ESTA UPDATE

HIGHLY QUALIFIED?

The latest reauthorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was deceptively dubbed (please pardon the alliterative pun) “No Child Left Behind”. This law now contains language calling for all public school teachers in all core academic areas to be “Highly Qualified Teachers” in their subject matter by no later than the end of the 2005/2006 school year. What sounded like a futuristic date four years ago is now looming much closer, and the reaffirmation of a Bush-led federal government for the next four years ends any speculation that major modifications would be enacted into the law any time soon.

The definition of what, exactly, constitutes being highly qualified was left to the states, but needed to be approved by the federal Department of Education. In California, CTA played a dominant role in shaping that definition, and the large majority of East Side teachers will certainly be found to be HQT. All teachers hired since the beginning of the 2002/03 year are identified as “new” teachers, and because of changes to California law and credentialing requirements are pretty much guaranteed to HQT. Teachers hired before the first day of instruction in 02/03 are “not new”, and need to go through a process to become HQT.

If you were hired before the first day of classes in the 2002 school year, you are a “not new” teacher. In order for you to be HQT you must

· possess a bachelor’s degree

· possess a state credential or an Intern Certificate or Credential (good for no more than three years)

· demonstrate core academic subject matter competence

So if you are a college graduate with a credential, and you are teaching in the area in which you majored in college, you are HQT. Congratulations.

Official determination of teachers’ status has begun. East Side’s HR Department will direct its resources toward a school by school rotation. As a result of this endeavor, most teachers at each site will be given an NCLB Certificate of Compliance, and all that needs to be done is to sign and return it to the principal’s secretary.

But what of “not new” teachers who are teaching subject matter outside of their college major? This could include teachers with various supplementary credential authorizations, or teachers in many Alterna-tive Education settings, and many SpEd staff. Chances are that they’ll be HQT anyway, because in the California definition there are a number of ways that such teachers can qualify, generally after undergoing the California High Objective Uniform State Standard of Evaluation (HOUSSE). Once you obtain your HQT Certificate of Compliance, it’s yours forever. It’s also portable to other school districts. Keep it like the family jewels. Even if you plan to retire this year, get thyself an HQT Certificate, to keep your options open.

IS WILLIE BROWN RIGHT FOR YOU?

An ESTA member who’s at least 55 years of age and who has worked in the District for at least ten years (the most recent five of which being full time), qualifies to apply for a so-called Willie Brown work schedule. This program allows a teacher to reduce their workload from full time to 80%, 60%, or even 50%, while continuing to qualify for fringe benefits and earn a full year’s STRS service credit.

Once employees are approved for a Willie Brown, they are allowed to continue working the reduced assign-ment on a year-by-year basis until either retiring or reaching age 70. Naturally, employees would earn less each year, on a pro-rata basis commensurate with their reduced workload. So it’s not for everyone.

Interested? The deadline for application to enter the reduced workload program next school year is March 31. Article 19 of our contract contains details, along with references to applicable Government and Edu-cation Code sections.

STRS WORKSHOPS REMINDER

The Mt. Hamilton Council has arranged three separate afternoon workshops to inform educators at various phases of their careers about the ramifications of STRS membership. The first of these events, targeting educators in the first ten years or so of their careers, is Thursday, December 16. The next workshop, aimed at folks who’ve been in the system for a while but who are still ten years or more from retirement, is Wednesday, January 12. The final workshop, targeting STRS members within five years or so of ending their careers, is set for Wednesday, February 9. All begin at 4:00 pm.

Pre-registration for the workshops is a must. There are over 4,300 teachers in the eight Mt. Hamilton CTA chapters, and space is limited at each of these events. Please call Lori or Ly at 272-0601 for details.

ARE YOU LOGGING YOUR TIME?

Article 14.2 of our contract specifies that full-time ESTA members shall participate in other duties for a maximum of 30 hours per year. These “other duties” are partially enumerated in the contract to include activities supervision, back-to-school night, site and District meetings, and department meetings.

Who keeps track of the time that individuals spend in such things? There is no contract language addressing that aspect, so the best advice is to do it yourself. Keep a log of time spent doing supervision or attending required meetings that fall in whole or in part outside of the normal 7½ hour work day. Treat back-to-school night as 3 hours. When your total reaches 30, you will have reached an end to the instances in which you can be compelled to do extra work. For most teachers, this 30 hour threshold occurs around midway through the second semester, if not sooner. What you do then is largely up to you.

Right now, there are already five different charter schools operating within this District, with a total enrollment of approximately 750 high school aged students. Over a period of years, our school board approved four of those charters; a fifth was approved by the County after twice being denied by East Side.

What is a charter school?

In general terms, it is a publicly funded enterprise created for the delivery of instruction to either elementary, middle, and/or high school age children, just like any other public school. However, charter schools are given latitude in having to follow certain portions of the state Ed Code, and they also may operate with relaxations in, or the complete absence of, a collective bargaining agreement with their staff.

Usually, charter schools have a certain focus in mind when they devise their operational plans, which focus acts as a lure to entice families to send their children. These foci might include language specific bilingual instruction, certain religious or cultural emphasis, rigorous academics, and so forth. Whatever the focus, the law does not permit compelling a student to attend a charter school, and also restricts a charter school’s ability to discriminate against applicants. Thus, a Farsi-based charter could not deny entrance to an applicant who only spoke Swedish, and so forth.

At their outset, charter schools can either be “start-up” or “conversion” charters. As the description implies, a conversion charter basically changes an existing school into a charter school; a start-up is formed from scratch. The law prohibits an existing private school from converting to a charter school. None of the existing charter schools in our District was a conversion. Statistics suggest that start-ups are more likely to fail than conversions.

Charter schools receive state funding on a per-pupil basis, much the same as a public school. If the average revenue limit for public school students is $5,700 per year, the charter school receives that sum for each enrolled and attending student. Thus, 300 students could generate $1.7 million in state revenues. In addition, the charter school may also qualify for certain federal funding, and can also seek grants and donations of operational capital from a wide variety of sources, just as public schools can.

The staff at a charter school must meet the same criteria as that in public schools with respect to credentialing, fingerprinting, and so forth. However, there is less effective monitoring of charters than of public schools in the actual day-to-day delivery of instruction, and it remains possible for teacher-developed lessons to be delivered by uncredentialed support staff in some charters as means of cost-cutting.

The “host” school district must provide certain services, and also maintain some oversight, for which it can charge a modest percentage of the charter’s budget. In the wake of Prop 39, school districts that have won approval for local bond revenues must provide either facilities or assist with the rent for local charters.

Who runs the charter school?

Charters can be either “dependent” or “independent”. All five of the existing charter schools in East Side right now are Independent Charters. That means, among many other characteristics, the independent chartering authority is responsible for recruitment and hiring of its own staff, keeping all required records and making all required reports, negotiating all labor agreements (if any), becoming accredited, locating its own facilities, obtaining its own insurance, adhering to all applicable laws, and nearly everything else required of a traditional school district. Usually, certificated staff in an independent charter school are not accruing seniority in the chartering district, and generally would not have transfer rights into or from other district schools.

The benefits of being an independent charter include much greater autonomy in the decisions of how the school is run. The East Side school board would, for example, have virtually no say in who is named the principal of one of its independent charter schools, or the length of the school day or year, or the number of classes that students take, or the choice of curriculum.

A dependent charter, on the other hand, retains a much closer tie to its host district. Staff at a dependent charter will generally work under the same collective bargaining agreement as teachers at other district schools, but are allowed to devise methods for making modifications in that contract to suit the purposes for having become a charter in the first place.

For a dependent charter, the school district generally continues to provide a full range of personnel services (i.e., hiring, STRS accounting, credential monitoring, payroll). Teachers at the dependent charter retain their seniority in the district as a whole, along with whatever transfer rights are not specifically given up.

Issues such as transfer rights, as well as the precise degree of autonomy granted to a dependent charter school, must be hammered out in a series of written Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) that are, for all intents and purposes, negotiated between the school and the district. These can include variations from standard district practices at other schools, such as administrator selection, curriculum choices, and so on.

Any charter school, whether dependent or independent, must propose a detailed budget in its initial charter proposal, and then continue to make periodic financial reports to the school district. The law is actually stacked in favor of charter petitioners receiving their charters, making it difficult for a school board to deny a charter. Charter schools have failed, however, with a higher propensity to do so falling on start-ups as opposed to conversions. The single indicator most likely leading to eventual charter revocation or failure is financial instability.

What about here?

Would converting a current East Side high school make sense? Maybe. It would depend upon a number of factors: the goals being met by making the change, whether sufficient students could be attracted to come, whether the change would make financial sense, what the governance structure of the new charter school would be, and the degree of support or opposition offered by the school district.

My belief is that running a charter school would be no picnic, and that there would need to be a lot of time spent in planning to avoid pitfalls. Honest people with true vision who make outstanding teachers may not also have the flair to continue to teach while they simultan-eously take up the reins of school leadership.