VEA is a member of:

VEA Representative Council

Highlights

September 8, 2005

The job of a Site Representative…

•  Facilitate communication and represent the union

•  Maintain the VEA site bulletin board

•  Run school site elections

•  “Duty of Fair Representation” – represent people in meetings with administration

•  Help in the filing of grievances

•  Provide support

•  Know (and have) our contract

•  Meet, greet and support new teachers/verify membership in Association

Revamping Rep Council (due to the new bell schedules)

•  Site concerns will be from 3:30-4:00 for secondary, and 5:45-6:15 for elementary, at every meeting. Food will be available at 3:45 and we will need secondary people to set this up (sign-up) because they are off earlier. There will be no breaks during the meeting.

•  Each site rep will have an envelope with their name tag and relevant meeting materials. You need to take the materials and leave the envelope. If a Rep does not attend the meeting, the materials will be sent to that Rep.

•  If you need a Rep binder, please let Janice know

•  Union Code of Conduct – a copy was provided to the Reps and we all need to follow this. It is important that we support each other right now.

•  Ground rules, correct dues for 05-06, Robert's Rules, and VEA calendar for 05-06 provided, and should go into the Rep binder.

Committee Reports

Action

•  Bob Keeble is our new CTA support/advisor for Action. He and Sue Levy have scheduled Action meetings through December.

•  ALL MEMBER MEETING is scheduled for September 20 th at Bethel Little Theater. The meeting will run from 3:00-4:00 (for secondary) and 4:15-5:15 (for elementary). Members are welcome to come to either meeting.

•  The committee is also working on a community/parent flyer.

Bargaining

•  There was one bargaining session in July, and they were able to agree on new cleaning procedures. Reps were provided with a copy of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and they will be sharing it at their school sites. Mediation is in process — the next Mediation date is Friday, September 16th. The team is trying to show the Mediator and the State Administrator savings that don't come out of our benefits (current amounts)/salary. We need to prove that the State Administrator cannot just rollover on us.

•  CSEA and VSMA did settle their benefit issues and have begun having 30% of the cost of their benefits deducted from their pay. This 30% (with the District paying 70%) is a “soft” figure. When the benefit prices go up in January, CSEA and VSMA employees will have to absorb the additional cost.

•  The timelines on class size overages are:

•  Days 1-10 — District does not have to hold to the contractual limits.

•  Days 11-15 — Teacher must notify the site principal, in writing, that s/he is over class size/caseload contacts. Pay for class size overages is to commence from the date of notification.

•  All class size overages must be corrected by the 16 th day of school.

Grievance

•  Timelines for the evaluation of unit members were provided to the site Reps. VEA is strongly encouraging members to stick to these timelines. If the initial timelines for notification of being evaluated or the dates for the evaluation objective(s) to be agreed to (not given to you) are not met, you do not have to be evaluated this year. You will be subject to evaluation next year though. Teachers who are new to our District need to be evaluated.

•  Grievance timelines (handout) were also shared. If you file your own grievance, you need to stick to the timelines.

•  A list of the grievance committee members, and the schools for which they are responsible, was also provided to the Site Reps and will be posted on our web site. VEA strongly recommends that you contact your grievance rep if you feel you have a grievance.

Membership

•  Membership cards should be given to members personally so that you can get the left side of the card back and VEA/CTA can make any changes necessary in our database. Card “stubs” may be sent back to Suzanne DuBois @ Franklin .

Political Action

•  The CTA campaign kick-off will be held on Saturday, September 10 th at the CTA office in Cordelia. This campaign is to defeat the Governor's initiatives 74, 75, 76. Information on precinct walking and phone banking will be coming soon. Everyone needs to volunteer some of their time to work on defeating these initiatives.

•  Solano County Labor Coalition, of which VEA is a part, has been meeting since last Spring. This is a coalition of almost all of the labor unions in the County and has the potential for being incredibly effective. Janice Sullivan has been working with them on our behalf. The coalition recently interviewed School Board and City Council candidates for Vallejo , Fairfield , Benicia , Vacaville , and Dixon . At the Labor Day picnic, the coalition endorsements for all of these seats were announced. The coalition decided to support (and provide funding/precinct walking and phone banking) for the three School Board seats to Burky Worel, Dan Glaze, and Raymond Victor Mossmom.

President's

•  The State Administrator has decided to place Janice Sullivan in a twenty percent position (contract). She will be working on the Highly Qualified Teacher part of the NCLB. She will be working out of the Human Resources department.

•  Site Reps were given “official” bell schedules for their schools. These need to be checked over for accuracy. There were some questions about teachers at the elementary level being required, through the ringing of bells, to pick up their students prior to the beginning of school (instructional day). Teachers who are questioning this are being told that the State Administrator is mandating this—WHO in the SA's office is mandating this and is it in writing? Please notify Janice if the bell schedule for your site is not right.

•  October 14, 15, 16 is the CTA Region I conference. If you are interested in going to this you need to contact Katherine Catanzarite at Capitol St. as she is handling conferences this year. Prior to the conference, on the 14 th , Region I is holding a special meeting for people who are at Program Improvement or SAIT schools. We can send 4 people. If you are interested in attending this, you need to contact Janice ASAP.

•  Board Policies on Code of Ethics and Fraud . The SA is rewriting all of the Board policies and Administrative Regulations. These are the first two being rewritten. Employees are now being required to report any suspicion of fraud.

•  Audit findings have shown that Vallejo owes the State another $38 million. The original findings meant fines and repayments of $50 million, but that has now been reduced to $38M.