East Side Teachers Association/CTA/NEA 888 So. Capitol Ave San Jose, Ca 95127 October 30, 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 website: www.EastSideTA.org

ESTA will hold annual elections on November 19 to elect Site Officers and Assembly representatives. Balloting will take place at each comprehensive high school in the district, plus Foothill and the District Office for a Site President and Site Vice President (one year terms) and a varying number of Assembly delegates (two year terms).

These elections are the lifeblood of ESTA. With them we choose delegates to our primary policy-making body – the Assembly – and our Executive Board. ESTA needs fresh ideas and points of view from all of its members. Just in case you don’t know my stance, representation is not always someone else’s job.

Are you worried about something? The direction our district is going? Time demands placed on teachers? Benefits? Disturbing trends at your site? Positions ESTA or CTA have taken? Here comes your chance.

By the way: election to and execution of the duties of an ESTA site representative qualifies for 30 hours of Professional Growth credit each year.

In addition to the "Reps to Elect", as noted above nearly every site will also be electing local officers and grievance reps. The table summarizes this year’s site election needs for Assembly Representatives.

In a previous Update I praised the administrative and counseling staff at AHHS for having achieved virtually perfect class size balancing by the 17^th day of school this year, as is specified in the contract. As soon as that issue was distributed, it was pointed out to me that with only one or two relatively minor exceptions, the staff at YBHS had achieved nearly the same feat. It was an oversight for which I apologize.

ESTA members are in the beginning of the second year of a three year contract. One feature which was new to the contract deals with the issue of Personal Necessity Leave (PNL), and bears repeating as we approach a series of extended holiday weekends.

No one can help when they get sick. When you’re too sick to come to work, you’re too sick to come to work whether it’s a Friday or a Monday or any other day. Call in sick, make up a lesson plan if you can, stay home and get better. (And thanks for not spreading your illness to students or co-workers).

There may be, however, those times that one is not ill but still needs to miss work. Our new contract gives each of us up to seven PNL days to handle such exigencies. A complete treatment of the issue of PNL is to be found in Article 6.7.2 of our contract, but generally we must obtain prior permission from a local administrator to exercise this option. The exception to getting prior permission are the two "no tell" days provided in A6.7.2.5.1 which provide a means to deal with issues of compelling personal importance which simply cannot be taken care of outside of normal work hours.

Just don’t try to use one of these no-tell days right before or after a holiday or vacation period (like Thanksgiving or Christmas or the semester break.) If you do, you won’t be paid for that day, and that kind of pay dock has long-range repercussions. Give me a call if you need this explained in further detail.

In the words (last March) of our soon-to-be former Chief Financial Officer Karen Willett, these are not easy times to be an educational visionary. The staff of EVHS was addressed by Superintendent Zendejas earlier this month and told that the district simply cannot afford to sustain the structural model that has been the hallmark of the fledgling school. Dr. Z. stated that the excess cost of continuing operations at the site might top a million dollars this year, and so changes will need to occur. Soon.

Since opening last year, the EVHS model has consisted of four small schools, each with its own principal and tight four-subject core program: English, Science, Mathematics, and Social Studies. PE, World Language and a smattering of electives remained outside the core. Core teachers teach four classes daily, completing the day with a prep, a collaboration and an "advisory" period. The appearance of more than 150 unexpected students, coupled with a sharp reduction in corporate sponsorship, pushed the school beyond its capacity to maintain the innovative model.

Among the immediate casualties may be the freshman core program, but failing to find substantial outside money soon may spell further drastic cutbacks as EVHS moves closer in appearance to the older schools in the district.

A lot of ESTA members have shown themselves to be pretty generous people. The table below, however, shows that as a group we could be doing better. Now that the school year is well underway, I thought it might be interesting to compile statistics for each school site showing the number of ESTA members at that site, along with the number of contributors to both the Benevolent Alliance of East Side Employees (BAESE) and the ESTA Sick Leave Bank (SLB). Membership in BAESE is open to all district employees: classified, management, and certificated. At present, no site comes close to the level of ESTA participation in BAESE as is found at Foothill High School with a whopping 74% rate of membership. All it takes is a simple form (available from me or your site librarian) to begin making a tax deductible contribution to the fund, which is overseen by a group of nine directors for the benefit of East Side employees who find themselves in a temporary financial bind.

On the issue of Sick Leave Bank participation, if you didn’t get your paperwork in to Doug Emerson at the DO by September 30, you’re out of luck for another year. Kudos to Andrew Hill with an impressive 42% participation rate, the best by far of any of the big high schools in the district. A special tip of the hat goes to the four ESTA members at the East Side Cadet Academy, with 100% SLB participation for the second year in a row.

By the way, it is a near certainty that one or more of the nearly 2,000 homes destroyed in the catastrophic fires in the southern part of California were those of teachers. For several years, CTA has promoted a semi-private foundation called the Fund to Aid California Teachers (FACT). This foundation makes grants and loans to CTA members who have suffered unexpected and devastating losses, such as a fire-ravaged home. FACT operates strictly on tax deductible donated funding from teachers like you and me, and has a payroll deduction plan similar to BAESE. If you want to learn more about how you could become a contributor, drop me a line.

Bargaining Chair Don Dawson has asked me to make mention of the need for ESTA members to give some input into what we’d like the calendar for the 2004/05 school year to look like. Recall that just about one year ago we conducted a series of surveys intended to get clarity on any new ideas on the matter. At that time, ESTA members overwhelmingly rejected the idea of pursuing a calendar in which the school year might start in the second week of August. (Such a calendar would have allowed for first semester to end prior to the Christmas break). It does not appear as if there is much use raising that issue again for a while, but there may still be opportunities for flexibility in how we approach Veteran’s Day (Thursday in 2004) and winter and spring breaks. Contact me or your site representatives if you have thoughts on the matter.

A few weeks ago, an email memo went out to all staff under the Superintendent’s name in which a collection of 70 certificated people were identified and congratu-lated for having zero absences from work in the 2002/03 school year. After being contacted by a few curious folks, I did some checking and found that there may have been a significant error in the compilation of the list: that is, all of those 266 ESTA members who voluntarily gave a day of sick leave to the then-new Sick Leave Bank last year were seen as having taken a sick day in 2002/03 and were thus not considered for recognition. This oversight was not of Dr. Zendejas’ causing, but rather just a simple mistake in how someone in Personnel went about gathering the data upon which the recognition was based.

A couple of the official publications of CTA and NEA have carried articles recently about some of the no-cost tangible benefits of membership. I thought that I would recap some of those benefits in this space.

CTA Death and Dismemberment Benefit: provides for up to $2,000 natural death or $10,000 accidental death or dismemberment (ADD). New members begin with $200/$1,000 coverage, which rises each year of continuous membership to the stated maximums. Also provides for $50K ADD for death/injury while on the job or when leaders carrying out association business.*

NEA Dues-Tab Benefit: provides similar coverage as above for continuous NEA membership up to $1K life, or $5K ADD. Same $50K ADD for on-the-job or leadership conducting member business. Death benefit rises to $150K for unlawful homicide occurring while on-the-job.*

*For more info or to register a beneficiary, call CTA Risk Management and Member Benefits at (650)552-5200, or email member_benefits@cta.org.

CTA/NEA Employment Liability benefit: Up to $1 million coverage for legal defense in civil suits (max $300K in civil rights cases), and up to $35K to defend member in employment-related criminal proceedings provided member found to be innocent. For more information on this benefit, call CTA Legal Department at (650) 697-1400