Friday, March 10, 2023

ABCFT YOUnionews for March 3, 2023




HOTLINKS- Contact ABCFT at ABC Federation of Teachers abcft@abcusd.us

KEEPING YOU INFORMED- Local Dues Report By Tanya Golden


Earlier this week the Local Operation Dues Committee met to finalize their review of the local union budgetary needs with the goal of making a recommendation to ABCFT leadership. The Executive Board will be presented with the recommendation at their March 9th meeting. If approved, there will be a special Rep Council meeting on March 23rd. If the rep council approves the recommendation the details will be shared with the general membership and be sent for a vote. 


 Over the years ABCFT has been fiscally conservative and thus able to successfully operate on the same amount of local dues since 2007. Yes, you read that correctly, the local union dues have not changed since 2007. With the rising costs, it is difficult to continue with these budgetary constraints. I am proud of the work ABCFT has been able to accomplish for the members over the past sixteen years while operating on a budget from 2007 local dues revenues.


In 2008, the state of California was approaching a financial crisis with a looming recession directly affecting the number of monies available for local districts. ABCFT leadership took proactive measures to ensure the fiscal solvency of the district. The general membership guided ABCFT leadership to protect teachers' and nurses' positions by negotiating furlough days in lieu of layoffs which happened in every surrounding district. Beginning in the 2009 school year the extended Thanksgiving break was created. Resulting in three furlough days for ABCFT teachers and nurses. The furlough days were used not only in lieu of layoffs but also to prevent teachers and nurses from working without compensation which is what happened in many surrounding districts. Enduring four years of furlough days were difficult but the negotiating team was able to recoup the costs of those furlough days within a secession of three years of on-schedule salary increases.


Another crisis we collectively experienced is the pandemic which shuttered schools across the country. ABCFT leadership held weekly YOUnion chats with members which were crucial in supporting one another as well as proactively sharing information and acting on issues happening at the sites and programs. ABCFT leadership was also in constant negotiations with the district as we navigated these uncharted waters. In Spring 2021, ABCFT negotiated a return to modified in-person teaching which included additional weekly money for all ABCFT members who returned in person. For those unable to return in person, ABCFT was able to negotiate for these members to work remotely so they could continue to receive their regular salary compensation and retain their health benefits. 


ABCFT’s approach to union advocacy and activism is a proactive solution-driven union. This is evident with the PAL partnership as well as providing member services such as this weekly newsletter, YOUnion chats, site visits, our blue Public School Proud union polos, member representation, and responding to the numerous texts, calls, and emails from members. These are just some of the activities ABCFT does at the local level to support nurses and teachers in the classroom. The work of the union does not happen without the dedication of the innumerable volunteers who serve as site reps, executive board members, negotiating team, and committee members, and the work of Ray and me in the union office.  


If the ABCFT leadership approves the recommendation from the local dues committee later this month you will have access to a shared folder that will contain FAQs and more information about how the dues are spent by the local and the amounts sent to the county, state, and national union affiliates. As we have done in the past when there are important decisions to be made ABCFT leadership wants to ensure there is transparency throughout the entire process and that you have your questions and concerns addressed. 

  

In YOUnity,

MEMBER-ONLY RESOURCES 

Women's History Month Lesson Plans and Resources


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. 


“The impending teacher shortage is the most critical educational issue we will face in the next decade.” - David Price (North Carolina - US House of Representatives)


During my week, I was able to engage in meaningful conversations with educators over the state of California who works in different capacities. I’m a CFT representative in a California Education  discussion among major educational organizations about what are called registered apprenticeships. This concept of apprenticeships is to create career ladder opportunities for those who are already working in districts, people who already have bachelor's degrees, or are part of a teacher training program. These programs are only a piece of the total solution but they are discussions about how to support those who want to become teachers with lower tuition costs, stipends, or paid apprenticeships such as those provided by intern credential programs. The ABC Federation of Teachers is currently working with Cerritos Community College as support for their Federal grant Teachers Trac Program. We are at the forefront of this work to create opportunities for people to become teachers in our schools.


What is being carefully monitored by the two major teacher unions (AFT and NEA) and their state affiliates is that these critical teacher programs do not lower the quality or the professionalism of education. There is a teacher shortage but as you and I know, not everyone has the education, skills, and temperament to be a successful teacher or administrator. Having a lack of people getting into the field of education for teaching has created a snowball effect throughout education.


If you have a shortage of teachers then what happens is that you have an even greater need for administrators who have years of experience in the education field. If you ask any of your friends who work in other school districts you will most likely hear about all the administrator turnover that is happening in their school district. ABC is no exception to this trend and over this past year, we have had new administrators at some of our school sites, district-level administrator positions, and currently, ABC is looking for a new Superintendent. This is a lot of turnover in critical positions that directly affect teachers and students. The silver lining is that ABC was prepared for this type of crisis.


One thing that former Dr. Sieu left as her greatest legacy is what I like to call “a deep bench.” Think about a sports team that is grinding through the playoffs and along the way people get injured or traded to other teams. The most successful teams are those organizations that have invested in having deep investments in creating opportunities for a broad number of players to have experience in key positions. Dr. Sieu fostered a culture that kept many of our most influential principals in the district. This has helped create stability of leadership that teachers can count on. Of course, it is important to gain new top prospects/leaders from other districts but the key is to retain your superstars. If you look at other districts right now you will see that there is a growing trend of instability in many districts due to the lack of experience at the administrative level. Many of ABC’s administrators were colleagues in your classrooms and they understand the community and cultures of your schools. 


The same goes for teachers. Teacher wisdom in the classroom and how they impact student outcomes are built up over years of experience and training. Those people not in the education world who think teaching is easy seriously have no understanding of the complexity involved in teaching students. What is important is that veteran teaching experience is passed on to newer teachers in the profession during department meetings, grade level planning meetings, curriculum committees, professional learning opportunities, support/trainings from TOSAs, PASS Coaches, and other mentoring opportunities. ABC is deep with classroom and curricular wisdom, which is why ABC has outstanding student outcomes even in the most challenging of times. Every team needs star players that give the team the swagger and confidence of a champion. ABC teachers have that swagger because they are experts in the field of teaching students. 


New teachers are vital to the workforce and are needed to continue building on the foundation left by veteran teachers. If you are a newer teacher, we are excited that you are an ABC teacher and we hope you decide to spend your whole career in ABC. Teacher training programs are systematic supports that will hopefully help to stem the tide of dwindling numbers of incoming teachers.


This week's message is a shout-out to all of you mid-career and up teachers and administrators in ABC. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with those around you, it matters. The gathering storm of shortages and lack of institutional memory will be crippling to some districts. Thanks to Dr. Sieu’s “deep bench” we as a district aren’t desperate to fill administrator positions like our surrounding districts. ABC veterans are giving ABC the stability we need as we move forward together. 


Show your ABC swagger and have a good weekend!



In YOUnity,


Ray Gaer

President, ABCFT


PS - I got to read to 2nd graders at their first community read-aloud since March 2020. Second graders are awesome  (Great class Ms. Diaz).



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. 

View current issues here


AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS

Find the latest AFT news here


AFT President Randi Weingarten Slams DeSantis’ Anti-Worker Bill

 

WASHINGTON—American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement responding to the introduction of Florida Senate Bill 256:

 

“This noxious attack on the freedom of Florida’s teachers, staff and professors to join together and work together will irrevocably harm the children and communities they serve. We have all watched Gov. Ron DeSantis abandon the conservative notion of limited government, but in this session, he appears fixated on stripping away freedoms and silencing those who have raised doubts about his policies. These authoritarian edicts are in the style of dictators, not a U.S. governor.

 

“DeSantis talks about freedom a lot—but it appears it means freedom for those he agrees with, including the rich and powerful who fund him. He has signed laws that criminalize educators for maintaining classroom libraries and that punish them from teaching honest history, while banning books on Rosa Parks and Roberto Clemente. He has appointed extremists to school and college boards. And now, he’s assaulting educators’ freedom to join a union.

 

“Teachers, school support staff and higher education faculty show up every single day to help kids learn reading, math, science, music, critical thinking and life skills. While DeSantis destabilizes and divides, educators are working with parents to create public schools where parents want to send their kids, educators want to teach and kids thrive. They need a pay raise and support, not additional obstacles. In the effort to use state laws to silence them, DeSantis is putting his personal political ambitions over what’s best for Florida.”



Follow AFT President Randi Weingarten: http://twitter.com/rweingarten

----- NEWS STORY HIGHLIGHT-----

 Supreme Court appears skeptical of Biden’s federal student loan debt plan

In arguments this week, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared skeptical of the legalities of President Joe Biden’s plan to slash federal student loan debt burdens, which he initiated via an executive order last year. Some scholars have suggested that Biden’s plan was always on shaky ground legally and have urged the administration to start over, however White House officials remain confident about their case. In all, up to 43m Americans could benefit from Biden's headline debt relief plan. Out of the 26m who have applied, 16m have been approved. All relief has however been on hold amid legal challenges. While there remains much speculation, no official ruling has yet been made. A Supreme Court verdict is expected by the summer. Notably, even if the broad debt cancellation is overturned, other major policies enacted by the Department of Education would remain in place. For example, the agency revamped a loan forgiveness program for public workers, making it easy for them to get their debt erased after 10 years of payments. The department separately made it easier for borrowers to get their debt canceled if they were defrauded by their schools. Through those policies and others, the department says it has already provided $48bn in loan relief to 1.8m borrowers.

AP News    CNN    Supreme Court Blog

----- UTLA Members Re-elect Union President-----

LA teacher union reelects leader amid push for better pay, conditions

Cecily Myart-Cruz has been reelected as United Teachers Los Angeles president, after receiving three out of every four votes cast. Substitute teacher Leonard Segal finished second with 16.6% and Greg Russell, another long-time substitute teacher, had 7.9%. Around 88%, or about 31,000, of more than 35,000 eligible employees belong to the union, according to documents obtained from the school district by the California Policy Center, a locally-based group that works, in part, to diminish the influence of public-sector unions.” Of those 31,000 or so eligible to vote, 7,385 cast ballots for union president, about 24%. The union has not yet released official turnout figures.

Los Angeles Times


What an off-the-radar teachers union election means for the education of L.A. children

When L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho wanted to extend the academic year, the teachers union stopped him. When his predecessor, Austin Beutner, wanted more live Zoom teaching during the pandemic, the union also stopped him. And when the district was preparing to reopen campuses for in-person learning, the union demanded that teachers first have the opportunity to be fully immunized against COVID-19.

When it comes to local schools, United Teachers Los Angeles wields significant influence. This week its members are deciding who will wield power within the union in an election sure to affect public education at a critical moment for students’ academic recovery from the pandemic.

The 35,000-member union of teachers, counselors, librarians and nurses is likely to have a say in any renewed efforts to extend the school year or school day, which affects working hours. Union leaders also will bargain over how and where to lower class sizes and weigh in on whether to shorten winter break from three weeks to two weeks. There’s also been a decades-long push and pull over who controls what happens at schools as far as teacher assignments, hiring and spending.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-02-27/how-the-l-a-teachers-union-election-will-affect-education

----- NATIONAL NEWS -----

Kentucky to provide liability insurance for teachers

The Kentucky Senate voted Friday to provide teachers with liability insurance coverage for work-related lawsuits. The legislation would require Kentucky school districts to provide teachers with primary liability insurance coverage amounting to at least $1m. The coverage would protect educators from civil legal actions “arising in the course and scope” of performing their school duties. “In this litigious society that we live in, teachers throughout the commonwealth are faced with the prospect of having legal claims asserted against them by parents of students and potentially from others,” said Republican Sen. Max Wise, the bill’s lead sponsor. “And often these claims have no merit, but the teachers are required to engage an attorney at great cost to defend against these claims

Insurance Journal


Teacher pay metrics explored

Libby Stanford compiles a wealth of data to determine where teacher pay currently rests in the United States. The average public school teacher salary in the 2020-21 school year, the most recent year reported by the National Center for Education Statistics, is actually $519 lower than the 2019-20 average salary when inflation is taken into account. When adjusted for inflation, average teacher salaries have actually barely risen since the 1990s. Secondary school teachers made $63,959 on average in the 2016-17 school year, the last year of data available for that level. Elementary teachers earned $63,737 that school year. On average, it would take 24 years for a teacher with a master's degree to make $75,000, according to a 2021 National Council on Teacher Quality study. Montana had the lowest starting salary that year, at $32,495, and Washington, D.C., had the highest, at $56,313. New York teachers earned the most in 2020-21, followed by those in Massachusetts. Teachers in Mississippi endured the lowest average salaries for that year, with the next lowest average salary in South Dakota.

Education Week News


House Republicans introduce ‘Parents Bill of Rights Act’

Under a House Republican-led proposal, school districts nationwide would be required to publicly post their curricula, as well as provide parents with a list of library books, according to a fact sheet on the legislation introduced this week. The bill would also require teachers to offer two in-person meetings with parents each school year and bar schools from sharing student data with tech companies without parental permission. The “Parents Bill of Rights Act,” which currently has 72 cosponsors, was introduced on Capitol Hill by House Republican leaders including Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Rep. Virginia Foxx, chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee. In the first half of 2022, 84 bills in 26 states were pre-filled or introduced that would broaden parents’ rights in schools, according to an analysis from FutureEd.

K12 Dive

----- STATE NEWS -----

Varied trends in high school graduation rates

In California, graduation rates reached 87%, up from 83.6% in 2020-21, while Oregon also reported a slight uptick late last month, from 80.6% for the class of 2021 to 81.3% for the class of 2022. States including Florida, Indiana, and Wyoming, however saw a drop in graduation rates when compared to 2020-21. In Florida, for example, the percentage of students who were absent 21 or more days increased to 20.9% in 2021-22 from 16.6% in 2020-21. Colorado meanwhile, which saw a 0.6 percentage point bump in its graduation rate to 82.3% for the class of 2022, experienced an increase in its dropout rate, which rose 0.4 percentage points to 2.2% in 2021-22. It was the first dropout rate increase reported since 2015, according to the Colorado Department of Education. Despite California’s graduation gains, the state’s chronic absenteeism rate more than doubled from 14.3% in 2020-21 to 30% in 2021-22. Other states with around a third of their students chronically absent during the first full year of the pandemic include Ohio and Michigan. Robert Balfanz, a research professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Education and director of the Everyone Graduates Center, expects an overall rebound in high school graduation rates in the long run. “Once they get back into school on a regular basis,  I think things will push back up. It’ll take a couple of years, unfortunately, with some dips.” Federal data in this area, which typically lags by at least a year, has not yet been released for 2021-22.

K12 Dive


New bill would require early dyslexia screening for K2 grade students

One in five children in the U.S. is diagnosed with dyslexia, and while 40 states already have early screening at schools, California does not. One state senator has introduced a bill that would make it mandatory. State Sen. Anthony Portantino  has introduced a bill requiring California schools to have a 30-minute screening test in grades kindergarten through second. "What we're getting from that 30-minute assessment is who's on a path to a reading challenge so we can intervene to help them," said Mr. Portantino. The United Educators of San Francisco has said it is in favor of screening children but only if the resources are behind it. "What we need though is the funding and support from a state and federal level in order to do it well. We're short on special education teachers across the nation. This is not a new occurrence. This job is very, very difficult," expressed Cassondra Curiel, president of the United Educators of San Francisco.

ABC 7


----- DISTRICTS -----

OUSD board rejects budget cuts

The Oakland Unified School District board failed to approve any budget cuts at a meeting on Tuesday night, hindering its progress at a moment when the district is hoping to free itself of financial oversight by Alameda County and facing a March deadline to send layoff notices.

While some teachers and community members viewed Tuesday’s inaction as a win, some district leaders questioned how OUSD can improve if a majority of directors are unwilling to make budget cuts to invest in other areas, like teacher pay.

“Two of the main priorities that we’re really trying to fund going forward are academic progress and educator retention,” said Board President Mike Hutchinson, who was in favor of making cuts. “Unfortunately for our budget, it’s a zero-sum game. In order for us to create resources to prioritize new and different things, we have to create those resources by making budget adjustments.”

https://oaklandside.org/2023/03/01/ousd-board-rejects-budget-cuts/


Ojai Unified votes to close schools

By a 3-2 vote, Ojai Unified School District Board of Trustees have voted for a reconfiguration and consolidation plan that closes San Antonio LEADS and Topa Topa Elementary schools. Their vote includes a plan to turn Matilija Middle School into a K-8, following a year of construction, during which time Topa Topa would remain open as a K-6 just for that year. Parents have expressed frustration, since the board’s discussion did not include any information about the cost savings the district would see as a result of the plan. Michael Fine, CEO of the state Financial Crisis Management and Assistance Team, who is one of only two school districts in the state with a negative certification, meaning they are out of cash, sat through the board's school-closure discussion and wasn't impressed. Ventura County Superintendent of Schools César Morales, who will be in charge of OUSD if it can't balance its budget, warned OUSD trustees: "You have to make the tough decisions to correct your fiscal path, to get back on track to start contributing to your reserve. But let’s just say that 100 families decide that this is not for them — that’s another $1.2m that you have to adjust your ongoing budget with. And I’m gonna take a vault here. Your district cannot handle that."

Ojai Valley News


Santa Rosa high schooler dies after classroom stabbing

A 16-year-old student involved in a fight at a Sonoma County high school was fatally stabbed Wednesday inside a classroom full of students, authorities said. Another student also suffered a stab wound and the suspect, a 15-year-old freshman, is in custody, according to Santa Rosa Police. The two victims, both juniors at Montgomery High School in Santa Rosa, walked into an art classroom around 11:15 a.m. and began fighting with the freshman, Santa Rosa Police Chief John Cregan said during a news conference. Teachers initially broke up the fight but the freshman pulled out a folding knife and stabbed the juniors, the chief said. Principal Adam Paulson sent a message to parents, students and the school community on Wednesday evening, announcing the campus would remain closed Thursday. He called the outbreak of violence “the darkest day anyone can remember at Montgomery High.”

Napa Valley Register    San Francisco Chronicle


Riverside high school ‘scheme’ used fake documents to get basketball players on team

Fake documents were used for four years in a scheme to “register ineligible student-athletes” to play on powerhouse boys basketball teams at Riverside USD's Poly High School, according to a district report. It alleges that former head coach and current Poly teacher Yancy Dodson led the plot "to facilitate the submission of the false documents." The report also states that the former coach “claimed he did not believe his actions violated CIF eligibility rules for student transfers to Poly or the district.” The CIF Southern Section has reviewed the report, and has placed Poly's varsity basketball program on probation for violating its rules. It also made the school forfeit wins from the past four seasons and banned it from this year's playoffs, for which it otherwise would have qualified. 

The Mercury News

----- EMPLOYMENT IMPACT OF DEPLETION -----

Strategies to attract and retain K–12 teachers

Research by consultancy firm McKinsey examines the main talent challenges school districts currently face and offers a strategic blueprint that leaders and school systems could consider for attracting and retaining more K–12 educators. Meaningful work is by far the top reason that motivates teachers to stay. Educators are nearly 20% more likely than private-sector employees to identify meaningful work as a top reason to stay in their jobs. Community and colleagues also play a key role in teacher retention. Among those citing these two factors as reasons for staying, 87% say their coworkers show genuine concern for one another, 83% say their coworkers help one another to achieve their work goals, 85 % say they fit in with the culture of the organization, and 84% say they can be themselves at work. Compensation is a top driver of both attrition and retention, he research asserts, but to increase teachers’ sense of purpose and meaning in their job - school leaders could employ nonfinancial incentives that are common in other workplaces, such as public recognition. By tailoring solutions that address the root causes of attrition, leaders could also potentially build more fulfilling and equitable environments that better serve not only educators but also students and society at large.

McKinsey

----- FINANCE -----

Teacher pension debt 'soaring'

A fresh report indicates that state spending on K-12 retirement costs soared by at least 123% between 2001 and 2021, an increase driven mainly by growing pension debt. The report, by public pension education and research nonprofit the Equable Institute, notes that in 2001 just 17% of retirement costs serviced pension debt. In 2021 however, that share had increased by 414% - to 69%. Unfunded liabilities for teacher pension plans, or money that should be in teacher retirement systems, but isn’t, has increased significantly over the last two decades. What was an $86.32bn shortfall in 2001 for teacher and public school employee retirement systems grew nearly tenfold to $816.71bn in 2022. Retirement costs due to increasing pension debt are expected to continue increasing as retirement costs grow faster than K-12 spending nationally. Anthony Randazzo, executive director of Equable Institute, comments: "There is cause to be concerned. It is somewhat inevitable that we are going to have more hidden funding cuts going forward.” 

K12 Dive

 ----- WORKFORCE ----

Staff turnover exceeds pre-pandemic levels

Principal turnover had hit 16% nationally by the end of the 2021-22 school year, according to a new RAND Corp. report, up 13 percentage points on pre-pandemic levels. Teacher turnover hit 10% nationally the same year, increasing 4 percentage points from pre-pandemic rates. By category, staffing shortages in fall 2022 persisted the most among substitute teachers, special education teachers and bus drivers. High-poverty districts also still struggled to fill several teaching categories. The principal turnover findings are in line with other surveys, including one from the National Association of Secondary School Principals that showed over half of 1,000 school leaders were considering a career change or early retirement in 2022. The RAND report recommends that policies addressing teacher shortages focus on producing and retaining qualified teachers over rushing to fill immediate needs. Efforts are already underway to tackle the challenges - 90% of districts reported one or more policy changes at the district or state level to tackle staffing shortages, and nearly half said those new policies included increasing pay or expanding grow-your-own programs.

K12 Dive


Last in, first out' recruitment practices disproportionately impact teachers of color

A new report breaks down by state how teachers of color are far more likely to be the target of "last in, first out" (LIFO) layoffs than white teachers because they are only in their first or second year of teaching. Nationally, teachers of color are nearly 50% as likely to be in their first two years on the job. In some states – including Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and Minnesota – educators of color are more than twice as likely as white peers to be in their first two years of teaching. Thirteen states make seniority the only factor determining which teachers are on the chopping block. Nineteen states leave layoff policies up to districts, and many stipulate that seniority factor exclusively into firing decisions. Another 19 states ban districts from relying on seniority as the sole or primary factor in layoff decisions.

USA Today

----- HEALTH & WELLBEING -----

Greater collaboration required to support student mental health needs

A new report by the Center on Reinventing Public Education argues that the pandemic is not solely to blame for students’ worsening mental health over the past few years. Other risk factors, such as systemic racism, anti-gay bias, harmful behaviors related to social media, and other stressors may also carry some of the fault, the report's authors assert. A lack of “dynamic and collaborative efforts” to find solutions can also make solutions seem unattainable. The report promotes three systems-level strategies for impactful change; embracing technology innovations, not making SEL compete with other efforts, and building and integrating appropriate data systems to support initiatives. “Helping young people right themselves emotionally will require many individuals, organizations, and agencies to organize around a unified vision of what success looks like for young people and to build the tools to measure progress toward that vision,” the report concludes.

K12 Dive


Kids’ screen time has remained high post-pandemic

Fresh research supported by the National Institutes of Health and published in the journal Pediatrics warns that children's post-pandemic "screen time" has remained very high. As COVID-19 restrictions lifted and students returned to in-person instruction, the time kids spent in front of screens did not come back down as expected. Before the pandemic, average screen time for children was 4.4 hours a day. From the start of the pandemic to April 2021, they spent 1.75 hours more per day on screens than they did pre-pandemic. From May through August 2021, students were spending, on average, an additional 1.11 hours per day on screens compared to before the pandemic. While the study says that it’s still too early to see how increased screen time may affect kids’ long-term obesity and mental health outcomes, many educators say that they believe screens have already had a negative impact on their students. In a 2022 survey by the EdWeek Research Center, 88% of teachers, principals, and district leaders said that as students’ screen time increased, so did learning challenges. Eighty percent of educators said that student behavior got worse due to increased screen time. The findings align with research from Common Sense Media, which surveyed an older group of kids, ages eight-18 and found similar increases in screen time that persisted well into 2021. Notably, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that young children, those aged between two and five, spend no more than an hour a day looking at screens, but then relaxed those guidelines during the pandemic.

Education Week

----- INTERNATIONAL -----

 Community colleges rely too much on part-time faculty and misspend funds, audit finds

State auditor faults state chancellor's office for not providing proper oversight

California’s community colleges do not employ enough full-time faculty and in some cases districts are misspending state funds allocated for those faculty instead on too many part-time adjuncts, according to a newly released report from California’s state auditor.


The audit, ordered last year by state lawmakers, probed hiring practices for full-time faculty at four community college districts: Foothill-De Anza, Kern, Los Rios and San Diego. Auditors also reviewed how those districts have spent state dollars, including $100 million provided by the Legislature in 2021 to help districts hire more full-time faculty.


California has had a longstanding goal that 75% of community college classes should be taught by full-time faculty, but the audit found that the districts are falling well short of that. At the San Diego district, just 50% of instruction is taught by full-time faculty. The district with the highest share, Sacramento-based Los Rios, was still only at 63%. https://edsource.org/2023/california-community-colleges-rely-too-much-on-part-time-faculty-and-misspend-funds-audit-finds/686030






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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