East Side Teachers Association/CTA/NEA 888 So. Capitol Ave San Jose, Ca 95127 February 7, 2006

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

The ESTA Assembly labored through one of the longest meetings on record last Wednesday, a large portion of which was the issue of what to recommend to members regarding the proposed contract settlement.

Our Bylaws charge the Assembly with the duty of examining any proposed contract settlement and then making a recommendation to members to either ratify or not ratify. The recommendation is, of course, not binding on individual members, who still have the opportunity to decide the matter on its merits or their own perceptions and vote for themselves by secret ballot at all sites on March 1.

Each Assembly member should have come away from the meeting armed with a selection of documents and tables, including a point-by-point summary of all of the changes in the proposed new contract over the old one, to help all members make an informed decision about ratification. Please seek out your site’s officers and Assembly Reps to get informed before election day.

Computing the amounts to which teachers are entitled for first semester class size overages proved to take just a little longer than was planned. As a consequence, I am now told that the amounts will not be included in the February 10 extra duty pay cycle. Rather, a separate run to produce the checks will be done on Feb 17.

The numbers are considerably larger than they’ve ever been, obviously because of adding extra students to classes. The table below shows a summary of the first semester overage payments.

The half-million-dollar cost of this year’s first semester class size overage payment system is a record. One year ago, the total for first semester was about $280,000; for second semester, it was about $160,000.

Recall that CTA has a policy of periodically calling in the Bylaws of all local chapters in the state in order to check for compliance with CTA model chapter bylaws, which are occasionally changed by the CTA State Council. Almost two years ago, it was our turn. A lengthy give and take process ensued, but we finally emerged with a draft set of Bylaws that meets CTA’s requirements in every way.

Now, of course, our local members get a crack at further tweaking prior to a formal adoption.

Following my announcement over a month ago of the major revision in the works for our Bylaws, several members made additional suggestions for further Bylaws changes beyond those mandated by CTA.

The first of these suggestions was to alter the wording in the draft Bylaws that covered the Initiative and Recall processes. A check with CTA uncovered that even the CTA model chapter bylaws had recently been modified to incorporate these proposed changes, so they’ve been placed in our draft. These are in Sections 2 and 3 of Bylaws Article XV.

A second proposed alteration was to change the roster of voting members of the ESTA Assembly to include Local Grievance Representatives. This proposal would have violated the one person, one vote ethic of CTA and has not been made. Normal representatives to the ESTA Assembly are elected on a 40-to-1 ratio proportional to the number of ESTA members at each site. Site Grievance Reps are not elected in numbers proportionate to the size of the faculty.

A third member proposal suggested altering the term limit for ESTA Executive Officers to one five year term, instead of the current four two-year terms. This proposal would not violate any CTA ethic, so it was presented to the ESTA Assembly on February 1 for discussion and possible action. The Assembly was largely unreceptive to the proposal, but at one point in the debate, a motion was brought to alter the term limit section of our Bylaws (Article VI, Section 1, Paragraph D) to change the current limit from four two-year terms to five two-year terms. The Assembly overwhelmingly passed that motion.

No other Bylaws change proposals have been presented. Our procedure calls for copies of the Draft Bylaws to be made available to all ESTA members for a minimum of ten working days, after which time a meeting of the ESTA Assembly can vote to adopt the draft document. The soonest this vote can happen will be the regularly-scheduled March 1 meeting of the Assembly.

It should be noted that, if adopted in the current draft form, this change to the term limits for ESTA Executive Officers would allow me to run for a fifth two-year term. I have been mentally ramping myself up for the better part of a year for my return to the classroom next year, and I have not decided at this writing if I would in fact become a candidate for a fifth term, even if the proposed change is adopted.

Yet another issue taken up by the ESTA Assembly at its meeting on February 1 was the work calendar for next school year. As many as four different versions were discussed, and ultimately one was chosen that will be distributed separately in the next few days.

The school board still has the ultimate authority to adopt a calendar, and so the ESTA proposal will appear on the agenda for its March meeting. There was actually time to get the ESTA proposal onto the board agenda for its February meeting, but ongoing bargaining with CSEA on the Classified contract includes an issue on a work day matter that will delay action until next month.

In summary, the ESTA proposal calls for the first workday of the 2006/07 school year to be on Monday, August 28, 2006. There will be days off on Sep 5 (Labor Day), Nov 10 (observed Veteran’s Day), Nov 23 and 24 (Thanksgiving) and all days between Dec 18, 2006, through Jan 1, 2007, and January 15 (M.L. King). First semester will encompass 88 student days, and will end on January 19, 2007, three weeks after a return from Christmas break.

A one-day semester break will occur on Monday, Jan 22. Second semester will begin on Jan 23, and include 92 student days. Winter break will occur between Feb 19-23, and Spring break will occur Apr 9-13, followed by observance of Memorial Day on Monday, May 28. Second semester for students will end Thursday, Jun 14, with a final teacher work day on Jun 15.

The inequality of the number of days in the two semesters (88 vs. 92) is the continuation of a trend begun several years ago, seen as an accommodation for the extra testing days that take up instruction time in second semester each year.

On February 1, the ESTA Assembly adopted the following policy statement with respect to the use of mailboxes at school sites.

Individuals generally can’t spend more than they earn in a year, unless they:  have a nest egg they’re willing to spend down, ‚ have a sugar daddy with deep pockets, or ƒ  don’t mind borrowing heavily. It’s not much different with school districts, except the ability to borrow is more tightly controlled. For several years, the East Side Board adopted a budget that depended upon non-renewable resources to balance, and the result has become a chronic condition of deficit spending. It is difficult to exclusively blame the school board; none of those individuals is required to be an expert in school district finance. In fact, school district finance is a skill that can be hired, and is a position in this district (Chief Business Officer) that’s had five occupants in as many years. Still, in fairness to the Board, there have been voices of concern raised from that quarter for several years.

How real is the problem? Budgets come and go, and the premises upon which they based are a constantly changing landscape. Once a year, however, each school district in California must report the intake and outgo of every dollar in the previous 12 months to the state in a document that is generally referred to as the "Unaudited Actuals". It is a crime to knowingly make a false statement on such reports. In very gross terms, the table below summarizes the balance sheet for East Side for the past three fiscal years, using data from the annual Unaudited Actuals. Any difference between revenue and expense becomes a surplus when it’s positive, and a deficit when it’s negative. Figures are rounded off and are in thousands of dollars.

Any school district without a well-padded nest egg (such as an adequate parcel tax in place, or income from the sale of land) to offset this sort of deficit pattern would have been forced to make severe cuts in expenses, or seek new sources of revenue, or would have become a ward of the state.

What now? Members will vote on March 1 on a contract settlement crafted to ease the pressure on the expense side, but whether we ratify or not ESTA needs to keep the heat on the DO to contain costs.

The uncertainty in the term limit issue for ESTA Executive Officers, as discussed in an article elsewhere in this Update (see "ESTA BYLAWS" on front) makes it necessary to put off the process of seeking Executive Officer candidates and holding an election until closure is reached, or until we cannot postpone it any longer. Originally, it was announced that we would hold elections for ESTA Executive Officers on March 22, 2006.

We will still proceed with an election that day to choose two ESTA delegates to the CTA State Council and as many as four delegates to the NEA Representative Assembly, but the Executive Officer election will now have to be postponed until perhaps April or May. The ESTA Assembly can bring closure to the term limit issue as early as its meeting on March 8, but there may be additional proposals for changes to our Bylaws that delay their adoption until April 5 or even May 3.