ESTA UPDATE

East Side Teachers Association/CTA/NEA 888 So. Capitol Ave San Jose, Ca 95127 February 11, 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

RUMOR MILL

Certain situations lend themselves to the spreading of wild rumors. The current condition of state finances and the impact on our district certainly qualify. I hear a lot of them, but probably not all. Let me try to set the record straight on a couple of issues.

The legislature seemed to have been close to closure on the modification of this year’s state budget until the governor announced he would veto any plan that called for an increase in Vehicle License Fees. Thus, as of this moment, no finality has been reached on even this year’s budget reductions. Even more remote is the prospect of agreeing on a state budget for 2003/04.

Meanwhile, this district has embarked on a process of identifying areas in which site costs could be reduced. Each school has been charged with generating a list of potential cost-savings measures, to be forwarded to the district office for review. Virtually all principals will likely manage this local process, and the beliefs that have been communicated to me are that individual input that diverges from the principal’s wishes will be ignored. I don’t know about that, but regardless of the recommendations of the various local budgeteers, two things remain constant: � no significant savings are going to be possible without reducing the number of paychecks being issued by the district, ‚ no local site will be able to unilaterally institute changes which are subject to bargaining.

In the first week of February, the district approached ESTA with a request to re-open contract talks in two areas: Article 15 (Class size) and Appendix B (Hourly Pay). The ESTA Executive Board, charged in our Bylaws with providing direction to our Bargaining Team, met on February 5 and discussed the request. Ultimately, the E-Board authorized the Team to bargain Article 15 issues and a narrow slice of Appendix B: Summer School. You can be sure that we have a collective memory about how long and hard we have fought to produce the class size language that we currently have, and that the Bargaining Team will not easily give back what has previously been agreed to by both sides over the past twenty years.

However, if faced with verifiable facts that the district could be in danger of bankruptcy, we would be irresponsible to sit stubbornly by and watch it happen. (One of the first casualties in a bankrupt district is the Collective Bargaining Agreement, as well as any prior agreements on behalf of retirees.)

This Update is not the forum to discuss the strategies given to the Bargaining Team. Suffice to say that we will require concrete evidence that � defines the scope of the "emergency", ‚ ESTA members will not be asked to bear a disproportionate load of the solution, ƒ any language changes in response to this request will have a built-in "sunset" dates, after which we revert to current status.

In the mean time, we will continue to engage the district in discussions about the possible repercussions of budget reduction so that we try to avoid surprises.

CERTIFICATED JOB CATEGORIES

The California Education Code recognizes four categories of teachers: permanent, probationary, temporary, and substitute. ESTA does not bargain for substitute teachers, but does represent every other non-management certificated employee. In olden times, the only teachers a district would carry as "Temporary" employees would be those who were carrying out the duties of a Permanent teacher that was on a leave of absence, or those who occupied positions for which the funding was year-to-year. These days, this district has extended that list to include those persons with emergency permits or other non-credentialed personnel. Typically, once an individual obtains either a preliminary or clear credential and is teaching within their subject area, that person becomes a Probationary teacher. This can happen on day 1 of a person’s employ, or several years afterwards (in the case of a Temporary teacher who eventually obtains a proper credential). A person generally serves two years as a Probationary employee prior to becoming Permanent.

According to a list recently obtained from the district office, the number of East Side employees in each of these categories is given by the following table.

 

 

The same list also identified 7 individuals as being "Interns", which we take to be a Temporary employee under the Ed Code. All things being equal, if you’re a Probationary employee and you do not receive a pink slip by March 15^th you can pretty much count on being back next year. In recent years, the same could be said for Temporaries. By most accounts, however, this is not a normal year. We are waiting to obtain definitive information from the district on its staffing plans for the 2003/04 school year.

SPECIAL ED SURVEYS

As part of the ongoing study of working conditions and service delivery in Special Education, ESTA sent out a Special Education Survey to all teachers in Spec Ed in mid-January. Only about half of those have been returned at this time. If you are a Special Ed teacher and never got a copy, please contact your department chair. If you got a copy and haven’t filled it out yet, please do so before the February vacation.

FIRST SEM OVERLOAD PAYMENTS

Our contract calls for cash payments to be made to teachers whose class sizes remain above bargained limits for portions of the semester. When a teacher voluntarily signs a class size waiver, those overload payments no longer accrue. Exact details are found in Article 15. Overload payments for first semester were to be made on February 10. For the curious, the table below recaps the overload accruals for first semester.

* mean payment among teachers receiving overload payments

ESTA SCHOLARSHIP SNAFU?

At least one person who obtained an application for the 2003 ESTA Scholarship for Children and Grandchildren noticed a printing error in her copy and brought it to our attention. We do not know how many other application sets had the same problem, if any, but if you are one of those folks who got an application for a child or grandchild, please check your forms.

The problem was that the reverse side of some or all of the two-sided sheets was not printed. A full and complete packet should have seven sheets of paper. The cover sheet should have printing on both sides. The second sheet (Applicant’s Statement) should have no printing on the reverse. The third sheet (School/Community Activity Record) should have printing on both sides. The fourth sheet (Letter of Recommendation #1) should have printing on both sides. The fifth sheet (A Note About the Letter of Recommendation) is one-sided. The sixth sheet (Letter of Recommendation #2) should have printing on both sides. The seventh and last sheet should be one-sided.

We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause. Please be sure that if your child or grandchild is going to submit an application, it is complete in every respect. Call Dorothy or Ly in the Mt. Hamilton office if you want a fresh copy of the application.

MEMBER VERIFICATION FORMS

We’ve received back about 2/3 of the yellow ESTA member data verification forms, in which we ask you to verify the spelling of your name, your address, site, phone number, and email address. The 2003 ESTA Member Directory will be printed towards the end of this month, and can only be as accurate as the information we have. Please get those forms back to your Building President this week.

WILLIE BROWN

Are you interested in working part time next year, but worried that a part-time position might eat into your retirement accrual with STRS? If so, you might be a candidate for the "Willie Brown" program, so named for the Speaker of the California Assembly who worked to pass the enabling legislation. If you are at least 55 years of age, and have been in the district for at least ten years of which the past five years were full time, you are a viable candidate. If accepted into the plan, you could reduce your workload to 80%, 60%, or even 50% and still qualify for fringe benefits and accrue a full year of STRS credit just as if you were employed full time. Make no mistake: your salary will be reduced according to your part-time status, but STRS would continue to receive its 8% of your full time salary from you (and the district), which is how the thing works. The deadline for applying for a Willie Brown assignment next year is March 31 of this year. See Article 19 in your contract for more details.

CONTRACT DISTRIBUTION

The district Repro service has provided just about enough printed copies of our new contract for each ESTA member. We are still about 70 copies short. Each building President has taken individually labeled copies back to each school for distribution. Please contact your President if you have not received your copy at this time.

2002 TAXES

If you itemize deductions and worked a 60% or more assignment in the 2002 calendar year, your total union dues was $857. If you’re a BAESE member, your $3 per month is tax deductible, too.

SUPERINTENDENT SEARCH

A special meeting of the East Side Board of Trustees on February 6 featured two partners from a search firm that the Board has hired to bring back the names of four or five viable candidates as successors to Joe Coto. Both of the gentlemen were ex-superintendents from California school districts who now are in the business of matching superintendent candidates with school districts. Their fee is just under $27,000.

It was disappointing to learn of the process that will be used in this endeavor. It pretty much boils down to this: any group of stakeholders that wishes to meet with a representative from the search firm may do so, for the purposes of telling them what characteristics should be present in the ideal superintendent. After the search firm has heard from stakeholders, it will go to work recruiting up to five individuals that are felt to possess the requisite characteristics. The resumes of these five candidates will be brought to the East Side Board in closed session, and a lone finalist will be selected. Then, some sort of visitation team will be assembled to go to the current school district of the finalist. Thus, the first that any of us will learn of the name, location, history, or qualities of the next East Side superintendent will be after s/he is all but hired.

I think this method is badly flawed. I see no provision for weighting the input of stakeholders. I see further that this method reduces ESTA’s role, as well as the role of all other interested parties, to little more than writing a letter to Santa Claus with a wish list.