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Panorama | June 2010 |
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Panorama | June 2010 |
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President's View by Marisa Hanson
As the school year comes to an end, we all still have a lot of
unanswered questions. The
first question is; “Now that the tentative agreement has passed, how many
eliminated positions will be restored?” The answer is that ESTA will be
saving the district over $9 million dollars and we do expect to see many
positions restored. The plus
three students saves 65 FTE which is $ 4-5 million dollars, the five
furlough days saves about 3 million, and the change in medical benefits
saves nearly 2 million. By the way, the Tentative Agreement passed with 580 votes, which was 77% of the people who voted. I know it was a tough decision to make, but it was the right decision. It will decrease our salary by 2.747%, but we will work a week less. The 2010-2011 school year will begin on August 16 and will end on May 26. The benefits change will begin July 1, 2010 with the additional co-pay cost. Another question people keep asking me is, "How will the school sites function with so fewer CSEA members?" The answer is, I really don't know but I will remind everyone that we do not do other barganing units' work. Maybe that means some things won't get done but we can not continue to do more with less. By "covering" those jobs without proper workers, we are saying to the district that those positions weren't needed anyway. I would say the same thing goes for our eliminated positions as well. I know this may sound harsh, but I will remind you for 2010-2011 to stay within your job duties only and do not volunteer for extra duties. This past year, with the 15 more students per teacher, it was stressful enough and no one is expected to work any additional duties beyond that. I know it is hard at the time to say no, but learn to say, NO! The question I receive the most is; “When will the district bring
back more laid off members and/or bring back eliminated positions?” Well, at this time, the retirement
letters keep continuing to come in.
Once the schools’ allocations needs are in, the district will begin
to bring back laid-off teachers.
Unfortunately, the needs are usually lower now, and don’t usually
pick up until mid July. As
always, I will work with the district to make sure classroom teachers are
brought back as the need arises and as quickly as possible. As for the eliminated positions
that are restored, that all depends on the board at the June 17 board
meeting. Once the number of
eliminated positions to be reinstated is determined, I will work closely
with the district to make sure the correct members are brought back based
on the ESTA contract. I will
even make personal phone calls to members as they are brought back in
addition to the district’s calls.
District email will remain on all summer to help connect with
people who may be out of town in the event they are called
back. So, as the summer begins, we have a lot more to do! Enjoy your time off and come back
refreshed and ready for another crazy year.
Congratulations to the Retirement Class of
2010
Daniel Passalacqua Janice Prull Micheal Reed Paz Rocha Theodore Sapphire David Schmidt Nancy Schwalen Maureen Van Tuyl
Michael Villanueva Gerald Zellner
ESTA
2010 Safety Climate Rankings 5 stars maximum, 1
star minimum, scores are based on
average of all ratings per site.
Yerba
Buena 3.93 Piedmont
3.8 Silver Creek 3.73 Independence
3.61 Evergreen
3.58 Foothill
3.53 James Lick
3.52 Oak Grove 3.33 Overfelt
3.27 Andrew Hill 3.17 Santa Teresa 2.66 Mt Pleasant 2.63 |
Teachers
Shafted Again Ted Sapphire
Put
An End To The Huge SS Retirement Rip Off Of Teachers! Wake-Up
Call to all ESTA members…& teachers around the state: Are you counting
on collecting your SS retirement benefits? Think again. “I worked 20+ years in private
industry and another 20+ in a school system only to discover I would
receive a reduction in my SS.” Current
Social Security law includes "Windfall Elimination Provision," (WEP) and
the "Government Pension Offset" (GPO). The
purpose of the WEP is to prevent a "windfall," (an amazing choice of
words), in SS retirement benefits for persons like teachers, who are also
covered by systems like CalSTRs, and who also worked other jobs, where
they paid into Social Security. No
matter what your individual annual SS report says you can expect to
receive when you retire, you may lose 40% to 60% of your earned SS
benefits, if you are a teacher and also covered by a state retirement
program like CALSTRS. If
these laws are not repealed, even retirees living at the poverty level are
having their SS benefits reduced. They deserve, and need, the full measure
of earned SS benefits. Only
passage of s484 will put an end to this outrage. S484, reinstates the full SS
benefits earned by teachers who have also worked outside of teaching.
Right now this bill introduced by Senator Feinsein, and co-sponsored by 31
other senators, including Senator Boxer is sitting in committee, waiting
for more support. President
Obama is ready to sign this into law as soon as it clears Congress.
We
need to keep plugging away. Let NEA, & CTA know how important their
continued work on this issue is to us. Become informed, and inform others.
NEA’s
Political Action Page- NEA is really the go to teacher’s
national organization that is pushing for this because we need more
senators from every state to sign on for s484. http://www.nea.org/home/16491.htm CTA Let them hear from you on this
issue. Ask that their website’s ‘Issues & Actions’ link list s48. Their contact page:
http://www.cta.org/About-CTA/Help-Center.aspx P.O. Box
921, Burlingame, CA 94011-0921 Senator
Ried, the powerhouse deal maker, will continue to set the legislative
agenda in the senate if he gets re-elected. You don’t need to be from NV
to write him. Washington DC. 522 Hart Senate Office Bldg Washington, DC
20510. Phone: 202-224- 3542. Fax: 202-224-7327.
Contact
Bruce King, at Ried’s office; thank them & let them know how important
s484 is to you.
Give No Quarter Mike Brennan, Editor After reading the “President’s View” and “Teacher’s Shafted Again,” by Ted Sapphire, I was inspired to share some thoughts about what we’re up against and the actions we should take. I’ve known about the hit we take on Social Security for some time. The biggest injustice of this situation is that those in private industry who have generous retirement plans do not take a hit on their Social Security benefits. So what’s the logic? When you look in to this a bit more you’ll find that there are many double, triple, and quadruple dippers around. The difference between them and us is that they are legislators and military officers. So apparently those who follow the rules get shafted and those who make the rules do the shafting.We
get shafted on the pay scale if we change districts with over 8 years of
service. We get shafted on
post-graduate tuition. No
professionals in industry pay all of their own tuition. We also get shafted out of tenure
if we apply to another district. And
they’re not done shafting us.
We all need to remember that our schools are being trashed by
Republican representatives in the California State Legislature. We need to be vigilant over the
administration of our district but our budget fight is with the State of
California. When Marisa
suggests that we do no extra unpaid work it is because “the state” will
not fund education if they think they can get it for free. I would go further and say that,
if we can afford it, we should also refuse paid overtime.
These
children of other people who we care for, mentor, and nurture need to be
sent back into the arms of their parents at every possible
opportunity. Railing against
budget cuts will get us only so far.
It is my belief that our cause will be furthered much more
intensely by returning the responsibility for our students back to their
parents as much as possible. There
are 300 thousand teachers in California but there are 6.2 million
students. Parents are going
to insure schools are adequately funded, not teachers. Parents need to appreciate what we
do for them. Until parents
are tasked with looking after, tutoring, and training their own children,
they will never realize how important we are. I
know that teaching is a vocation and not a job. Many of us marvel that we are
given the opportunity to work with the jewels of our society, and that’s
what these children are. But
for their sake, we need to send them back to their parents for more hours
per day and more days per year to motivate their parents to take up the
banner and help improve our schools. Maybe if we spend one year sending these kids back to the streets of their neighborhoods, our leaders will realize the invaluable contribution to society made by a well rounded educational system. The
alternative is that more and more young adults will end up without jobs in
years to come. Us
teachers need to practice tough love on parents. For the good of the kids, we need
to send them home to their Playstations, You-tube, Silly-string, and their
moms and their dads.
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