KEEPING YOU INFORMED - CFT HOSTS ONLINE PANEL DISCUSSION ON SUPPORTING LGBTQIA+ COMMUNITIES
This past Tuesday, the California Federation of Teacher hosted a webinar for local union leaders on how to support LGBTQ+ members and the LGBTQ+ student committees. Ray Gaer the ABCFT President and member of the AFT National LGBTQIA+ Task Force was the moderator for a panel discussion on the current legal and social challenges facing this community. Below are some of the resources that were offered during this webinar.
“Tuesday, December 6 from 4:00-5:15 p.m.
Given the recent attacks on the LGBTQ+ community across the country, this timely panel discussion will help CFT members to gain knowledge and understanding of what we can do together to mitigate these attacks and provide resources to help our communities. Please join us for this important and much-needed discussion.”
Helpful Terminology
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YYJJcXkbCwouK1QlDZNa_DiQiIQE1201/view?usp=share_link
CFT LGBTQIA+ Webpage
https://www.cft.org/article/celebrate-pride-month-school-and-home
Google Drive LGBTQAI+ Resources
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1c0cIPvBn8ijLkKXKCsfbWX3you0Qzyrc?usp=share_link
KEEPING YOU INFORMED - Social Justice Standards Resources
IN-PERSON: Anti-Bias Curriculum Institute
In this Museum of Tolerance Institute, participants will visit the Museum in person to learn a unique pedagogical approach that integrates identity, diversity, justice, and action into instructional planning and delivery. Participants will be able to:
● Define the goals of anti-bias education and explain how the Learning For Justice Social Justice Standards support a continuum of engagement in diversity, equity, and inclusion work in schools.
● Identify anti-bias practices and strategies for classrooms at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.
● Apply the goals of anti-bias education to a variety of instructional scenarios and consider the impact on pedagogy and practice.
● Explore a vast collection of anti-bias lessons aligned to academic and social justice standards.
Sessions at the Museum include custom tours, special speakers such as a Holocaust Survivor and/or Dr. Terrence Roberts of the Little Rock Nine, and/or other witnesses to history. You will also be hosted by facilitators and divided into small groups for facilitated dialogue and debriefing with peers. The workshops are led by anti-bias education experts, using a variety of interactive modalities and small break-out groups. Lunch and materials are included for Free. This program is covered by a grant from the State of CA and offers travel assistance, one night of hotel, and ground transportation. Learn more here. All dates of the In-Person program.
Dates available: January 4-5, 2023, April 4-5, 2023, or June 22-23, 2023
Times: Day 1: 10:00am - 5:30pm and Day 2: 8:15am - 4:30pm
More offerings from the Museum of Tolerance Institute
MEMBER-ONLY RESOURCES
Computer Science and Digital Tools: Lesson Plans and Activities
Computer Science Education Week is here! Try these lessons and activities to get K-12 students using digital tools and technology, as well as learn about safety and security.
ACADEMIC SERVICES UPDATE
This month’s academic service update is vital for all teachers. We hope 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 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 Catherine at Catherine.Pascual@abcusd.us if you have any questions or concerns.
Click Here For This Month’s Full Report
ABCFT PRESIDENT’S REPORT - Ray Gaer
Consistent and regular communication is a union’s most important tool for advocating for its members at the bargaining table. Every conversation with members is focused on the end result of negotiating for the future prosperity and well-being of ALL ABCFT members. The goal of this weekly report is to keep members informed about issues that impact their working/learning conditions and their mental well-being. Our work as a Union is a larger conversation, and together we make the YOUnion.
“Collaboration is not about working on somebody but about working with somebody. ~ Rob Weil (AFT)
This week, ABCFT and ABCUSD held the 21st annual conference called the PAL (Partnership with Administration and Labor) Retreat at the local Portuguese Hall in Artesia. This was the first PAL Retreat in ABC after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID pandemic. This conference was attended by ABCFT Site/program representatives and alternates, ABC Administrators/Supervisors, ABCFT Executive Board members, and ABCUSD Administrators at the superintendent cabinet level. In total there were about 130 participants that throughout the day, learned about the results of the Educators Thriving Survey that was given last month to members and ABC administrators. I’ll have more time to write a report next week when I share those in next Friday’s YOUnionews. Participants were given a copy of Collaborating for Student Success: A Comprehensive Guidebook for Increasing Shared Decision-Making Through Lasting Partnerships, given an overview of the guide, and then used the last part of the retreat agenda to work on how to find shared goals that could positively impact their school site or program. Overall, it was an exciting leadership development workshop that I hope will serve as a model that Rep/Principal teams can use with their staffs to find solutions that best address the needs of their school sites or programs.
Next week, we have a YOUnion Chat on Tuesday, and the ABC School Board will have their annual board meeting where they elect among themselves a new board president and officers for the year 2023.
This is a busy time of year for everyone and we’ve been busy with preparations for the conference, the continued ABCFT/ABCUSD negotiations (the next bargaining session is on Wednesday and Friday next week), and our typical duties of representations and contract enforcement. Next week we will share not only the survey results from Educators Thriving concerning educators' wellness but we will also share the Labor Management Collaboration Guidebook that was used at this week's PAL Retreat.
A special note of thanks to all of the ABCFT Site/Program Representatives that attended this Thursday’s 21st PAL Retreat. Yesterday’s work you did was a critical moment in the history of ABC as we again are finding improved ways to provide teacher/nurse voice in site/program decisions. Thank you for your hard work and advocacy for your fellow educators. YOU MADE A DIFFERENCE!
Have a great weekend!
In YOUnity,
Ray Gaer
President, ABCFT
CALIFORNIA FEDERATION OF TEACHERS
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
Follow AFT President Randi Weingarten: http://twitter.com/rweingarten
----- NEWS STORY HIGHLIGHT-----
Calls for 'national emergency' over respiratory viruses among children
Hospitalizations for respiratory viruses like RSV and influenza are surging across the United States, amid calls from leading child health organizations for the Biden administration to declare a national emergency. As around 55m Americans return from Thanksgiving holiday travel and many prepare for Christmas and New Year celebrations, Anita K Patel, a pediatric critical care specialist at Children’s National hospital in Washington, DC, and an assistant professor of pediatrics at George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences, asserts: "I think it should have been called a national emergency a month ago." At least three children have died from RSV and 12 children have died from the flu so far this year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. RSV hospitalization rates for newborns are seven times higher than they were in 2018, the last full season before the pandemic struck, and flu hospitalizations are the worst they have been in a decade. Rhinovirus, enterovirus, adenovirus, metapneumovirus and parainfluenza are also contributing to this wave of illness, and Covid cases are beginning to rise again.
-----CHALLENGING BUDGET CLIFF AHEAD-----
'Fiscal cliff' fears prompt staff layoff appraisal recommendations
Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, describes how districts are working hard to spend the federal pandemic aid they've received - trying to hire vast numbers of teachers and staff to address the twin post-pandemic burdens of students’ learning loss and mental-health challenges - but warns that, combined with reductions in state revenue from a likely recession, districts are standing at the edge of a huge potential fiscal cliff. Enrollment is down and the wider macro-economic picture is bleak, he suggests, and schools are vulnerable to losing their best teachers if typical "quality-blind" staff layoffs are required further down the line. "For the next two or three years, districts should look carefully at the effectiveness of their new teachers and other staff and let go of their weaker ones immediately," Petrilli says. "If the school districts do wait and keep most of their new teachers on the payroll until they are forced to engage in layoffs in the mid-2020s, the practical effect will be to give ineffective teachers hired in 2021, 2022, or 2023 priority over more effective teachers hired in, say, 2024 or 2025. That will be bad for students, who will likely still be recovering from pandemic-era learning losses. And it threatens teacher-diversity efforts, given that many districts are getting better, over time, at recruiting teachers of color." Schools can’t do much to avoid going over the fiscal cliff, he adds, but if they act now to prepare - they can make sure they keep their best teachers in the classrooms.
Supreme Court to keep Biden’s student loan cancellation blocked for now
The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether the Biden administration can cancel student-loan debt for millions of Americans, putting the matter on a fast-track timeline that should produce a final ruling by the end of June. The administration had wanted a court order that would have allowed the program to take effect even as court challenges proceed. The justices didn’t do that, but agreed to the administration’s fallback, setting arguments for late February or early March over whether the program is legal. The lawsuit before the Supreme Court was brought by Republican officials in Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and South Carolina, who claimed that the program was an unlawful exercise of presidential authority that would affect state revenues and tax receipts. The program was also blocked by a federal judge in Texas, who said that the administration had improperly used powers only available to Congress to design the plan. That case, brought by two student loan borrowers with support from a conservative legal organization, is currently pending before the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Texas Tribune Wall Street Journal
----- NATIONAL NEWS -----
National Parent Council dissolved
The Biden administration has dissolved its new parent and family engagement council less than six months after its inception, following claims that the council was "one-sided" at best and possibly even unlawful. The U.S. Department of Education’s National Parent and Family Engagement Council originally set out to help families engage with school districts at the local level when it was created in June, but it came under scrutiny by conservative lawmakers and became the subject of a lawsuit from conservative parent advocacy groups who claimed it was created with a liberal bias. “We all share a vital concern for the future of our students, and our nation, regardless of our political, social, or cultural backgrounds,” a statement reads. “Parents and families have a critical role to play in building a brighter future for our kids and our communities - the Department has always tried to hear from as many parents as possible and to engage with them in the most meaningful and effective way.” The department disagrees with the criticisms, but has nonetheless disbanded the council.
States still failing underserved students
Substantially less state and local revenue is going to districts with the most Black, Latino, and Native students versus those with the fewest students of color, according to a fresh equitable school funding practices report by The Education Trust. The difference can be as much as $2,700 per student, or $13.5m, for a district with 5,000 students. The report promotes not just equal levels of funding between student groups but “a significant amount of additional funding” for certain student groups, including those with disabilities. It also notes that while districts and states have received significant amounts of federal COVID-19 emergency funding, those revenues will run out. To prevent an abrupt end to supports for high-need communities, the report asserts, education leaders need to address funding disparities now. The report, which features an interactive data tool that allows users to search funding levels and comparisons by school, district and state levels, disaggregates data by demographics such as students of color, English learners and students from low-income backgrounds. Ivy Morgan, director of P-12 data and analytics for Ed Trust, comments: "Analysis of national and state funding practices should help educators, advocates and community members identify and find solutions to inequities in state and local funding practices."
The complexities of U.S. teacher shortages
A new report from the Economic Policy Institute argues that nationwide teacher shortages aren’t primarily due to a lack of qualified teachers, but a lack of incentives for those qualified workers to take "grueling, underappreciated jobs." Meanwhile, according to data from the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles, the number of college freshmen nationwide who intend to major in education has dropped by more than half in the last 50 years. In the early 1970s, between 10% and 13% of college freshmen had set their sights on teaching. By 2018, that share had dropped to 4.3%. Separately, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has reviewed average teacher compensation in 26 industrialized countries and compared it to average pay for other college graduates. The United States ranked bottom of the list, with teachers on average making only 61% of what other college graduates make.
----- STATE NEWS -----
California faces lawsuit over tuition-based summer school fees
On Wednesday, attorneys with the pro bono law firm Public Counsel and others filed suit against the state, Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and the Department of Education saying the fees charged for tuition-based summer school by private educational foundations - which can be as much as $720 - are illegal. By allowing these fee-supported programs to thrive without state oversight, California fails its responsibility to ensure access to a free public education, the suit argues. “For all practical purposes, these education foundations function as fronts for school districts that, among other things, enable them to collect tuition from students for summer school offerings,” the complaint filed in L.A. County Superior Court says. “The state’s deliberate indifference to pay to learn schemes on its own campuses handsomely rewards districts that flaunt the law and families with resources to give their children a competitive advantage our Constitution has proscribed,” the suit adds.
----- DISTRICTS -----
Ventura school unions reach tentative deal with district
Ventura USD and its two employee unions came to a "tentative, tentative" agreement during negotiations on Monday. The district's offer increased to a 10% permanent raise, a huge leap from its July proposal for a 1% permanent bump. The provisional agreement also includes a 2% raise for the current school year, slightly less than the district's original offer of 3%. Superintendent Antonio Castro said the parties had reached a "conceptual agreement on salary and benefits." Dan Nelson, the president of the Ventura Unified Education Association, which represents teachers, said Venturans had been "incredible" throughout the four-month long negotiations. "The parents and teachers have been with us the whole time," he said. "Fighting and pushing and believing in ourselves and what our kids deserve." Carol Peek, president of the Ventura Education Support Professionals Association, which represents classified employees, said the agreement was "huge" for fractured trust between the unions and district. "I'm just glad it's over," Ms. Peek said. "Now I think the focus needs to be on repairing the relationship between the district and the unions. It's going to be a long haul but it can be done."
----- WORKFORCE ----
Most states have school counselor shortages
Schools across the country were short about 300,000 teachers and staff when the 2022-2023 school year began, according to National Education Association President Becky Pringle. The gaps leave principals performing janitorial duties, schools implementing four-day school weeks to entice applicants for teaching positions with the promise of better work-life balance, and many districts are relaxing their required teaching credentials to expand their applicant pool. Arizona topped the list of state shortages, Illinois came second, Michigan third, Minnesota fourth, California fifth, Utah sixth, Idaho seventh, Indiana eighth, District of Columbia ninth, while Nevada and Louisiana tied at tenth. Florida came in at 14th and Texas was ranked 23rd.
Schools battling staff and equipment shortages
Almost half of the nation’s schools were still struggling to fill teacher vacancies in October, according to data published by the U.S. Department for Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which also indicates that more than 80% of schools were having difficulty buying food, technology and other supplies because of rising prices and supply chain challenges. The NCES data indicates that teacher shortages disproportionately affected high-poverty schools and schools that served large numbers of students of color, and reveals that the number of schools participating in the National School Lunch Program, which reimburses schools that provide free and discounted meals for students from low-income households, has dipped six percentage points. Among schools that are more than 75% minority for example, 60% reported having at least one teaching vacancy. Among schools that are more than three-quarters White, that number dropped to 32%. Over half (57%) of high-poverty schools reported at least one teaching vacancy, compared with 41% of low-poverty schools.
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
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