ABCFT YOUnionews for May 13, 2022
KEEPING YOU INFORMED - Negotiations Update By Ruben Mancillas
Next week, Ray, Tanya, and I will attend the School Services May Revision workshop via an online webinar. The negotiating team is in the midst of bargaining our master contract but the timeline for our annual salary and benefits process continues as well. Every May the state releases new, updated budget projections based on the most recent tax revenue information. The Governor’s initial budget thus has more accurate numbers and the funding of Prop. 98 and the amount of money districts will be receiving becomes more clear. These are the numbers that are used to determine next year’s COLA or Cost of Living Adjustment, which is the basis for the number of dollars available for ongoing compensation.
The school board will have the opportunity to see our master contract proposal during the closed session of next Tuesday night’s meeting. In answer to the question, “will we have a new master contract before the end of the school year?”, the answer is, yes, that is our intent. We remain optimistic yet cognizant that we only have so many days remaining to come to an agreement and complete the ratification process.
Next month is when we are scheduled to receive one check which combines the 5% retro portion of this year’s bargained raise, the 1% off-schedule compensation, as well as retroactive payments for those members who teach an additional period option. We are awaiting district documentation of the STIS contracts on a site-by-site basis so that members can review and sign off on these sheets. We will then be able to determine an expected date for STIS compensation.
In Unity,
SPOTLIGHT ON MEMBERS - TEACHER LEADERS SHOWCASE By Tanya Golden
Last Tuesday, in collaboration with our national affiliate, AFT, ABCFT hosted the 5th annual Teacher Leaders showcase, virtually.
The intent of the program is for each participant to choose an educational-related policy to complete their action research. Since October the Teacher Leaders have met virtually twice monthly after completing their primary job as teachers where the fabulous co-facilitator Erika Cook, a teacher from Cerritos Elementary, has guided them through the cycle of inquiry that supported their research journey. The Teacher Leaders have also had an opportunity to grow professionally and personally by having structured time to learn together and practice advocacy, collaboration, and build relationships with teachers they may have never met otherwise. A memorable aspect of the Teacher leaders program is the community they create with the personal and professional bonds they form. It is so rewarding to experience the love and respect the Teacher Leaders have for one another as they support their peers throughout the program. The Teacher Leaders also learn about ABCFT’s history, our union work and the partnership with the district.
This year’s action research topics come directly from ABC classrooms and the work of ABC teachers. The action research topics are:
A Look at English Language Development in ABCUSD by Linda Baas from Kennedy Elementary School
Elementary Student Success Team by Izabela Lewis from Melbourne Elementary School
Multicultural Literature and English Language Learners by LaMonica Smith-Bryson from Whitney High School
The Teacher Leaders Program is another way for members to become involved in their union and make a difference with education related policies. ABCFT now has 45 members that have completed this powerful program with over 70% of the Teacher Leaders also active in our local union and serving on our state and national affiliate’s committees as well. The work of the Teachers Leaders has also guided the work of ABCFT by offering mindfulness and writing workshops for teachers and advocating with the district on topics such as restorative practices, student and teacher wellness, and how parents can support student success. We are looking forward to supporting the recommendations of this year’s teacher leaders.
I would like to thank each Teacher Leader for an exceptional job, for persevering, and for sharing their important action research. Once their action research papers are finalized, we will share the documents so you are able to learn more about each Teacher Leaders action research and their recommendations based on their findings.
MEMBER VOICE MATTERS: Sign Up - Earn Money by Participating in Focus Groups For - EDUCATORS THRIVING - Only Three Short Virtual Meetings
The ABC Federation of Teachers has been selected by the American Federation of Teachers to participate in the groundbreaking research focus group for the AFT’s partnership with Educators Thriving. Only four locals in the nation have been asked to participate in this Focus Group activity. Your input in these focus groups will provide Educators Thriving with data that will help them develop and define a national wellness program that will be made available to all 1.7 million AFT members. ABCFT members, this is your opportunity to MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN EDUCATION!
Here is more information from Educators Thriving
We have an exciting opportunity to define educator well-being with fellow educators from across the country. You are invited to share your perspective on educator well-being with Educators Thriving, who have been brought in by the American Federation of Teachers.
A few logistics…
You choose a series of 3, 90-minute focus groups held on Zoom (form below).
We value your time, and pay you $225 upon completion of all three 90-minute sessions.
We will not record these conversations, but we will take notes.
You would stay with the same 5-8 educators for all three focus groups.
To be a part of equipping leaders with your definition of well-being at work, share your interest and availability here. Feel free to email Laura and Hallie of Educators Thriving if you have any questions.
We look forward to learning what structures and support you seek to be well at work.
Educators Thriving offers research-based personal development to help educators achieve well-being.
Through the program, participants learn concrete strategies to help them avoid and manage the most common pitfalls of the educator experience: being overwhelmed, personal neglect, struggling with a fixed mindset, unexpected challenges, and isolation. Through evaluation and consultation, partners learn bright spots and areas for strategic improvement to create the conditions in which every educator can thrive.
MEMBER-ONLY RESOURCES - Asian American ans Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander Heritage Month
Asian American and Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander Heritage Month
Did you know? The month of May was chosen to commemorate the arrival of the first Japanese immigrants to the United States on May 7, 1843, during the beginning of the California Gold Rush. It also marks the anniversary of the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad on May 10, 1869. Most of the workers who laid the tracks that connected the frontier to the rest of the country were Chinese immigrants. Many years after the initial waves of immigration, the official celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month began as a shorter, 10-day celebration in 1977; however, President George H.W. Bush expanded it to a month-long commemoration in 1992.
Interested in learning more about the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month? Check out the Smithsonian’s resources and engage with music, history and culture spanning centuries.
Explore the journeys of America's Japanese and Chinese immigrants during the 19th century in this exhibit from the University of California.
AANHPI Heritage: Documenting Journeys
Join the Share My Lesson community in celebrating the generations of Asian and Pacific Islander Americans who have enriched global society, playing a critical role in its development and success. With our wealth of prek-12 digital resources, you and your students can explore the remarkable contributions that AANHPI Americans have given to history, culture, the sciences, industry, government, and more. In addition to recognizing the vast achievements of the AANHPI community, work with your students and community to understand diverse perspectives and the difficult struggles that AANHPI Americans have grappled with throughout the history of the United States. In this tailored collection, you’ll find resources, activities, and lesson plans that cover subjects like:
MEMBERS-ONLY RESOURCES - STUDENT DEBT CLINIC
Save the date:
Tuesday, May 31st at 3:30 p.m.
More information to follow.
ACADEMIC SERVICES UPDATE
This month’s academic service update is vital for all teachers. We hope that you will take a moment to look at this monthly report which discusses changes in academic services. This document provides the union with a means of giving the District feedback on the many programs or changes they are proposing at any one time. Without your feedback or questions on these changes, it is harder for ABCFT to slow down and modify the district’s neverending rollout of new projects. Please submit your comments and questions to the appropriate ABCFT liaison.
For Elementary curricular issues please email Kelley at Kelley.Forsythe@abcusd.us if you have any questions or concerns.
For Secondary curricular issues please email Rich at Richard.Saldana@abcusd.us if you have any questions or concerns.
Click Here For This Month’s Full Report
ABCFT PRESIDENT’S REPORT - Ray Gaer
Communication is a union’s most important tool for advocating for its members at the bargaining table. Every conversation with the membership is focused on the end result of negotiating for the future prosperity and well-being of ABCFT members. This weekly report aims to keep the membership informed about issues that impact their working/learning conditions and their mental well-being. Together we make the YOUnion.
“So the Partnership is dead, right?” - From an ABCFT member shortly after we passed the compensation MOU a couple of months ago.
The question above has haunted me for many months since our Work to Rule Campaign which now seems like a decade ago but was only a couple of months ago. The short answer is NO. The Labor-Management Partnership between the ABC Federation of Teachers and the ABCUSD Administration/School Board has been developing and evolving for almost twenty-five years. This partnership was started many years ago because all of the organizations now involved were tired of working at cross purposes and wanted to heal some of the wounds of the 8-day strike of 1993. As an example of the depth of damage a strike can cause and how lasting the wounds can be I can say that I was at the first joint meeting in 2005 between CSEA, AFSCME, ABCFT, and ABC Administration. Until that year it was nearly impossible to persuade the leaders of the labor unions to be in the same room to have any kind of productive conversation. The old wounds of the strike were personal but the concept of labor management was an attractive alternative to discuss collectively in 2005.
How I was able to coax everyone in the room in 2005 is a long story but the short story is that I created a calendar abomination SO BAD that everyone in the district blamed me for the one-year move of Spring Break away from the traditional Easter holiday. Gavin Riley, then the ABCFT chief negotiator, decided to take a cruise as he often did but before he left he turned to me and said, “You can negotiate the calendar for next year, it’s a no brainer.” Those words could not have been more false. Not only did I manage to negotiate a calendar that screwed up everyone's Spring Break but I managed to enrage the CSEA and AFSCME presidents so badly that they personally reached out to me to loudly complain about this sudden move of Spring Break. I ate a ton of crow and realized from that point I needed to listen more. For those of you that were around then you might remember that strange year where we didn’t take our holiday around the time of Easter. Then Superintendent Dr. Gary Smuts christened me the “bunny killer” which he laughed about till the day he retired in 2011.
Consequently, conversations among the unions and the district about working on a collectively negotiated calendar began to heal the wound of the strike. The three labor unions began talking regularly about topics that became common ground. This change in communication resulted in agreeing to regular calendar meetings, collective furlough days during the recession of 2007 to save jobs, and agreeing to a week-long break for Thanksgiving. Together we began to engage with an employee voice that has positively served the employees, the district, the school board, and most importantly the students of ABC. Administrators have worked with employees to roll out successful programs, and district-wide changes, and basked in the glow of student achievement. The school board has a choir-size collection of Golden Bell awards and award-winning schools. While employee pay has moved from the bottom quartile of pay to the top quartile while still maintaining one of the most robust health benefit plans in Southern California. Employee working conditions have improved and teachers’ voices have helped to shape the success of our students in the classroom. Most importantly, ABC parents have seen their children thrive, be emotionally supported, and boldly passed a facilities bond that will enhance every classroom. The partnership has served all stakeholders well.
Hold on Ray, good history story and all but is the partnership between labor and administration dead? No, it's not dead. For a time I wasn’t sure after the Work to Rule Campaign if our district would devolve into just another adversarial quagmire, but it didn’t. The work to rule campaign was needed to show the value of ALL stakeholders in a school district. Since the end of that campaign administrators, board members, teachers, nurses, and classified employees have been renewing the commitment to work together again. For example, every school has had to take a hard look at their bell schedules for the next school year. Changes in bell schedules impact every stakeholder and these conversations can be unpleasant and messy. Decisions can be disappointing but I hope we do our best and don’t make them personal. Keep those conversations going even if you didn’t get the bell schedule you wanted or thought was best for students. WE are changing the landscape of the education system one school at a time. These monumental changes will break many school districts and cause organizational chaos that inevitably impacts students negatively. Here in ABC, we are better than that. ABC is trained in having ground truth conversations that deepen the dialogue and provide better solutions. Changing bell schedules is revolutionary and not something routine.
Changes don’t happen overnight. The ABC partnership took time. These changes at your school sites over bell schedules will take time too. My advice is to keep talking to one another because that’s the glue to any partnership. Forward we go.
In YOUnity,
Ray Gaer
President, ABCFT
CALIFORNIA FEDERATION OF TEACHERS
Dear Ray,
Ballots are arriving this week across California for the June 7, 2022 primary election, and once again we have the opportunity to support candidates and measures that support our schools and California’s working families.
Before you vote, please take a moment to review CFT’s Educators Choice Voter Guide. The guide contains voting recommendations for both statewide and local candidates and measures that will appear on your ballot.
Please check out our Educators Choice Voter Guide, review the records of the candidates for yourself, and remember to cast your ballot!
In Unity,
Jessica Ulstad
CFT Political Director
The latest CFT articles and news stories can be found here on the PreK12 news feed on the CFT.org website.
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS
AFT’s Weingarten Reacts to Failed Vote on Women’s Health Protection Act
WASHINGTON—American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement after the U.S. Senate failed to take action on S. 4132, the Women’s Health Protection Act:
“At a time when a radical bloc of Supreme Court justices are preparing to overturn 50 years of precedent and erode our freedoms in the most personal and intimate aspects of our lives, not one Republican senator would vote with American women and their families to codify the protections of Roe v. Wade into federal law.
“Regardless of whether you support a woman’s right to choose, jettisoning decades of established law and precedent risks the safety and health of women and girls—especially low-income women, rural women and women of color. It also raises the question of what’s at risk next: The freedom to marry? The right to use contraception or to use reproductive technologies to conceive? The right for all students to be educated?
“America is at its best when expanding and deepening our freedoms. Today Republicans could have supported this, but instead they chose to allow the decimation of hard-won rights.”
Follow AFT President Randi Weingarten: http://twitter.com/rweingarten
----- NEWS STORY HIGHLIGHT-----
Ed Department begins review of often misunderstood Section 504 rules
Section 504 accommodations for students with disabilities include academic, mental and physical supports. A student with a 504 plan may, for instance, have individualized accommodations such as seating in a classroom’s front row, supports for managing diabetes, or specific services to address anxiety. Services for students who qualify for Section 504 can take place in a general or special education classroom.
Section 504 also requires schools to be physically accessible.
“As we observe the 45th anniversary of these important regulations this month, it is time to start the process of updating them” said Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary for Civil Rights, in a statement. “Just as in 1977, the voices of people with disabilities must be heard and incorporated as we engage in that work.”
While more K-12 students with disabilities are served under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Section 504 also is an important avenue for support. Both laws aim to protect the civil rights of people with disabilities and prevent discrimination.
----- GOOD TO KNOW -----
Five things to know about nuclear power in California
As California makes progress toward meeting its ambitious climate goals, one concern has gone unanswered: How can it stop burning fossil fuels while ensuring the power grid remains reliable?
That question is at the center of a debate over the state’s use of nuclear power.
Nuclear power does not rely on fossil fuels, so it doesn’t produce large volumes of planet-warming pollutants as other energy sources do. While it’s seen as a climate-friendly alternative, opponents cite safety threats and problems storing radioactive waste.
Now, nearly six years after the decision to close California’s last nuclear power plant — the 2,240-megawatt Diablo Canyon facility — Gov. Gavin Newsom says he is considering applying for federal funding that would keep it open past its scheduled 2025 closure. It’s a move, he said, that could avoid rolling blackouts and power shortages as the state transitions to renewables and braces for more extreme heat, wildfires, drought and floods.
Newsom has until May 19 to apply for the funding and would need the facility’s owner, Pacific Gas & Electric, to get on board, too. Some experts say if Diablo Canyon is shut down, there’s a good chance state officials will be scrambling to replace the lost megawatts.
So what should Californians know about the state’s reliance on nuclear power? Here are five key takeaways: Calmatters.org
----- NATIONAL NEWS -----
Education Department to boost rights for students with disabilities
Forty-five years after publication of the regulations implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the landmark disability civil rights law, the U.S. Department of Education announced plans to gather public input on possible amendments to those regulations in order to strengthen and protect the rights of students with disabilities. Section 504 prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in public and private programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance, including schools and postsecondary institutions. The Department's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) will solicit public comments to help decide how best to improve current regulations to assist America's students with disabilities. May is Mental Health Awareness Month and, as part of the President's Unity Agenda, President Biden announced a strategy to address our nation's mental health crisis. The work that OCR will do this month to listen to and solicit public input regarding improvements to the Department's disability rights regulations will include input from those people with disabilities who also have mental health needs and their advocates.
Three in 10 educators yet to get a COVID booster shot
Almost a third of principals, and district leaders haven’t gotten a COVID-19 booster shot, new survey data show. Some non-boosted educators believe a booster won’t provide them additional protection or that it isn’t worth the potential side effects. Others aren’t worried about the threat COVID poses to their health. Fully vaccinated Americans age 12 and older last fall became eligible for their first booster shots. In March, people above age 50, immunocompromised people, and Johnson & Johnson vaccine recipients became eligible for a second booster shot four months after their first. However, only 70% of teachers, district leaders, and principals had gotten a COVID-19 booster shot as of last month, according to an nationally representative survey of 374 district leaders, 305 principals, and 384 teachers conducted March 30th through April 8th by the EdWeek Research Center. By contrast, roughly half of eligible Americans have gotten at least one COVID booster, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The reasons for educators not getting boosted vary considerably, according to the survey. The most common reason cited, among 29% of respondents, was the belief that they don’t need more protection because they already had contracted COVID. Nineteen percent said they don’t believe they need more protection because they had the prior COVID vaccines.
----- STATE NEWS -----
Substitute teacher shortage hits California’s low-income students harder
California schools with large numbers of high-needs students - low-income, English learners and foster youth - have always struggled to find substitute teachers, but this year’s COVID-19 omicron surge brought them to a breaking point. CalMatters analyzed data from the state’s seven largest urban school districts for January to determine where the substitute teacher shortage was most acute. The data shows that on average, the schools with the most high-needs students filled about 42% of their teacher absences with substitutes. The schools with the fewest high-needs students found subs for 63% of teacher absences. The disparities varied across districts; at Los Angeles for example, schools with the most low-income students found substitutes for 23% of absent teachers. Those with the fewest low-income students found substitutes for 45%. Elsewhere, at Fresno, substitutes filled about 68% of absences at the schools with the most high-needs students, while they filled 85% at the schools with the fewest high-needs students. Commenting on the study, Tara Kini, director of state policy at the Learning Policy Institute, said: “It reflects long-standing patterns for both subs and permanent teachers.”
California’s youngest children need more mental health support, advocates say in request for funding
While California has committed billions of dollars to support the mental health of K-12 students, little has been specifically dedicated to children 5 and younger.
Advocates say it’s a need that needs to be addressed, and they are asking Gov. Gavin Newsom to set aside $250 million in the state budget to support the mental health of infants, toddlers, preschoolers and their parents and caregivers.
Kids under 5 account for almost a quarter of all Medi-Cal recipients under 21 but do not receive a proportionate share of health and mental health care compared to older youth, according to Children Now, an advocacy organization focused on the health and welfare of California’s children. At least 43% of those children under 5 have experienced at least one adverse childhood experience. These experiences — including violence, abuse or neglect — have been connected to chronic illnesses later in life and death.
https://calmatters.org/children-and-youth/2022/04/childrens-mental-health-california/
Revised California math proposal: Despite pushback, little change
The California Department of Education on Monday published its second crack at a new Mathematics Framework, a set of guidelines for math instruction that last year became the center of both a culture war about progressive education and an academic debate over how the state’s public schools should teach math.
The upshot: Despite lots of pushback, the drafters haven’t changed much.
The new draft of the proposed framework — a non-binding series of recommendations — largely doubles down on the key goals of making math more relatable and closing the achievement gaps for Black and Latino students.
One of the key criticisms of the original: that by delaying algebra until 9th grade, it would make it tougher for most students to ever take high school calculus, a prerequisite or preference for many competitive colleges.
https://calmatters.org/education/k-12-education/2022/03/california-math-framework-draft/
Some California school districts launch transitional kindergarten without state help
In a major shift for early education, California is expanding its transitional kindergarten program to eventually include all 4-year-olds. While most districts will receive additional dollars for the expansion, 15% will not — and are facing tough budget choices as they comply with the new fall mandate.
Some of those districts — among the most affluent in California — say they are stretching existing budgets to create classrooms, moving money around to hire new teachers and trying to figure out how to fund renovations that include tiny toilets and preschool playground equipment.
Others say they have no plans to add transitional kindergarten, despite parent pleas, unless they get state funding.
Reed Union School District in the Bay Area town of Tiburon is one of the districts that won’t be getting state money for transitional kindergarten. Reed Union hasn’t offered the program in years but is planning to add it in the fall.
----- DISTRICTS -----
LAUSD passes overhaul of deaf education program
On Tuesday evening, the Los Angeles USD board voted unanimously to support an overhaul of the district’s deaf education program. “We are trying to say to all deaf and hard-of-hearing children and their families that we must move mountains to make sure that their needs are addressed,” said the resolution’s sponsor, board member Jackie Goldberg, who cast her “yes” vote in American Sign Language. “We must not miss a critical window in the years before kindergarten to promote acquiring language, whether it’s spoken, signed or both.” Resolution 029-21/22, which will create a new deaf and hard-of-hearing education department within the district’s special education program. It will also pull American Sign Language into the district’s dual-language and bilingual program, while making ASL-English bilingual education the districtwide standard for early intervention with deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Supporters say the move addresses the district’s urgent need for language equity. Opponents decry it as a violation of their parental rights.
LAUSD delays student COVID-19 vaccine mandate
The Los Angeles USD Board of Education has unanimously approved a delay of a student vaccine mandate for COVID-19 that had been scheduled to take effect next fall, under a recommendation from Supt. Alberto Carvalho. “This was the right move at the right time, perfectly endorsed by science" he said, adding his request to delay until July 1st 2023 is based on the school system’s current vaccination rate among older students and what he described as the low transmission rates in schools. The decision aligns with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement last month that he is pausing a state mandate that, at one point, was expected to take effect before the upcoming school year. About 78% of Los Angeles Unified School District students age 12 and older have received both doses of the vaccine — which is what has been required for the fall. Based on enrollment, that would leave about 40,000 students out of compliance and unable to attend classes in person were the requirement to be enforced.
San Diego school board passes resolution in support of reproductive rights
The San Diego USD board unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday in support of reproductive rights, including a right to abortion. Before Tuesday’s school board meeting more than 60 young people, mostly high school students, held a rally in support of abortion rights outside the school district’s headquarters, holding signs with statements such as, “Abortion = healthcare,” and “Not your uterus = not your choice.” “The decision to end a pregnancy is a private medical decision,” said school board Vice President Sabrina Bazzo, who co-introduced the resolution, at Tuesday’s school board meeting. “Everyone should have access to safe, legal and accessible abortion. Prohibitions on the right to freely exercise reproductive freedoms are harmful to public health and safety.” The board’s decision comes days after somebody leaked a draft opinion that showed a majority of current U.S. Supreme Court justices support overturning Roe v. Wade.
Sacramento students could be in class until late June
Sacramento USD students could be in class as late as June 24th in a plan to make up for lost time from this spring's eight-day teacher strike. The district is still to finalize its school calendar with less than six weeks of scheduled classes. It has proposals to extend the academic year on the table, leaving many parents wondering how to move forward with summer plans. “Our most significant challenge at this point in the process involves staffing,” district officials said in a written statement. “We are trying to reach an agreement that will ensure the district is able to adequately staff schools and classrooms on the added days. We are hopeful the uncertainty surrounding the school calendar will be resolved by the end of this week at the latest. Our families deserve to know if the calendar is going to be extended or not.” District officials say any future changes to the school calendar will not affect graduation or promotion dates.
CBS Sacramento The Sacramento Bee
----- CLASSROOM -----
Teachers say live instruction better for mitigating learning loss
Live instruction and the use of technology apps and platforms were most helpful in supporting students’ academic progress during the pandemic, according to a Government Accountability Office report based on a teacher survey and virtual meetings with K-12 stakeholders. The findings, detailed in a report released Tuesday, also found while 69% of teachers surveyed used asynchronous learning, fewer than 40% of those surveyed said it helped at least half their students. This report is the first in a series from GAO that will examine the impact of COVID-19 on K-12 public schools, including teaching and learning during the pandemic and the effect on vulnerable populations. The findings could help districts as they navigate potential extended school closures in the future due to the pandemic or other emergencies.
Virtual learning set poor children even further behind
Students in high-poverty schools paid a far higher price for virtual learning than did their peers in low-poverty schools, leaving vulnerable students even further behind than when the pandemic started, according to a working paper published last week by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The authors focused on the costs of virtual learning and warned of dire consequences from not addressing the gaps. Students in poverty took a double hit: not only did they stand to lose the most from virtual learning but they, on average, spent more time learning remotely. High-poverty schools had on average 5.5 more weeks of remote instruction than mid- and low-poverty schools, the study found. Black and Latino students were also more likely to learn online. “The most important results in our study was that remote instruction had very disparate impacts in high-poverty and low- poverty schools,” said Thomas Kane, an education and economics professor at Harvard and one of the co-authors of the paper. He said it’s not clear why students in high-poverty schools lost so much more ground but said it’s “likely reflecting difference in access to broadband access at home, devices at home, study space at home.”
----- LEGAL -----
Vaping lawsuits on the rise across U.S.
Legal action against Juul Labs is moving again in lawsuits alleging the firm targeted teens with its vaping products, after cases lost traction in districts during COVID-19 school closures. In Washington, the e-cigarette company must pay out $22.5 million after a judge last month ruled it intentionally targeted teenagers with its advertising and misled consumers about the addictive nature of vaping. The order came in a consent decree filed in King County Superior Court in a case brought by the state of Washington against Juul Labs. Juul also recently settled cases in Arizona, North Carolina and Louisiana that ended in large payouts similar to Washington’s case. Meanwhile, school districts in other states have recently filed or are considering filing lawsuits against the vaping giant. Anne Arundel County Public Schools in Maryland, for example, filed a lawsuit against Juul last week. A majority of districts in Utah also joined a suit against Juul, originally filed in California, according to local reports. “There is clearly a current epidemic of e-cigarette use amongst our youth, and it has made its way into our schools,” said Joanna Tobin, school board president for Anne Arundel County Public Schools, in a statement. “The health and safety of our students is a top priority, and we are doing our part to ensure that the companies or individuals who knowingly target our young people despite the dangers of their products are held responsible.”
----- WORKFORCE ----
Inflation takes significant chunks out of educator wage gains
For more than 60 years, the National Education Association (NEA) has produced a statistical report that compiles public education financial data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Called Rankings & Estimates for short, it is a reliable and often-cited source of data on enrollment, expenditures, staffing and salaries. “If we want to reverse course and keep qualified teachers in the classroom and caring professionals in schools, then we must increase educator pay across the board and expand access to collective bargaining and union membership for all those working in public education,” said NEA President Becky Pringle in a press statement accompanying the report, which found that teachers are taking home $2,179 less per year, on average, than they did a decade ago, when adjusted for inflation. Looking deeper into the report, The 74 found that the average increase in teacher salaries over that 10-year period was 1.65%, but that inflation rates have wiped out these gains.
-----CHARTER SCHOOLS -----
Gov. Abbott pitches school voucher plan for Texas
Gov. Greg Abbott has said he supports a school voucher measure that would allow students to use government funding to attend private schools or charter schools rather than just their assigned public schools. At a rally in San Antonio, Mr. Abbott said his support for school choice was to help uphold a tradition of “empowering parents” that includes his policies of banning mask mandates on campus and banning “critical race theory” in Texas schools. He also said public schools would remain fully funded throughout the voucher program. “Nothing is more critical to the development and success of our children than parents,” the governor said at a rally in San Antonio. “If you like the public school your child is attending, it will be fully funded.” Unions and public school advocates throughout the state have previously opposed such voucher programs because they believe the policies weaken the public school system. The Texas School Alliance said in a prepared statement that the proposed program is a “tuition break” for the wealthy and that the money that is intended for public schools would harm more than five million Texas students. “You can’t fully fund public schools and address the worst teacher shortage in Texas history by siphoning off public dollars to private schools,” the organization said in a statement. “The math doesn’t work.” Conversely Mandy Drogin, Texas state director for the American Federation for Children, thanked Abbott for his leadership. “Students — not teachers, not administrators, not systems or bureaucracies — are the reason we have a constitutional right to an education, and that right must extend to a clearly articulated and well-funded system that allows parents to pick the school which is best for their child,” she said.
Dallas Morning News Houston Chronicle
----- OTHER -----
NTA Life Insurance - An ABCFT Sponsor
Years ago ABCFT started 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.
To All Members of the ABC Federation of Teachers,
National Teacher Associates (NTA) is committed in our efforts to helping educators through tough times. It’s what we do. After all…in our eyes, you are the heart and soul of our communities.
Protecting you and your families has been our goal for over 45 years. Despite the current global pandemic, we are not about to slow down now. We know that many of you have had our programs for years and sometimes forget the intricacies of how they work. NTA wants to help facilitate any possible claims for now and in the future. Fortunately, all claims and reviews can be done by phone and online. I personally want to offer my services to guide you in the right direction with your NTA benefits.
We also apologize for not being able to finish the open enrollment for those of you who wanted to get our protection. We are still able to help by extending our enrollment window for the near future. Again, this can be done over the phone, email, or online.
Please contact Leann Blaisdell at any time either by phone or email.
562-822-5004
Leann.Blaisdell@horacemann.com
Click here to schedule an appointment
