggestions/recommendations should come through the Faculty Council (see Article 9.2 of the contract, and refer again to http://tinyurl.com/4fnd6k).
Williams Complaints: I spoke to Marc Tafolla-Young of the Education Equity Project, and he reported that
Other OEA News
STRS: As announced previously, be sure to check your STRS statements to make sure you haven’t been shorted. If you see 0.9 instead of 1.0 credit for any year, and you worked a full year, you need to call us. Bill Britton of CalSTRS has noted that a number of members who’ve had appointments with him are showing only 0.9 credit for 2007, and the problem appears to be in March 2007. Don’t let retirement catch you short!
Bargaining Update
David de Leeuw will report on the latest bargaining sessions.
School Site Visits
I continue to especially enjoy getting out to the school sites and visiting with all of you. I just wish there were more time to do so, but the district continues to set constant fires that must be put out. I meet so many dedicated teachers who are heartsick at not being able to TEACH, but instead are asked to spend countless hours on assessments, compliance issues, and useless Professional Development. If you haven’t already, get your Faculty Council elected, get active teachers on your School Site Councils, get trained, and involve your staff in taking back your power to make decisions at your site. Congratulations to those who already have active FC’s and SSC’s, and keep those FC minutes coming to OEA!
As always, thank you for taking the time to be Site Representatives – you truly are the heart and soul of our union.
In unity,
Betty
