East Side Teachers Association/CTA/NEA 888 So. Capitol Ave San Jose, Ca 95127 December 13, 2005

Don McKell, President Ralph Giannini, Vice President Jane Voss, Secretary Bernadette Salgarino, Treasurer

EstaPres@pacbell.net fax: (408) 272-7569 voice: (408) 272-0601 website: www.EastSideTA.org

Article 14 of our contract sets out a two-year timetable for the local confirmation of all Department Chairs at each applicable site. The confirmation is supposed to take place between May 1 and May 15 of every even-numbered year. 2006 is an even number.

Principals are to submit one bargaining unit member name (or more in the event of co-chairs) for confirmation by members of each department. Any ESTA member who has one or more classes in that department is entitled to vote, and it may occur that an individual votes in multiple departments. Department members indicate "yes" or "no" to the lone name on the confirmation slip in a secret ballot process, monitored by the principal and an ESTA representative.

If the submitted name receives a majority of the valid votes cast, that person becomes the department chair effective July 1, 2006. If the vote results in a tie, the principal may cast the tie-breaking vote. If the person is not confirmed by a majority vote, the principal must then submit one new name and repeat the process.

Principals are not obliged to submit the current department chair’s name as their candidate; it is not a violation of the contract to propose a different person for the post. Any vacancies in department chair positions must be filled by the same process.

It is not proper for the principal to submit a slate of candidates and expect the department members to select one over another by majority or plurality vote. It is also not proper for proposed co-chairs to be voted upon separately; they are to be accepted or rejected as a bloc.

Well, maybe a few of us wore something more stylish, but it was a standing-room-only overflow crowd of angry and concerned ESTA members at the Dec 8 meeting of the Board. A dozen speakers, including myself (see below) but headlined by Panorama editor Marty Brandt and singing AH teacher Dave Johnson, held forth on a variety of good reasons why the District should bring more flexibility to the bargaining table.

Someone had even called a few news outlets, and a couple of reporters were there with TV cameras.

The upshot? We’ll see. By the time you read this, there will probably have been a follow-up meeting of the negotiations teams to see if progress can be made.

Late in the Board meeting, after most of the audience had dispersed, President (and newly declared candidate for San Jose mayor) Manuel Herrera spoke to the issue of contract talks as part of the agenda discussion on the first interim financial report. The P1 report, by the way, declares the District solvent, able to both meet its financial obligations and show the required 3% reserve, for the remainder of this fiscal year and the two to follow. Herrera stated that the Board was unmoved by ESTA assertions that funding is available for a restoration of COLA language.

This is the text of the remarks I made to the school board at the December 8 meeting.

The school board agreed with the recommendation of Interim Sup Bob Nunez, and has retained the services of Linda Gubman as an Interim Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction. Gubman will receive a one year contract for about $141,000. The position has been vacant since (at least) the resignation of former Chief Academic Officer Art Darin. Gubman comes from the San Bernardino County Office of Education, where she is the Director of Administrative Services in the Instructional Division. She has worked as a teacher, a small school district superintendent/principal, and CTA Executive Staff at times in her past.

Of the approximately 24,500 students enrolled in the District, something on the order of 5,500 are designated English Language Learners (ELL). An array of federal and state laws, backed by court orders, has recognized that such students are entitled to have teachers who have acquired and/or demonstrated special skills and techniques to teach them. There are a variety of ways that teachers can become authorized to deliver instruction to ELL students, and these have changed (and continue to change) over time. For sake of simplicity, many of us refer to such official authorization as CLAD, an acronym for Cross-Cultural Language Acquisition Development. The space available in this Update is not sufficient for me to try to include a complete listing of all of the methods whereby California teachers can become author-ized to teach ELL students. Basically, newer teachers are supposed to have CLAD-type training embedded in their college-level studies as they work to earn a credential. Older teachers have an assortment of trainings available to them – some as short as 45 hours – plus passage of an examination and submission of a portfolio, to earn their CLAD authorization (or whatever acronym it will morph into).

The CLAD flap is not new. As long ago as ten years or more, school districts became aware of the requirement to place CLAD authorized teachers in front of ELL kids. Many districts began programs to bring their entire teaching staffs up to CLAD levels, and most districts with a significant number of ELL students make CLAD authorization a pre-requisite for new employment.

It seems to me that large districts like East Side assumed that there would be time to phase out non-CLAD teachers over time, replacing them with new hires that satisfied the new requirements, and augmented those decisions by arranging for voluntary training of veteran teachers to obtain their CLAD. Employment contracts in East Side going back to 1996 have had clauses in which the new hire agrees to become CLAD authorized.

A little over a year ago, the so-called Williams Settlement rocked the boat. That agreement emerged out of a state lawsuit brought on behalf of economically disadvantaged students, and specified (among other things) that schools in the lowest three deciles of API scores must immediately have a CLAD authorized teacher for every class in which there were 20% or more ELL students. In our school district, that meant WCO, YB, AH, and JL high schools.

The "20% Rule" was, in my opinion, a concession that recognized the impossibility for school districts to produce sufficient numbers of CLAD-authorized teachers overnight. But the "20% Rule" was itself a stretching of federal law, which continues to demand that any class with even one ELL student must have a teacher who is specially trained to deliver instruction.

Any class includes not only the core academic curriculum but everything else. At least one includes any number greater than zero. Can anyone in this district imagine how difficult it would be to assemble a class of students, at any of our schools, in which not one student was designated ELL?

County Offices of Education were directed to oversee compliance with the Williams Settlement. Our COE takes its role seriously, and in addition to monitoring the staffs at the four "Williams" schools, has also chosen to carry out a credentials and authorizations audit on EVHS this year. Next year, I am told, our entire district will come up for its every-fourth-year credentials audit by the COE.

I recently asked HR Director Cathy Giammona to speculate on the possibility of massive numbers of involuntary staff transfers next year, or even layoffs, as the East Side strives to become compliant with the law. Giammona answered that she considers either possibility to be small in the next two years. She cited ongoing opportunities for staff development for veteran teachers, offered at no financial cost to participants, as well as agreements made by more recently hired staff to obtain their CLAD or equivalent.

Nevertheless, the probability of such things as transfers and layoffs is not zero. Our district, like hundreds of others, could be in danger of loss of federal funding if compliance is too long in coming. "Too long" is a relative measure, and school districts are on a tightrope.

Certainly, our District would love to see all of us go out and become ELL Certified. But realistically, that’s not likely to happen for a variety of reasons. The table below shows the breadth of the current situation.

In a pinch, there’s a one-time stop-gap solution available to some of us. The COE will issue an emergency permit authorizing immediate service in a CLAD position. The permit can be re-issued for one additional year upon presentation of proof that sufficient progress (6 units) has been made towards the goal. Those of us achieving permanent status (in any school district) by January 1, 1999 can achieve CLAD authorization under AB2913 by taking a 45 hour course, passing an exam, and submitting a portfolio. The rest of us have a less flexible pathway. Contact Cathy Giammona in HR for a rundown of your individual options.

In summary: