East Side Teachers Association/CTA/NEA 888 So. Capitol Ave San Jose, Ca 95127 March 27, 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 Oakland City Schools, and the teachers who work in them, are in a world of hurt. Largely as a result of years of fiscal mismanagement which left the school district awash in tens of millions of dollars of red ink, State Superintendent of Schools Jack O’Connell has stepped in and placed the district under the autocratic management of state administrator Randall Ward.

Ward has the authority to act unilaterally, without having to convince the Oakland School Board to agree with his dictates. Among many decisions he has handed down have been a salary take-away from teachers in the Oakland Educators Association (OEA), a hard cap on the district’s contribution to the costs of employee fringe benefits, and the elimination of preparation periods.

At the present time, the highest number on the OEA salary schedule is slightly less than $67,000. This, after 28 years as a district teacher. Doesn’t that sound like a great place to work? The annual turnover rate in Oakland teachers is nearly 30%.

Imagine trying to negotiate a Collective Bargaining Agreement under those circumstances. But bargain they did, until impasse was declared at the beginning of the current school year. That formal declaration initiates a strict process which includes bringing in a state mediator and, if mediation fails to bring about agreement, fact finding.

Mediation didn’t resolve the issues in Oakland. Instead, a fact finding panel was assembled to conduct, well, the finding of facts. Such three-person panels are composed of a designee of district administration, a designee of the teachers, and a neutral third party. The panel conducted its fact finding and issued a report earlier this year that was, atypically, agreed to by all three panelists. Both the emasculated Oakland School Board and the Oakland City Council weighed in, supporting OEA and the fact finding Panel, and recommending to State Administrator Ward that he grant the salary, benefits, and working condition improvements being sought by OEA. Ward refused.

Ward serves at the pleasure of State Superintendent Jack O’Connell, who has had strong CTA support over the years. Despite intense lobbying by CTA in the Oakland matter, O’Connell has so far stuck with his administrator and refused to either remove Ward or instruct him to make accommodations in support of the fact finding report. O’Connell is up for reelection in November. The CTA State Council will discuss possible next moves at its March 31 meeting in Los Angeles.

The endorsement of O’Connell’s candidacy is not an easy black and white issue. Whether CTA endorses him or not, he is going to be reelected. And most observers will agree that O’Connell is far better for teachers and educators than was his predecessor or his potential rivals in the next election.

OEA took a strike authorization vote several days ago that passed overwhelmingly.

As reported in a previous Update, any potential change in our Bylaws must be posted at all school sites for a period of at least ten days, after which it takes a 2/3 vote of the ESTA Assembly to adopt the amended Bylaws. At the March 8 meeting of the Assembly, such a vote was taken, which failed by one to pass.

In the wake of that meeting, several Assembly members decided to exercise their rights and circulate a petition at their schools for signatures. Under our current Bylaws, "A petition signed by twenty percent of Association members shall be required to bring to the attention of members any initiative or referendum action. It shall be the right of members to petition any action of the Assembly or Executive Board."

Such a petition was presented at the March 22 meeting of the ESTA Executive Board. It calls for a referendum to Membership At Large on the matter of adopting the amended Bylaws, and contains more than the required number of signatures. As a result of the valid petition, a referendum election has been scheduled for Wednesday, April 26, at all sites to put the issue before ESTA members. Such a vote requires a simple majority to pass.

The ballot on April 26 will contain the following wording, as specified on the petition:

On February 1, 2006, the ESTA Representative Assembly approved for posting in local units a proposed set of amendments to the Constitution and Bylaws of the East Side Teachers Association. Those amendments included, among many other proposed changes, a provision in Article VI, Section 1, Paragraph D to alter the term limits of ESTA Executive Officers from four 2-year terms to five 2-year terms.

Shall the East Side Teachers Association adopt in their entirety the proposed Bylaws, including the provision to increase term limits of ESTA Executive Officers to five full 2-year terms?

The date selected for the Referendum election is the Wednesday in the week following Spring break. Members who have strong feelings on this issue are encouraged to express their views prior to the election. One way to do this is to provide a written opinion piece to Marty Brandt (brandtm@esuhsd.org), the editor of our monthly newsletter Panorama. The deadline for submission of copy for the next edition of Panorama is Friday, March 31.

Another way to express your views is to compose a paper and get it to me by Monday, April 12. I will see to it that a neutral party selects either all or a representative sample of such submissions, that will be printed and distributed to all ESTA members prior to the election. Any such submissions must be signed, and are subject to the same regulations as campaign literature distributed by ESTA during elections of officers and delegates.

The East Side school board heard a sobering report on the topic of graduation numbers at its March 9 meeting. As the current school year began, there were some 5,600 "seniors" in our regular schools. This does not count students at the Alternative School sites, but does include all other fourth-year kids.

Prior to this year, an East Side student needed to have accumulated 220 credits in the appropriate courses in order to receive a diploma. This year, in addition to the long-standing credits requirement, students must also have passed all portions of the CAHSEE before they can legally be awarded a diploma under state law. This is the first year in which a student who may have met all local requirements to graduate will be denied a diploma if the Exit Exam has not been passed.

The table below summarizes the estimated number of Non-Graduates for all but the small Alternative Ed sites (which are held to different standards for the number of required credits). Column headings explained below.

The data show that nearly 23% of our fourth-year students do not appear on target for a diploma at the end of this year. Sadly, some of the 339 students in Col A will take (and may pass) the CAHSEE in May, but results from that particular Exit Exam sitting will not be available by the time graduation rolls around in the second week of June.

After the school board had listened to this presentation, it voted 4-0 (Roach absent) not to provide any sort of "Certificate of Completion" to this year’s non-graduates, and also not to allow them to take part in the graduation ceremonies. Instead, non-graduates will be provided with documentation from their schools showing:  what they have accomplished in pursuit of their diploma to this point, ‚ what they still must do to finish, and ƒ what options they may have from this point forward.

At least one high-profile court case has been initiated that seeks to challenge the legality of denying diplomas based upon CAHSEE, and more are likely to follow. This thing isn’t over yet, by a long shot.

With scarcely any discussion, the School Board ratified the certificated contract by a 5-0 vote at a special meeting on March 16. Copies of the contract will be distributed to all bargaining unit members as soon as they are ready.

Bob Nunez recommended, and the Board approved, a $2,000 "door prize" (my term) for certificated employees who notify the district by April 10 of their intention to retire from the District by no later than June 30, 2006. The notifications must be in writing and are irrevocable, except in extenuating circumstances. Of course, no one who wasn’t already planning to retire would change their mind for $2k, but the early notification gives the District just that much more time to recruit and hire ever-scarcer replacements.

By the way, if you know a teacher with a single-subject credential (particularly if they are CLAD certified), why not show them a copy of our new salary schedule and full benefits coverage and get them to think about signing up in East Side? As an extra incentive, you might mention that up to eight years of service in other school systems can be credited to incoming East Side teachers. That means a transfer teacher could start in this district on Step 9 of the salary schedule. That’s over $67,000 for a teacher with 45 post-grad units, or almost $72,000 with a master’s degree. And don’t forget to mention fully-paid benefits. Math, Science, English, and SpEd are in very high demand. SpEd with a "moderate to severe" is gold.

It was probably too much to hope for that ESTA voters would turn out in the same numbers to elect State Council and NEA RA delegates as we did on the issue of contract ratification. In fact, we fell a little short.

On March 22, a total of 282 valid ballots were cast in elections to choose two three-year delegates to CTA State Council and two three-year delegates to the NEA RA.

As announced on the official results, Allan Roberts (SC) and Jon Alota (DO) were elected to represent ESTA on CTA State Council. In addition, Paul Landshof (PH) and Allan Roberts were re-elected to attend the NEA Rep Assembly for the next three years. Finally, in a special election confined to Silver Creek, Allan Roberts was chosen to fill the vacant post of SC Site Vice President for the remainder of the calendar year.

Also conducted on March 22 was a parallel election to choose state delegates to the NEA RA from the Santa Clara County Service Center Council. As far as I can tell only one ESTA member – Jon Alota – was a candidate on that ballot. Jon out-polled all other candidates in our portion of that election, but votes from CTA members in both San Jose Unified and Santa Clara Unified must also be counted before the six winners are declared.

As I finish this Update, I hear on the news that OG, ST, and Gunderson High Schools dealt with a telephoned bomb threat this morning. My friend Leti Gutierrez, President of Alum Rock Educators Association, tells me that a similar event happened last November at Ocala Middle School in her district. The principal apparently waited 20 minutes until lunchtime was over before making the announcement, and then asked teachers to search for the bomb. Many did so. Not exactly a perfect score on their Code Red assessment, I’m thinking.