This has been a very busy year for me being a first year President, as well as my first year of marriage. I am not sure which one was harder, as there have been a lot challenges for both. I now understand why our previous President always called his wife, “Saint Pam”. You really do have to be a saint to be married to a Union President. My husband, Bradley, has been very patient and understanding – as many nights he doesn't see me until the sun has set. We often attend events on the weekends to create relationships with the community. So, Pam has passed the halo to Bradley, and he wears it well. I do think it does help that he too is an ESTA member, understands what is going on in our district, and cares about the teaching profession as much as I do. The more I think about it, there are many married ESTA members all over the district, some even working at the same site. So why should it be any different for us? Well, it is because we both get questions all the time. I do remember my fi rst month as President, and a member said to me, “All the PE teachers are so happy to have you as president since your husband teaches PE—they know you will fi ght for PE class size.” Just to let you know, in 2004 I was fighting for PE class size while on the bargaining team, a year before I met Bradley—and I will continue to fight for PE class size because I believe it still needs to be lowered even more, since there are so many new standards in that discipline. I am no longer on the bargaining team—which is the way it should be—so I can have discussions with the district and not compromise the bargaining process. But I do continue to believe PE class size is too high, and not just because my husband is a PE teacher. I am one of 25 members on the ESTA Executive Board, and that is the group that directs bargaining, so it is not just up to me. When we bargain in the spring of 2009, the Executive Board will go over the current list we obtained from the Bargaining Team and we will give sites a chance to give additional input as another proposal is put together. One of the key reasons we did not bargain this year was because we obtained a lot of inside information from CTA that the proposed budget was going to get worse before it got better. As you know, the fi rst Budget Proposal cut education 4.8 billion dollars. The May Revise cut education 4.3 billion with no COLA, which really isn't an improvement to be happy about. It did not change our district plans in any way. We are still being told the Librarians are only going to be in the Library for one period next year, which means that they are all going to be teaching four periods, instead of running the library full time. On May 20th, I spent the day in Sacramento with 350 other CTA chapter Presidents from all over the state. We had appointments with our local representatives and shared with Legislators our concerns about the May Revise. CTA believes the Governor's plan to use lottery funds is a “Gimmick” and it won't work! Some chapter Presidents were not even let in to the legislators' offi ces and had to meet in the hallway. This didn't happen to the team I was on. We were treated with much respect, especially from Assemblyman Joe Coto. Mr. Coto mentioned that, “Legislators are paying attention to your protest”. He said we need to “keep up the good fight”! We, as a union, did a GREAT job on May 14! I was at the Eastridge location and I saw pictures of many other locations and the turn out was impressive. ESTA members were all over the county. We were successful in letting the community know we do not agree with this budget proposal. At Eastridge, Superintendent Nunez attended, along with Superintendents; Alan Garofalo, Jerry Kurr, and Dan Moser. School Board Members, Eddie Garcia, Lan Nguyen, Frank Biehl, and George Shirakawa were walking and protesting too! All of them wore the SOS shirt and stayed for hours in the heat, walking the lines with us. I even have the pictures to prove it! Also supporting us was Larry Scharsch from Human Resources.