ABCFT - Pictures in ReVIEW - September 21, 2018
This is a mess here but I swear it looks cool on our internal links, better luck next time hehe
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In case you’ve missed previous Weeks in Review, you can find all of them here: ABCTeachernews To find previous editions, just click on “Blog Archive” which is the menu on the right and click on the specific week.
(ABC Federation of Teachers)
In Unity
ABC Federation of Teachers
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The PD Day in August was an awesome day where teachers eased back into the groove. If we weren’t all roasting from the heat it would of been perfect. Remember, that was another way to get ½ % salary bump to all teachers. We are hoping to negotiate a similar day for next year.
ABCFT VOICE 
Ruben Mancillas, ABCFT Chief Negotiator is a strong representative for teachers locally, statewide, and nationally.
Ray Gaer, ABCFT President is also a Vice President for the California Federation of Teachers and on the PPC policy committee at the national level.
Here they are with AFT national President Randi Weingarten
ABCFT TEACHER LEADERS
The 2018-2019 ABCFT Teachers at their first meeting this year. These 11 teachers will be expanding their knowledge about the power of their teacher voice by learning about union advocacy, political activism, and educational research projects that they can take back and use in their classrooms.
THEIR VOICE IS YOUR VOICE
A Special Thank YOU to all of the wonderful ABCFT Site Representatives
Here are some great pics of our child development teachers!
TEACHERS TEACHING TEACHERS IN HEAD START!!!
MORE TEACHER LEADERS IN ACTION!
The ABCFT Executive Board and the ABC Administrative Cabinet this week got together to discuss Partnership structures and events that help to foster better communication. The ABCFT/ABCUSD labor management structures are a national model that districts from all over the country come to observe and emulate.
Contracts have been printed!
Last Wednesday, ABCFT received a pallet of freshly printed contracts. Due to the ABCFT Site Rep training going on for new and veteran site reps the next day, we were unable to get one thousand contracts sorted and ready for site reps for the the Thursday meeting. ABCFT will be distributing the hard copy contract to your site reps at the October 4th rep council. 
In the meantime, here are the links to the Human Resources page on the remodeled ABC website for the new ABCFT Master Contract as well as the link to the new 2018-2019 Salary Schedules.
Each week I work with unit members in representations, contract resolutions, email/text/phone call questions, site concerns, site visits, presentations, state/national representations and mediations. Here are some of the highlights of interest.
Another week flys by in ABC! I hope all of you had a decent week and that you have plans to relax this weekend or catch up on papers or lesson planning. I know I’ll be catching up with paperwork from the week since I wasn’t in the office much this week as I visited schools, sat in interview panels, and meetings.
Both this week and last week, ABCFT held Site Representative trainings for new and veteran site reps who want more information about how to increase teacher voice and how to represent teachers when they are needed. Each year, we have multiple days of trainings for the ABCFT Site Reps and every year we have our friend and former ABCFT President, Richard Hathaway come and help us out with the site rep training. Richard not only runs the trainings but he give an impressive history walk of ABCFT and how we have evolved as a union.
Throughout the past couple of weeks the Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources, Dr. Gina Zietlow and I have been visiting the pilot evaluation schools comprised of three elementary schools, a middle school and a high school. This pilot evaluation is mostly an update of the California Standards for the Teaching Profession that are currently embedded in the paperwork. The STP elements in California were updated in 2009 which seems like a long time ago, but our current evaluation paperwork is even older so this is an update for the elements. Furthermore, ABCFT/ABCUSD will be sending the pilot schools a special survey concerning their experiences with the current evaluation and what can be improved. ABCFT will send out a supplementary survey to all members so that we can gather additional information about the evaluation process, the paperwork, and how teachers would like the evaluation process improved. There will also be an updated evaluation handbook to help teachers with the evaluation process. Lastly, ABCFT will be talking to the medical professionals in the ABCFT unit to explore evaluation alternatives that better suit their specific job duties.
By this time you have heard about Measure BB from some of the informational items that have come from the ABC School District. Since this page is now on a private page, ABCFT can tell you that ABCFT hopes that over the next couple of months that we can count on you to help support Measure BB. IF YOU LIVE IN THE DISTRICT PLEASE VOTE YES ON MEASURE BB! This weekend I’ll write up a summary of what has happened over the last four years since the last bond and my reasoning for why you haven’t heard much until now about our support for the Measure BB Campaign. To make sure the site reps were prepared last week we had Dr. Mary Sieu discuss Measure BB to the reps and how it would impact each your schools. The ABCFT Site Reps were given a breakdown about how the money will be spent at each site if this facilities bond is passed as well.
What if this Bond doesn’t pass this time? I’ll get more into the weeds about why the bond is important in the bond explanation but the bottom line is that if this doesn’t pass than we have to begin worrying about how this will negatively impact salaries, health benefits, and working conditions. A lot of the details have to do with the state of the California budget and how they are funding our schools at this time but the bottom line is that this Measure BB is important for teachers, medical professionals, classified and administrators in ABC. This bond is about our students learning conditions which are our working conditions, it matters. Like I said, you should enjoy your weekend, catch up on sleep or whatever and next week we will fill you in on all the details about the Measure BB bond and how you can get involved in a small way. Remember, ABCFT is a YOUnion and every small thing you do for your fellow teachers MATTERS.
In Unity,
Ray Gaer
President, ABCFT
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS
National Teacher Union Leader Stands with LA Members in Strike Vote
WASHINGTON—American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten issued her full-throated support for the members of United Teachers Los Angeles, who voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike earlier this week:
“In one of the wealthiest cities in the country, students are being crowded into classrooms and schools don’t have enough counselors or nurses to meet their kids’ health and safety needs. The city’s budget is being balanced on the backs of students and teachers, and the members of UTLA have had enough.
“After 17 months of the union negotiating in good faith and making repeated requests for mediation, the district’s refusal to sit down with teachers until late September is an insult to educators and a disservice to every family in the Los Angeles Unified School District. And the proposals the district has offered fail to fund community schools, fail to put accountability measures in place for charter schools, and fail to address the overtesting issues that have left UTLA’s teachers completely out of the discussion on how to assess student performance. “What’s happened in Los Angeles is what we’ve seen in too many cities around the country: the dismantling of public education through disinvestment and privatization schemes, prompting teachers to take on this fight. We stand with UTLA every step of the way.”
- 09/20/2018
AFT and Hispanic Federation on the 1-year anniversary of Hurricane Maria
- 09/18/2018
National Teachers Union Sues for Los Angeles Superintendent’s Records
Follow AFT President Randi Weingarten: http://twitter.com/rweingarten
----- NATIONAL NEWS -----
DoE drafts Title IX misconduct regulations
The Department of Education has drafted proposed Title IX regulations on sexual misconduct on college and university campuses - with provisions including "sexual harassment” being defined as “unwelcome conduct on the basis of sex that it is so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive that it denies a person access to the school’s education program or activity” - a much narrower definition than that used by the Obama Administration. The draft indicates that sexual harassment would also include sexual assault and quid pro quo harassment. Enacted in 1972, Title IX of the Education Amendments prohibits discrimination based on sex at any educational institution that is a recipient of federal funds and includes protection from sexual harassment, including sexual violence.
----- STATE NEWS -----
State Bill could mandate later school start times
An op-ed in the San Diego Union-Tribune calls on Governor Jerry Brown to pass Senate Bill 328, which would ban middle and high schools in California from starting earlier than 8.30am. San Diego USD announced its own aims earlier this year to see all district schools starting at 8.30am or later in the next two years, following evidence that early school start times are causing problems for students, depriving 87% of high schoolers and 59% of middle schoolers of the 8.5-9.5 hours of recommended sleep per night.
San Diego Union-Tribune Bakersfield
California’s kids falling behind before they start school
A new research project aimed at charting future education policy has found that, although students in California learn at the same pace as other states, they actually arrive far behind their national peers. The research released Monday comprises 36 studies and involved more than 100 experts who examined a broad range of topics. The researchers found that if California wants to improve student achievement in schools, it has to start much earlier so that children are prepared when they show up for kindergarten. Many children “don’t have access to any care, let alone quality care,” said Stanford University education professor Deborah Stipek, one of the lead researchers. “It’s not just a problem for low-income families, although affordability is a serious issue. It’s a problem for many, many families because fewer people are going into being providers for c hild care.”
----- WORKFORCE ----
Pay hikes approved for San Dieguito staff
The San Dieguito USD board has approved pay raises for all classified employees, the same .05% increases already given to all management and certificated teachers, retroactive to July 1st 2017. The district is projecting a $3.7m deficit for the 2018-19 school year; trustee John Salazar, who voted against the increase, said: “There gets to be a time when we look at the budget and say we just can’t afford this. To put bad on bad, the retroactive pay raise is ridiculous. It doesn’t happen in the real world, I’d never heard of it until I became a member of this board. I think it’s absurd.”
----- HEALTH & WELLBEING -----
Study: 1 in 11 teens has vaped marijuana
New research has revealed that one in every 11 teens has used marijuana in electronic cigarettes. Of the 20,000 teens surveyed in the school-based study, 9% self-reported that they had vaped marijuana. That extrapolates to 2.1m middle and high school students using e-cigarettes to get high on cannabis products. The study authors, affiliated with the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion’s Office on Smoking and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, also found that young people who lived with a tobacco user were more likely to report using e-cigs to vape marijuana.
.----- OTHER -----
NTA Life Insurance - An ABCFT Sponsor
About three years ago ABCFT stated a working relationship with National Teachers Associates Life Insurance Company. Throughout our partnership, NTA has been supportive of ABCFT activities by sponsorship and prizes for our various events. This organization specializes in providing insurance for educators across the nation. We have been provided both data and member testimonials about how pleased they have been with the NTA products and the opportunity to look at alternatives to the district insurance choice.
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