PCTA Action: October 30, 2007

  CONTRACT RATIFIED BY WIDE MARGIN

In voting Wednesday, October 24, Pinellas teachers ratified the 2007-2008 economic package by a vote of 4264 in favor to 508 against. The 87% margin of victory reflects the overwhelming support for the agreement since the infusion of "referendum" money three years ago. "I'm pleased this is finally done," said PCTA President Kim Black. "Our members haven't had to wait this long for a raise in modern history." The lengthy delay was caused by the failure of the legislature to reach agreement on filling a one billion dollar hole in the state's budget. "Isn't it ironic that half of our budget loss was made up by the delay in implementing the Merit Award Program (MAP) and also by the money Pinellas and 48 other counties sent back to Tallahassee," Black added. "I want to thank the Association leaders, staff, and district who patiently worked to put this together."

BARGAINING NOW READY TO RESUME FOR NEXT YEAR

Another consequence of the three month delay in bargaining is that it has held up the teams that will be working on a number of very important issues for next year. Pinellas' bargaining model is built around the principles of continual improvement. This organizes issues into three categories, addressed by three standing committees - Employee Well-Being and Satisfaction; Employee Work Systems and Employee Education and Training. These three committees work under the general coordination of a Bargaining Leadership Team, comprised of top district and organization officials and the Chairs of the Committees.

Earlier this year, the Leadership Team made a slight restructuring in the make-up of the committees, allocating four members to PCTA, two to PESPA, two to PAA (the administrators group), two to PBA and Florida Services Union/SEIU #1220 (if they choose to participate). District staff necessary for the Committee's work will then be assigned to the Committees. "Our old system of unlimited access had allowed the Committees to have much of their work focused on very narrow issues," said PCTA Executive Director Jade Moore. The intent of the original design was to have these Committees do both short-term and long-term problem solving and, given the huge issues we face with the end of Choice, the Class Size Amendment, declining enrollment, inadequate funding and other challenges, we had to have a more dynamic model.

Association and union officials are in the process of appointing their members. Once that is done and they select their chairs, the newly constituted Leadership Team will begin identifying issues that are high priorities. These will, without a doubt, include the question of increases in insurance premiums; the schedule for middle and high school; the role of training and on and on. More on these as the process continues.

RALLY FOR RENEWAL SCHEDULED FOR NOVEMBER 6

PCTA is inviting members and guests to the kick off of the referendum campaign to extend the half mil local property tax for schools that was passed in 2004. The Rally will be held in the auditorium of Pinellas Park High School, Tuesday, November 6 at 4:45 p.m. The School Board is voting to put the renewal of the levy to, "recruit and retain high quality teachers; preserve reading programs and music and art classes and provide up-to-date textbooks and technology..." on the January 29^th primary ballot. Since it passed just three years ago, the half-mil (a tax of less than $100 on the average Pinellas home) has pumped $100 million into the district's budget. "We can only imagine how bad things would have been without referendum funds," said President Black. All members of PCTA are invited to the Rally. RSVP to PCTA at 727-585-6518.

SCHOOL CALENDAR COMMITTEE STUDIES A NUMBER OF CHANGES FOR 2008-2009

The School Calendar Committee is made up of representatives from employee and parent groups and district and site administrators. Each year, they address the task of recommending a calendar within the restraints of state law that will be pleasing to employees, parents, students and the community. The School Board then makes the final decision in December. Some of the ‘rules' are:

• There must be 180 student days, 198 teacher days and 196 support days. (Six teacher and support days may be paid holidays. This results in 12 non-student days for teachers and 10 for support.)
• There must be four days identified as training days for instructional staff.
• School for kids cannot start more than 10 days before Labor Day

"Self-imposed" rules include:

• Sensitivity to different faiths in scheduling activities, like graduation, and holidays.
• Appreciation of the fact that there are a significant number of year-round employees and students.
• Avoiding breaks that might interfere with FCAT testing and high school exams.
• Trying to provide holidays for students when parents might also be off.

With that background, here are some of the changes being contemplated by the Committee:

• Elimination of all early release days except for the last day of school.
• With a six day pre-school, have one day designated for district training, one for school-based.
• Reduce the number of training days the week before Thanksgiving from two to one. [These are the wildly popular trade days. Each year over 8,000 teachers have taken training on their own time to earn these days. - Editor] Other trade days would have to be determined through the bargaining process. There must be a minimum of two, currently there are five.)
• October 17 (State Professional Day) would be a district training day, as would February 16 (President's Day) to fulfill the state's four training day requirement.
• Veteran's Day, November 11, would be a regular school day.

"As you can see, there are some real changes," said PCTA Executive Director Jade Moore. "We will be asking our Faculty Representatives on November 1 for guidance from our members to help the six PCTA representatives on the Committee fashion the calendar. Along with the appropriate recognition of Veteran's Day, there are two ‘hot topics':

• Early Release Days. These have been a part of our calendar since the 1990's. They were placed in the calendar to assist schools in working through the school improvement planning process - they then morphed into training days and then into a variety of activities from planning (good) to three hour faculty meetings (bad). By last year, the Association's representatives voted to eliminate them as unworthy of the trouble it created in scheduling, etc. A reprieve was granted, over the Association's objection, because of the large number of state and district mandated trainings. Unfortunately, these days were counted as two of the state required four.
• Training days, trade days, etc. Our members tell us they are better trained than "Best in Show" at Westminster. Early in the quality movement, it was determined that the ‘best' training was the training that teachers selected for themselves. The exceptions were ‘job specific' training (like new curriculum) or training for struggling teachers. Over time this went through its transformation with greater demands for flexibility for faculties to design their own training and district needs to keep up with the annual variation from Tallahassee. Trade days were a unique (to Pinellas) solution to this. By offering days off, teachers would be able to be fully compensated for training during the summer, weekends and after school. It was an improvement over stipends and other incentives, particularly for the first two days which promised a week off at Thanksgiving. The number of days grew to five and were expanded to include on-line training. Now the squeeze is on the limited days in the calendar. This is a bargaining issue as well as a calendar issue, but gets at the heart of training requirements.

We want our members to talk with their Faculty Reps and we want our Faculty Reps to collect data. In the end, you and your students, not the district staff or the School Board have to live the calendar everyday. Let us hear from you.