April 18, 2011 Negotiations

Hi,

Well the district gave us their proposal and it was pretty ugly. They would like merit pay and that quickly became a fairly heated argument - it was nice that Dot stepped in and suggested that we take a caucus to talk things out a bit. We are not interested in merit pay and that is that. The other item or contention was their proposal to remove the 30 minutes of prep time during the student contact day - just as we thought they were going to do. They did not have any substantial reason for this except to say it is about scheduling - which it will be when they eliminate PE and Music from the elementary schools like they are talking about. We, of course, are not interested in that either. The last thing - kind of topping on the cake was the elimination the 30 minute early release for teachers. They wanted to get rid of that last year and we fought it off and here it is again this year. Again, the reason is they need that time for prep if they get rid of the student contact time prep.

If they stick to their guns on these ideas - it is going to be a long negotiations - I do not see us wanting any part of any of that - there is not a lot of negotiating room in their proposals - either you do them or you don't.

OTHER NEWS

I understand there is talk about cutting days on the facebook union site. Let me stress the importance of not cutting days.

1. If you open the days - then you will never get control of it again.
2. If you open days - you have no control over how many get cut.
3. If you open days - the district can keep all of the programs and things it wants to do and balance the budget on you pay.
4. If you open days - you hurt people who have spent a lifetime working as teachers - their retirement pay goes down.
5. If you open days - you are putting off the inevitable - will the actual amount needed to keep all of these employees EVER return. The states budget for the next two years says no. We all need to understand that the amount of money may never return to have school like it was 3-5 years ago.
6. If you open days - everyone suffers but the public. It is all on our backs.
7. If you open days - kids get more days off to go on vacations, see grandparents, play video games - but those lost educational days are lost forever.
8. If you open days - it says we don't need those days anyway.
9. Districts who have opened days - there is a growing movement that says that giving up days was a mistake and they should never have agreed to it - where does it end.

I think I could come up with a few more but I think you get the point - when we pass the levy - we will not have to worry about any of this!

By the way - the phone bank can still use your help today, tomorrow and Thursday.

Keith