ESTA UPDATE

East Side Teachers Association/CTA/NEA 888 So. Capitol Ave San Jose, Ca 95127 January 20, 2003

Don McKell, President Julie Pratico, Vice Pres Carla Holtzclaw, Secretary Ralph Giannini, Treasurer

mckelld@esuhsd.org fax: (408) 272-7569 voice: (408) 272-0601 x213 website: www.EastSideTA.org

BUDGET SQUEEZE

Recent news has left no doubt that the state is in a financial bind. For whatever reasons – and you can pick your own as well as I – current estimates of the shortfall of state revenues to meet expenses run to as high as $35 billion dollars in the next 18 months.

Over ten weeks late, the state legislature passed a state budget last September. In a travesty that amounts to near criminal negligence, it now appears as if the budget they passed was a virtual sham, full of wildly inaccurate and hopeful guesses. Once the November elections were done and the legislators and governor were safe in their jobs, they took another look. Oops! We have to revise the budget. Never mind that every county, city, and school district had met its statutory obligation to pass their own budgets back in June. What does all of this mean to East Side? to you?

For the six months remaining in the current fiscal year, the governor and legislature are talking about reducing expenditures by as much as $10 billion. K-14 public education, which amounts to 40% of state expenses, will be cut. Perhaps by the time you read this, we’ll know for certain how badly. For our district, the proposed cuts amount to having to spend nearly $3.7 million less than had been budgeted. This year. Next year is far more nebulous when we realize that the district must once again adopt a budget by June 30, in all certainty long before the legislature does the same. Prudent fiscal managers will almost certainly take a conservative approach, using the best information about worst case funding. District CFO Karen Willett is talking about trimming another $8m from East Side’s 2003/04 budget.

There can be no doubt that cuts of these magnitudes will be devastating, and will affect nearly every aspect of district endeavor. ESTA will continue to lobby for major cuts far from classrooms, but in the first round of talks with Board members, it appears as if there are some expensive yet discretionary projects that will be immune from the axe.

Perhaps the worst news is that virtually all of the proposals coming from the state with respect to school funding call for a reduction in revenue limit dollars. This is the per-student money upon which the district relies for much of its operating capital. It is also the basis for computing what we refer to as COLA, which of course figures heavily into the formulas we have bargained for computing compensation amounts.

Both Joe Coto and Bill Kugler have assured me that a salary takeaway won’t happen, which is good to hear. But if paying people less is not a part of the solution, then paying fewer people probably has to be. Each year for the past several years, some 100 certificated employees have left the district, due to a variety of reasons, chiefly: retirement, resignation, and non-renewal. If replaced selectively, a significant savings in salary and benefits expenses is possible.

Beyond that, the district has approached me with preliminary word that it will seek to open bargaining on certain cost issues, among them � class size, and ‚  contractual release periods. We are awaiting a formal proposal, and our reaction will certainly be linked to our perception of district willingness to make deep cuts in non-instructional areas first.

From bad news to worse news: I saw a recent projection that present medical benefits costs will rise by as much as $3.3m next year. The hits keep coming.

SICK LEAVE BANK COMMITTEE

According to HR Director Doug Emerson, well over 100 of our fellow bargaining unit members have now indicated their desire to participate in the new Sick Leave Bank, which is more than enough to meet the threshold set for its operation. Members who missed the December 20 deadline for opting in will now have to wait until the beginning of next school year to join. For several weeks, I have been asking for volunteers to sit on the new Sick Leave Bank Committee. To date, four individuals have raised their hands to volunteer. We’d like to have five folks on the committee, with maybe one or two alternates. If you want to help get this new program operational and be in on shaping the procedures from the ground floor, please contact me. I’d love to hear from you.

CHARTER SCHOOLS

At the present time, East Side has granted authority for four different charter operators to establish charter schools within the district. A fifth petition is pending for up to 450 students, but a spokesman for that petitioner (Leadership Schools) stated that their operation now does not now anticipate opening until fall of 2004. At the January 16 meeting of the ES school board, Asst Sup Dan Ordaz gave a brief presentation to summarize certain facts about the four existing charter schools. Among some of the data were � a total of 955 students are in the existing charters, of whom 488 are high school and 548 are non-high-school students, ‚ only 21% of the teachers in the charters possess clear credentials, ƒ ES schools with largest numbers of their students at charters are: IH (95), JL (68), WO (68), and YB (40), „ 14 of the HS students are designated as Special Ed, … 479 (98%) of the HS students are ELL, † 84% of the HS students are Hispanic, ‡ 68% of the HS students are male, ˆ  nominal length of charter school day: 6.8 hrs, ‰  nominal attendance rates are claimed to be 93%.

Charter schools are required to administer STAR tests, but there is only one year of data to report. Note also (see … above) that these four schools have made a major effort to recruit English Language Learners. Thus, one can learn no more about the quality of the instructional program of the charters using their STAR results than one could learn about the same attribute in the East Side as a whole.

SUPERINTENDENT SEARCH

No decision made by the current five East Side Board members will have as far-reaching an effect on the future of this district than choosing the right successor to Joe Coto. It is entirely likely that ESTA’s future support for incumbent school board candidates will be based in large measure – perhaps exclusively – on the quality of the job they do in this endeavor. As has been pointed out, one need not look very far to find multiple examples of school boards who have botched their attempts at the job. On January 16, speakers from the district’s three primary employee groups (ESTA, CSEA, and ACSA) each addressed the board with calls for meaningful participation in the process.

It was announced that nearly a dozen different search firms have responded to a call for proposals to assist in bringing successor candidates forward. Each of the hopeful search firms quoted a cost to the district in the mid twenty thousand dollar range. The board then affirmed the creation of a subcommittee – Herrera and Mann – to make a final selection of a search firm and thereby move the process forward.

In ESTA’s view, the search firm should be tasked with producing the names and vitae of a number of highly qualified applicants. Other credible individuals should also be allowed to apply. Applicants then should be handed off to an Advisory Committee – devoid of board participants – that will be empowered to narrow the field to a small number of finalists. Eventually, those individuals should be ranked by the Advisory Committee prior to being handed off to the board for the ultimate selection. Either the Advisory Committee or the board should have the authority to reject all applicants.

There is no need to hurry this process.

ES Board Clerk Patricia Martinez-Roach is to be commended for publicly suggesting that the board remain apart from the process until called upon to select from the list of finalists. We applaud that view and hope the remaining board members embrace it.

2003 NEA

REPRESENTATIONAL ASSEMBLY

This summer’s National Education Association RA will be held from July 1—6 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Any ESTA member can become a delegate by being elected to serve, and nearly all of the costs of attending are paid. For election purposes, there are two types of delegates: local and state. The primary difference between the two is the size of the electorate involved in voting.

Local delegates are elected by ESTA members only, and serve three-year terms. We are entitled to send nine delegates, and will be electing three delegates this year to join with the six continuing local delegates from previous years’ elections.

State delegates are elected by CTA members from across the County, and serve one-year terms. A total of thirteen state delegates are sent from this County.

Nomination forms for persons wishing to run as a state delegate were printed in the December issue of the CTA Educator, and are also available by calling the Mt. Hamilton CTA office. This is a terrific opportunity to observe and participate in shaping the national agenda of public education. Call me if you want more information about this, and be mindful that the deadline for submitting your nomination to be a state delegate is Friday, February 7.

Nomination forms for people wishing to run to become a local delegate will be available February 12, and will be distributed to ESTA members at all district sites.

ESTA will conduct the elections to choose both local and state delegates on March 26 at all sites.

GENERAL COUNSEL POSITION

In these litigious and complicated times, there can be no doubt that the district has needs for the services of competent legal advisors. A five year experiment with employing an in-house general counsel came to an end at the January 16 board meeting when the board chose not to fill the vacant position of General Counsel, but rather to retain the services of an outside law firm to meet the district’s legal requirements.

Factoring into the decision was certainly a constantly upward trend in the cost of the service. Since the inception of the office of the general counsel in 1997, the district has continued to spend significant sums on outside legal services. The costs for annual legal expenditures since 1995/96 were outlined in a table distributed during the meeting and summarized here.

The district’s first General Counsel was former board member Rodney Moore, who resigned in 2000 to take a position with Atlanta (Ga.) City Schools. Moore was succeeded by Sang-Jin Nam, whose employment with the district ended under less than clear circum-stances late in 2002. During Nam’s tenure, both Risk Management and Personnel were placed under the General Counsel’s control on management flowcharts. How those departments will be disbursed, and what is to become of two remaining employees in the district legal department – a paralegal and a secretary – were not made clear at the board meeting.

CTA HUMAN RIGHTS SCHOLARSHIP

Each year, the local CTA Service Center Council for Santa Clara County awards four $2,000 scholarships to local high school seniors in an attempt to induce members of under represented groups to enter the teaching profession. Generally, seniors who are either ethnic minorities, disabled, or gay/lesbian/bisexual are encouraged to apply. Applicants need not be related to any CTA member, but must be attending a public secondary school or community college in Santa Clara County and be planning to pursue a college degree and credential at a four-year institution beginning in 2003. Complete details about the scholarship are available from Dorothy or Ly at the Mt. Hamilton CTA office. The deadline for applications is April 11, 2003. If you know of a deserving student in one of your classes, try to steer him or her towards applying for this.