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Panorama | April 2009 |
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Panorama | April 2009 |
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President’s View By Marisa HansonI,
for one, am glad March is finally over. It has been a difficult month for
all of us. For me, two
intense board meetings, 129 laid off teachers coming to the office, 25
meetings, over 1,000 emails, 300 phone calls, etc… Not to mention my car was
stolen! I had many sleepless
nights, along with many members who are wondering if they will have a job
next year. It was an
extremely tough month to say the least, so I can only anticipate that
April will be better.
I
will continue to commit to working hard for this union, but at times I
feel like people forget that I have feelings too, as they take out their
frustrations on the ESTA leadership and me. We are all working hard to support
members and are all available when needed. People keep telling me this is the
worst time in education that they have ever seen and I keep wondering when
it will be over.
Although,
I didn’t start my career thinking that I would one day be a Union
President, I can’t imagine doing anything else during this crisis and I am
committed to helping us all survive these hard
times.
Being
involved in the union has always been a part of my teaching career. I was active in my previous
district my second year of teaching and participated in union activities
there, without being tenured because I was brought up to believe being
active in a union was something that everyone is supposed to do. I remember being told by my
fellow teachers that I needed to “be careful until I was tenured,” but
that didn’t matter to me at all.
When I came to work for East Side Union, I thought I could lie low,
but within a year people recognized my contributions and I became the
first Site President of Evergreen Valley High School. Not an easy task by the way, when
you have a new school with no traditions or past practices that you can
refer to when members have concerns.
It was a lot of work, but worth it. Now
my goal is to teach the new teachers the importance of a union and work to
protect our interests.
Although
teachers getting laid off makes me feel like I am in mourning, it is part
of my job as your President, and I will continue to support them and keep
them informed of the process that will happen at the end of April. At this time, all laid off
teachers will attend a 2-3 day hearing. Some will be called to testify and
others will just be present.
Each site will have to come up with a plan in the event that there
are not enough substitutes. I
will continue to email the laid off teachers with details, as the hearing
dates approach. It is my hope
that some of the notices will be rescinded before the
hearing.
It
is not often people drop by the office before the month of March. While the laid off teachers were
filling out paper work, it was nice to meet so many of them that I had not
met before. Of course one
member, I have known all his life, my brother. I feel for everyone and I know
this is a difficult time. No
one wants to receive a letter that says your services are no longer
needed. Everyone wants to
feel needed and appreciated.
The number of teachers needed for next year will depend on the
master schedules. Once they
are built, it will help determine how many laid-off teachers notices can
be rescinded. By
the way, the number of people retiring is still around 10 teachers
compared to 40-50 for the past several years. Also, the number of teachers who
are leaving the district is around 10 compared to 40-50. I still expect these numbers
to change as people make future decisions.
I
am still afraid, however, that we will lose teaching positions to future
charter schools being opened.
Three petitions will be going to the board in the next few
months. As charter schools
are trying to take our students away from us, we are continuing to create
ways to keep them. Our
district is currently partnering with Franklin-McKinley School District to
create a 7-12 grade school (plus two years of Evergreen Community College)
for students to attend. The
program will begin this year on a Franklin-McKinley campus and will remain
there for one additional year.
In the fall of 2010, it is set to continue at Yerba Buena High
School with all three grade levels.
The 7-8 grade teachers would be part of the Franklin-McKinley
School District (union FMEA) and the 9-12 grade teachers will be part of
ESTA. How this is all going
to work, is still being planned.
Teachers interested in working in this program will be interviewed
in a year from now to work with this program. If you find that you want to learn
more about this program, let me know as the planning stages are
underway. It will take some
work for both bargaining units to create a program that honors both
contracts.
So, as we enter the month of April, I and the rest of the ESTA leadership are going to continue to fight for what is right. With everyone’s patience and help, I know that we can overcome these difficult times. – “It takes a village to raise a child”
The
Greatest Good
Julie
Pratico, EVHS
“The
greatest good for the greatest number,” is a simple credo, but one that
many ESTA members may have forgotten. First,
all of those members who want to further sacrifice themselves and donate a
day of work to the District in order to save young teachers, consider
this: The
District will certainly collect your hard-earned money from you, but it
will be after-tax dollars (required by law), and the money will be placed
in the District’s general fund. Simply
put, the donations would help the District with its multi-million dollar
deficit, but teacher positions would not be guaranteed. Second,
all of those members who want to contribute towards benefits in order to
save teacher positions, consider this: In
all the districts where teachers have begun contributing towards the cost
of benefits, a modest sum of $100 per month has escalated to over $500 per
month. Examples of these costly contributions abound across the
state. Simply
put, forestalling teacher contributions to benefits will save us in the
long run. Last,
all of those members who believe ESTA does not represent diverse and
divergent views, consider this: Assembly
representatives and site leadership are elected by you. If an issue is not
being addressed, or innovative ideas are not being considered, share those
issues and ideas with your fellow ESTA members. Simply put, “The greatest good for the greatest number,” is not only a simple credo, but also the way our democratic union operates. Kudos
to Gail Dear
Editor, As one who is hoping to retire
within the next two years, I would like to personally thank Gail Chaid for
taking the time to write her most helpful and informative article for the
March Panorama. Although I
have attended retirement workshops and spoken twice to my benefits
counselor, I still have many questions and concerns. Her article provided, (in one
place!), the best information I’ve seen regarding where to find these
answers. Thanks again,
Gail.
Sincerely, Karyn Neujahr, English Teacher, Oak Grove High School PanoramaVHS
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Organizing
Committee News --Jerry
Dyer, Silver Creek “History is, after all, both the
fire from the sparks, and the sparks from the fire.”
In
that sense, as educators, we are all making history, unless of course we
are among the small minority so jaded, so burned out (as it were) that we
have stopped generating heat.
ESTA’s Organizing Committee has become in recent days a source of
warmth and light, and the fire-starters are almost entirely
teachers whose
jobs are on the line, and students!
Here’s where the fires are blazing, and what you can do to strike
some sparks: There
will be a “Teach-Out” occurring at Overfelt High School on Friday, April
10th. Students and their teachers want
to make visible the otherwise invisible, to help make clear to our
community, and to our political leaders who drive by the school everyday,
who the victims of the upcoming cuts actually are. Fifth period classes will be
conducted outside; a lunchtime “speak-out” will follow. Media and local politicians will
be on hand. We
are organizing a series of three Town-Hall evening events, one in the
south, one central, and one north in the District. East Side resources (publicity,
etc.) will be used to build these events; politicians from the City,
County and State will be on hand, as well as other local and community and
District leaders. The focus
will be to make vivid the consequences of the budget cutting already
underway, and to educate and generate intensity about the upcoming special
election on May 19th. If the slate of propositions (1a-1f) that were hammered out in
the February budget resolution aren’t approved by the voters, the state
budget is back in the oven, and we will be back in the soup. We must do all we can to
avoid even deeper cuts! From
south to north, those meetings are tentatively scheduled for April
23rd,
April 27th,
and April 30th. Stay tuned for locations and
further details. Students are taking the threat to their education very seriously. More than 25 showed up at the last Organizing Committee, and they brainstormed and planned a myriad of activities. They will be leafleting at Board Meetings and special events, and in the community; they will be involved in phone-banking; they will be planning rallies and events at individual schools, and making videos for Youtube, etc. Rapsongs are being composed! The
Organizing Committee is involved in a number of other activities as well:
we have six subgroups: member growth, parent and community outreach, media
outreach, political outreach, liaison, and protests and
demonstrations. The liaison
work, for example, will include networking with state -wide groups, as
well as other local groups and unions concerned with the future of
education. A priority
alliance will be with the East Side “Save Our Schools” committee, which
is, among other things, going to be working to generate a local,
dependable source of funding for educational programs. The “protest” group will be
working on joining forces with the Californians for Justice rally in
Sacramento, planned for May 13th. How
can you get involved? One way
would be to mark your calendar, and go to the next full meeting of the
committee, scheduled for 4:00 on Wednesday, April 29th,
at Mt. Hamilton. However,
you don’t have to wait three weeks to start a spark burning. Take a minute to think about the
points in this article, and just ask yourself: what would be a single,
effective, first step to take?
Talk to your site president or an assembly representative; see if
you could help students organize their own version of the Overfelt
Teach-Out; help organize students and fellow teachers into teams to pass
out flyers at evening campus events, or in the morning when students are
being dropped off for school (flyers will be available from your union
representatives); supplement the Town Hall educational events with your
own letters to the editor, or to state representatives and senators; do
your own research about California’s “race for the bottom” in support for
education, and then join in with some group determined to change that
situation; talk to your friends and neighbors. There are (as I believe Franklin
Roosevelt said) a million ways to move forward, but there’s only one way
to stand still. I try to stay positive and avoid haranguing folks. And I’ve been inspired by the energy and commitment of the new teachers who are actively involved in trying to save their own careers, and the students who are stepping up. But what about the rest of us? The fire of history is burning all around us. We are not involved in just another “bump in the road” moment, with a few temporary lay-offs. This economic crisis, if you think about it, also provides us with an opportunity to create a new reality. We just need to be wise enough, brave enough, or committed enough to grab the opportunity. Let’s modify the old slogan in this way: You can be part of the fire of history, or you can wait and merely hope that you won’t get burned. Are you going to be a spark or an ember?
Why
The Emperor Has No Money By
Mike Brennan, Editor
Just
like the emperor’s clothes, the so called economic crisis is an
illusion. When I drive to work every day, I still
see the same expensive SUV’s, and when I navigate an overpass, I still see
the monumental skyscrapers that scream the truth of my opulent
society. WE ARE NOT POOR! I cannot believe I'm not hearing this decried from the rooftops. Maybe it wouldn't work in other places, but Americans should not have citizens living in tent cities or worried about their retirement incomes, and, most certainly, we should not have to worry about how we're going to pay for our children's education.
This so called economic crisis is a crisis about how humanity
divides its riches amongst individuals. It is not about having enough
food, shelter, clothes, restaurants, water parks, surfboards, game
consoles, houses, cars, cufflinks, liquor stores, bars, pool tables,
swimming pools, cruise ships, cargo ships, cargo planes, passenger planes,
skateboards, tattoo parlors, pizza parlors, pizza toppings...
Why is nobody talking about this from a perspective of the physical
reality of our situation?
Are we
facing plagues? Has there
been a natural disaster that will destroy the ability of most of us to
make a living? Is there a
world war? Have aliens
invaded? Is an asteroid about
to strike? Has a volcano
erupted? So let me try to
understand this. The world is
at relative peace. The earth
is relatively stable.
Humanity retains its ability to work and build its societies and we
have a crisis? What we do
have a crisis of compassion.
Our
political leaders tell us that they are handling the crisis by figuring
out ways to increase demand in the economy. This is code for finding ways to
put people to work building useless stuff so we can put people to work
selling useless stuff so we can have a society that has enough individuals
buying all the useless stuff from the people selling and building the
useless stuff in order to tell ourselves that the economy is
thriving. The good news is
that after we throw all the useless stuff away we can employ even more
people to operate landfills to store the useless stuff after we’re
finished with it.
Let’s just call them
giant time capsules because we all know that after all the mining
companies mine all the minerals, and all the oil is gone and all the rest
of the natural resources are gone we’re going back to the landfills to dig
up all that old useless stuff.
We will take it apart, and use the metals, plastics, flotsam, and
jetsam to build and sell more useless stuff and then put it back in
different landfills when we’re done with it. We need to spread the word
that: WE ARE NOT
POOR! Ours is a rich culture, so instead of worrying about how to put people to work making useless stuff, we need to work on making our lives rich in the arts and learning. We need to open colleges up to more people; we need to teach painting, music, theater, writing, gardening, dance, and culinary arts to all who are interested. We need to develop the type of society that values the quality of our existence instead of the quantity of “stuff”. To achieve this type of society, our children need GREAT schools. We need to destroy the myth that we can’t afford public education. We have money for what is important to us. We are a rich people and we need to STOP THE NONSENSE and educate our children!
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