ABCFT - Week in Review - January 25, 2019
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(ABC Federation of Teachers)
In Unity
ABC Federation of Teachers
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Previous Editions of The Week in Review
UTLA Strike Aftermath
By now you’ve heard about the ending of the UTLA Strike and there was a trickle of information about what was really accomplished for education. Many labor union historians are saying that this strike and the preparation that went into this strike was perhaps one of the best organized labor strikes in the history of labor. The union leadership of UTLA had been working with UTLA members and the community in preparation of the strike for over two years to make sure that all parties had a say in what was important for all stakeholders. UTLA members were activated and informed monthly over the course of two years on the progress of negotiations and how they could engage the parents of the community for the betterment of learning conditions for their students.
There are a few key things that happened that helped those at the bargaining table to reach a settlement after a six day strike. Most importantly, we all heard in the media and from parents and students the message that, “teachers were striking for their students” and that the learning environment of their classrooms were being impacted by the number of students in their classroom. I don’t believe I heard any UTLA member, student, or parent say that this strike was about teachers wages so everyone stayed on message. This is important because it helped to change the perception of the strike and kept the focus of the strike on the classroom conditions. Any discussion about classroom conditions leads to discussions among parents, community leaders, and legislators that more monies need to go to education. It should go without saying that if there is more funding for our classrooms, than there will be more money for teacher salaries, benefits, nurses, mental health professionals etc.
The UTLA Strike was able to put pressure on State and local leaders to pitch in to support the means to resolve the contract negotiations. It is significant importance that LAUSD is the second largest school district in the United States so the pressure that this strike was able to exert on authorities was far more significant than a much smaller school district could exert on the process of negotiations. For example, newly installed Governor, Gavin Newsom was able to propose in his preliminary budget extra monies for the negotiating table by giving $3 billion dollars to help districts offset 1% of the mandated contribution for STRS. This will give every district in California a little bit of extra money for negotiations but long term it is less than .5% ongoing base money. Ongoing base money is what pays teacher salaries. Another example is Los Angeles County of Supervisors was able to free up money to help support the hiring of 150 full-time nurses. What is more important here is that the demand for these classrooms supports were the focus which will put more pressure on legislators to create additional supports for nurses and mental health professionals.
UTLA was able to resolve two major areas of contention in their master contract. First, was getting the Board of Education to call on the state to establish a charter school cap and the creation of a Governor’s committee on charter schools. This is significant because LAUSD public schools are not being invested in and maintained as the growth of charter schools in LAUSD goes unchecked. The second most important victory for UTLA was to get contract language that not only decreased their class sizes (only for math/ELA) but also for eliminating a section of the contract that allowed the district to ignore all class size averages and caps. A few other highlights are the inclusion of a nurse in every school, community school language and a 6% wage increase for 2017-2019 which puts them about average in LA County.
What does the UTLA strike settlement mean for ABC teachers and medical professionals?
The ABCFT negotiating team has been studying the specific language of the settlement for ideas and additional language that we can include in our 2020 Master Contract Negotiations. The ABCFT and ABCUSD master contract is in effect until July 2020, but we will go into salary negotiations in May of this year. As of today, we will be attending a district budget meeting on Feb 7th with all the other bargaining units to see how the proposed Governor’s budget will impact ABC. ABCFT negotiating team members have already looked over the state budget and we have received an analysis of the state budget from the California Federation of Teachers. We will pass on all this gathered information and a narrative of the budget shortly after the February 7th budget meeting with ABCUSD Chief Financial Officer.
In the next month, ABCFT will be creating a member survey to get priorities to take to the district LCAP input meetings. So far, we have heard from members the importance of reduced TK-3 class sizes, increased availability of nurses, and mental health services for our student. We will advocate for where the LCAP dollars should be spent based on what our members request.
ABCFT will continue to follow the aftermath of the UTLA Strike and its impact on the perception of education funding and what concrete legislative changes we hope to see over the Spring and Summer of 2019.
Stay tuned.
MEET A MEMBER
The ABCFT YOUnion is made up of 1,100 great teachers and medical professionals and each one of us has a story to tell. Each week we will highlight a member of ABCFT.
Meet Megan Harding in her 22nd year as a Social Studies teacher currently working at Cerritos High School. For many years, Megan has served on the district Health Committee as a strong advocate of health benefits for ABCFT members.
If you could give ”first year teacher you” advice what would it be?
Find a friend at your site! Someone who you can vent to, get ideas from and have fun with :)
Why did you get involved in the Union?
Veteran teachers at my site encouraged me to get involved- there were so many opportunities for professional growth, it wasn't JUST the contract!
Describe a day in the life of being a Rep at your site.
Often just giving advise and hopefully support. Working out problems or talking about them before they get out of hand.
What is your favorite movie/show, song, or book?
I could watch Dirty Dancing or Top Gun 100x and maybe have! Awww, sounds like we have a hopeless romantic here people.
Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter...MySpace?
Mostly Instagram.
What do you do for fun?
Watch my boys play baseball and football.
Do you have a bucket list?
I’d like to visit Italy, Wrigley Field, and cruise the Panama Canal.
If you could have a superpower what would it be?
Read minds :)
Thank you Megan for sharing your story with the ABCFT community.
If you’d like to be featured in the Meet a Member Click this link here.
MEET OUR ABCFT Teacher Leaders (repeat)
Since October, the 2018-19 ABCFT Teacher Leaders have been hard at work researching and formulating their question for their Action Research. Each participant selects an education related topic with the end result of affecting policy. While they are exploring their topic of interest they also learn about the national, state and local union issues. Delving into such topics as class size, curriculum, working conditions, special education supports, and the effects of the landmark Janus decision. All the while working as full time teachers in ABC! Yes, you are looking at a group of hardworking strong union activists.
Pictured from left to right: Stefani Palutzke (AHS), Catherine Pascual (AHS), Sharon Zamora (Wittmann), Marivel Aguirre (Carver), Susie Gomez (Fedde), LeAnn Gause (CHS), and Erika Cook (Cerritos El). Not pictured are Claudia Fontoura (Elliott), Jennifer Marcus (Aloha), and Facilitators Kelley Forsythe (Neimes) and Tanya Golden.
JANUARY ABCFT ACADEMIC SERVICES UPDATE (repeat)
Each month Connie Nam and Rich Saldana work with Beth Bray and Carol Castro to provide teacher input about professional development, curriculum changes and testing changes. ABCFT believes that the biggest working condition impacting teachers are the key curriculum and the professional development being churned out of academic services. Many times the district is implementing changes that are coming from the State of California but rarely do unions get involved in those changes. ABCFT believes that teacher voice helps to provide the district office with classroom advice and input that helps to deliver better comprehensive changes. Each month at the ABCFT Representative Council Rich and Connie give reports and take questions on all things related to academic services. Here is the report for the month of January.
HEALTH BENEFITS UPDATE (December report repeated)
Every December starts the process for the district health committee to look at the health usage data from the previous year and preparations with the broker for anticipated changes from the health providers.
ABCFT has three representatives on this committee which is made up of all the bargaining groups and administration. Each group has equal representation which gives us a 25% stake when voting. For this reason, we work closely with our CSEA and AFSCME sisters and brother about possible changes or messaging to our members. This year we would like to recruit an ABCFT member who would be interested in becoming an alternate representative. If you think you would like to be on the ABCFT Health Committee team please contact us at abcft@abcusd.us and let us know.
Megan Harding who is the ABCFT Vice President of Secondary and ABCFT health committee point person has filed this report for the membership as we enter a new year of negotiations for health benefits. In Megan’s presentation to the ABCFT Rep Council this week she discussed how important it is for ABC to have a viable alternative to Kaiser since it give the the ABC Health Committee negotiating leverage when speaking with their representatives. If Kaiser has a monopoly on health plans in ABC then they can raise rates with impunity which would be bad for all employees. Therefore, the ABC Health Committee is working with the broker to improve the services offered by the Blue Shield Trio plan. At this time the coverage in Trio’s Orange County offerings is better than the Trio coverage in Los Angeles County and the committee is working to improve the Los Angeles County coverage.
Here are some other highlights from Megan’s report from the health committee.
- Rates for the last year are trending well- this means that there should be no need to increase rates.
- There were 20 people that left Blue Shield (largely due to retirements)
- 2 More people chose the Trio plan
- 7 People joined Kaiser
- New hires have not yet been calculated
- Open Enrollment went smooth
- This year we will continue to investigate the financial impact on richer vision benefits.
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.
It's another short but long week as secondary teachers are wrapping up their first semester's grades so they are a little stressed out right now and elementary teachers are focused on what they need to cover before the testing window is upon us. In other words, business as usual and the weather is beautiful (knock on wood).
Over the last week I spent three days on a new teacher focus group for the American Federation of Teachers in Washington D.C. I was invited to this exploratory group to represent ABCFT as a voice on how unions and researchers can work together to focus on how to support new teachers when they come into education. Currently , of the 3.5 million teachers in the United States there is a 8% turnover of teachers yearly with 9% of all new teachers leaving within the first year. Also included in this group were researchers from Harvard, Brown, Berkeley, Cal State Sacramento and Linda Darling-Hammond. A smaller subgroup of six new teachers were chosen from a larger new teacher focus group. AFT will be creating literature from this focus group that will guide unions and legislators on how to best support new teachers in hopes of reducing the turnover in most school districts. ABC is far below the national average in teacher turnover and I hope to use the information I’ve gathered to provide contract language and supports specifically for new teachers to ABC. 
Next week, I plan to catch everyone up on the information I’ve collected from my work with CFT and AFT over the past two weeks. I’m trying to catch up with some of the projects and cases I’m currently working on so please excuse the brevity of my comments this week.
In Unity,
Ray Gaer
President, ABCFT
CALIFORNIA FEDERATION OF TEACHERS
CFT provides members important information about professional issues and workplace rights through numerous newsletters and publications. You can find a summary of each publication below and download the current issue of each newsletter. Click on the links to read some stories online, to get more information or contact the editor, and to access the archives.
As the CFT's flagship publication, California Teacher contains news and information that affects all members. It also contains news specific to each division of the CFT. California Teacher is published four times during the academic year. All members receive California Teacher.
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS
AFT President Randi Weingarten Reacts to Tentative Agreement for Los Angeles Teachers
Dear AFT executive council, PPC members, state fed presidents and local union presidents,
Yesterday, our union family in Los Angeles overwhelmingly ratified a far-reaching, game-changing agreement that UTLA reached with the Los Angeles Unified School District earlier that morning. While the new collective bargaining agreement must still be voted on by the school board, UTLA members are showing good faith by going back to work today after the historic six-day strike.
The new contract represents a paradigm shift – moving away from a culture of disinvestment and blaming teachers to providing resources and conditions that support educators, students, families and communities. Based on this agreement, every school will have a nurse present on every school day, there will be school counselors for every 500 students and a librarian will be in every secondary school five days a week.
Educators also will receive a much deserved 6% pay increase over the two years of the contract and the district will reduce testing by 50 percent. The parties agreed to increase investment in community schools and established a pathway to cap charter schools. A key issue – class size – was addressed and hard caps were put in place that immediately lower class sizes in the upcoming school year. And, progress was made on demands for ending random searches, expanding green space in schools and supporting immigrant families. You can click on the UTLA’s website to download a more detailed term sheet: https://www.utla.net/news/
This agreement was reached with the solidarity of within our members ranks and the support of Los Angeles parents, community leaders, unions in Los Angeles and around the country and residents who just wanted to see neighborhood schools flourish.
In the days and weeks ahead, we’ll share more information about the strike and its successful outcome and for those attending the executive council meeting in February we’ll have a chance to offer our heart-felt congratulations to UTLA president and our brother, Alex Caputo-Pearl, and to hear him speak about the strike and how UTLA is moving forward.
Also attached is my statement issued last night that notes this strike and the settlement reached demonstrate that we can win the investment needed to meet the dreams and aspirations of the students we serve.
Thank you all for the outpour of support for our brothers and sisters in Los Angeles.
In Unity,
Randi
Follow AFT President Randi Weingarten: http://twitter.com/rweingarten
----- NEWS STORY HIGHLIGHT-----
LA teachers head back to class after six-day strike
Teachers in Los Angeles will be back in their classrooms today, after approving a deal struck by their union, United Teachers of Los Angeles, with Los Angeles USD. LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner said the agreement included a 6% raise, additional staffing at schools, and a reduction to class sizes, covering the union’s major demands, with $403m to be spent through 2022 to add nurses, counselors and librarians at schools. The agreement calls for a drop of one student per class next year in grades four through 12, one more the year after and two more the year after that; it also removes a contract provision that has allowed the school district to increase class sizes in times of economic hardship. UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl said preliminary numbers from the vote showed “a vast super-majority” in favor of the deal. "It's a historic day today in Los Angeles," he said. "Our members after a strike that began on Monday January 14th are going to be heading back to school, to the students that they love and the classrooms that they love and the schools that they love and are committed to." Before it can take effect, the deal must be reviewed by the Los Angeles County Office of Education, which will report on whether it thinks L.A. Unified can afford the terms. The L.A. school board has scheduled a vote for January 29th.
----- NATIONAL NEWS -----
VP says criticism of wife’s job at anti-LGBT Christian school is ‘deeply offensive to us’
Vice President Mike Pence has responded to criticism of his wife Karen’s decision to teach at a private school that seeks to exclude homosexual and transgender students and staff members. In an employment application, Immanuel Christian School requires applicants to agree that marriage can be only between a man and a woman. It also describes “heterosexual activity outside of marriage (e.g., premarital sex, cohabitation, extramarital sex), [and] homosexual or lesbian sexual activity” as “moral misconduct”. Mr Pence said: "We have a rich tradition in America of Christian education and, frankly, religious education broadly defined. We celebrate it. The freedom of religion is enshrined in the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution prohibits a religious test for holding a public office and so we’ll let the other critics roll off our back, but this criticism of Christian education in America should stop.”
Democrats tightening up on education policy scrutiny
As they take charge of the House and its committees, House Democrats are preparing to bring Education Secretary Betsy DeVos under sharper scrutiny, with at least four panels expected to mount increasing challenges to the department's most polarizing policies. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat leading an appropriations subcommittee that oversees the education budget, has said: “It has to do with hurting student borrowers, protecting predatory for-profit schools and, above all, moving toward privatizing public education.”
----- STATE NEWS -----
State Superintendent Tony Thurmond makes key appointments
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond announced on Friday that he has appointed Kindra Britt as Director of Communications for the California Department of Education, replacing outgoing director Bill Ainsworth. Ms Britt most recently served as Community Affairs Director for the Placer County Office of Education, where she started nearly 12 years ago as a Career Technical Education Instructor. Mr Thurmond also said he has appointed Khieem Jackson as Deputy Superintendent for the Department’s Government Affairs Division. He takes the position from Debra Brown, who is now the Director of Education and Government Relations at Children Now in Sacramento.
California’s special education enrollment on the up
Special education enrollment has surged in the last decade, with more than 96,000 students pouring into school districts across the state, according to data from the California Department of Education. The surge has put pressure on some school district budgets and administrative support systems in the Central Valley and beyond. Recent estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder jumped 16% between 2012 and 2014. Although the medical and education definitions are not the same, California schools saw an 18% increase in autism enrollment for the same period.
----- DISTRICTS -----
SF USD struggles to stem rising absenteeism rates
Chronic absenteeism is on the rise in San Francisco’s public schools, particularly among African American students, despite focused efforts in recent years to tackle long standing disparities. At 11%, the number of chronically absent students across the district was on a three year high in the fall of 2018, but the percentage of black students regularly missing school was almost three times higher, at 29%. Chronic absenteeism in that group rose from 24% to 34%.
LA teacher strike costs district $151m
As striking Los Angeles USD teachers returned to their classrooms yesterday, after “a vast super-majority” of United Teachers Los Angeles members voted to approve a new agreement, the district revealed that the total cost of the six-day strike was $151.4m. The figure is based on student attendance figures; the drop-off in pupil numbers cost the district a minimum of $21.7m per day. The district notes that all the numbers provided were what were available at the time of reporting, and that attendance needs to be validated. Average daily attendance funds all California schools and is the single largest source of revenue for districts.
Oakland teachers participate in ‘sick out’
Teachers and support staff from across Oakland USD on Friday joined together for a one-day “sick out” to protest the stalemate in ongoing contract negotiations for the teachers’ union. The demonstrators aid the action was to call for smaller class sizes and competitive wages. “They have the money. they just don’t put it in the right places,” said 7th grade science teacher Paul Antony-Levine. “We spend more on administrators and consultants than any other district in the Bay Area and less on teachers than any other district in the Bay Area. So obviously someone can do the math. Maybe we just need to hire more math teachers.”
Parents and teachers demand emergency delay of Oakland school closures
Justice for Oakland Schools, a group of parents, teachers and former school board members is demanding that Oakland USD delays a decision to shutter dozens of schools to close the district’s $30m budget gap. It has sent letters to three state assembly members, Rob Bonta, Nancy Skinner and Buffy Wicks, urging them to put pressure on state officials to halt the closures, arguing that the state is “largely responsible for the financial and educational issues facing Oakland.” The group is demanding an audit of a $100m loan issued when the state took over the district in 2003.
LA charter school teachers remain on strike
The strike by Los Angeles Unified School District teachers has ended, but educators at local charter schools represented by United Teachers Los Angeles are still out of their classrooms. Around 80 teachers at the Accelerated Schools Charter Network have been on strike since January 15th, hoping to get better salaries as well as health benefits and better job protections. In a statement, the charter network said: "In hopes of averting a strike, TAS presented UTLA with a new offer that included a process for teachers with strong performance evaluations to receive a guaranteed two-year contract with a $2,000 bonus upon completion. UTLA refused the offer.
----- LEGAL -----
LA teacher sues union over dues
A Los Angeles USD teacher has filed a federal class-action lawsuit this week against United Teachers Los Angeles, alleging the union continued to take dues out of her paycheck despite a change in law that bars public-sector unions from forcing members to pay. Porter Ranch Community School educator Irene Seager signed a card that authorized the deduction of union dues from her paycheck in April, which was a requirement of her employment at the time; however, two months later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Janus vs. AFSCME that public employees in certain states, including California, could not be forced to pay dues to support unions.
----- CHILD DEVELOPMENT ----
Early cognitive ability strongly predicts later potential
Early adult general cognitive ability (GCA), the skills involved in thinking, is a stronger predictor of cognitive function and reserve later in life than other factors - even higher education, occupational complexity or engaging in late-life intellectual activities, according to a new study in PNAS. The study authors emphasized that education is of "great value" and can enhance a person's overall cognitive ability and life outcomes, and also speculated that the role of education in increasing GCA takes place primarily during childhood and adolescence when there is still substantial brain development.
-----CHARTER SCHOOLS -----
FYI - The AFT represents 7,500 members at 237 charter schools in 15 states and the District of Columbia. Since summer 2017, educators at 12 charter schools have joined the union.
School choice agenda challenged
School choice critic Carol Burris, a former New York high school principal who now serves as executive director of the nonprofit Network for Public Education, considers the relevance of National School Choice Week, the privately-funded charter advocacy group headed by, she notes, a president who used to work for Betsy DeVos at the American Federation for Children - a 501(c)(4) lobbying and advocacy group. "In study after study, when it comes to academics, students in charters overall do no better than students in true public schools, and the preponderance of research on vouchers show that students who leave public schools for private or religious schools do the same or worse," she argues.
----- TECHNOLOGY -----
Microsoft taking the education market fight to Google
Tech giant Microsoft has announced a raft of new Windows laptops and other products aimed at taking back the education market from Chromebooks. Google has captured almost 60% of the U.S. education laptop and tablet market with its Chromebooks, and has already leveraged that success to start pushing more expensive Chromebooks into the business market.
----- HIGHER EDUCATION -----
Cal State aims to boost enrollment
California State University says it will aim to enroll thousands more Californians, and step up support to help them graduate sooner, after receiving a $300m increase in state funding, proposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Cal State, he noted, is central to that task as it trains about half of the state’s teachers, more than half of the nurses and other students who specialize in business, engineering, information technology, agriculture, communications, health and public administration. Cal State Chancellor Timothy P. White hailed Newsom’s “bold investment,” the single largest proposed investment by any governor in the history of the 23-campus system.
Three California colleges rank among the hardest schools to get into in the U.S.
College ranking site Niche just released its ranking of America's most selective colleges for 2019. Pomona College in Claremont was ranked as the 15th-hardest school to get into, while Stanford University claimed the No. 2 spot on the list, behind Harvard. Another California school that made the top 15 was in Southern California; the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena came in at No. 3.
----- OTHER -----
Parkland survivors share their stories
Students and teachers who lived through last year's high school shootings in Florida have published a new book, entitled “Parkland Speaks: Survivors from Marjory Stoneman Douglas Share Their Stories,” sharing their experiences. “I lost my sense of innocence. I lost my sense of security. I lost my ability to see the world as I had only hours earlier. I would give anything to go back,” reveals journalism teacher Sarah Lerner, who edited the paperback of essays, poems, photos and art.
Rich parents in the US expect to spend up to 3 times more money than everyone else on their kids
The typical American parent expects to spend around $348,000 per kid over the course of their lifetime, according to wealth management company Personal Capital's 2018 Affluent Family Finances Report. However, the wealthiest families expect to spend an average of $711,000 per child. Part of the disparity comes from the fact that affluent parents are willing, and, more importantly, able to invest in their children's education. More than 60% report that they plan to spend on education between kindergarten and senior year of high school. And a full 70% of survey respondents say they plan to pay for their kids to go to college.
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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