Ogden Teachers Rally for Collective Bargaining

Ogden Teachers Rally for Collective Bargaining

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

On the road to Vancouver, B.C.

Leaving Yakima this morning and driving into Vancouver, B.C. I noticed in the Seattle Times this morning that the American Federation of Teachers is having their annual convention in Seattle. Well, that would be a bit cooler than our folks will be experiencing in New Orleans this week. Both groups will be looking at the educational reforms that are being tried around the country. Ogden has three "School Improvement Grant" schools, Madison, Odyssey and Dee Elementary. These three schools will be implementing "research driven reforms" to help improve instruction and student achievement. The federal government is giving them each over $1.5 million dollars over three years to extend the instructional day and year, pay teachers for their expertise and professional development, and give retention bonuses for student growth. The OEA will be included in these discussions, especially where they affect current contractual language.

Rick

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Blogging from Yakima Washington

The NEA Representative Assembly in New Orleans begins July 1 and several WEA leaders will be attending, including President Marlene Irons, VP Terie Maxfield (also representing the UEA board of directors), Mary Margaret Lyon, (member of WEA Executive Board), Jo Egelund (newly elected to the WEA Board) and Cheryl Parkinson (also newly elected to the board). Attending from OEA is VP Lisa Vipperman. They will spend long days in meetings from 7am to late in the afternoon doing the business of NEA. Go to the NEA website to get daily updates.

Rick

Monday, June 28, 2010

NCUEA begins in New Orleans

Lisa Vipperman, OEA Vice-President, is representing the Ogden/Weber UniServ at the summer conference of the National Council of Urban Education Associations in New Orleans. Lisa will meet with leaders from the largest NEA locals and discuss many of the issues coming to the NEA Representative Assembly that begins July 1.

Rick

Friday, June 25, 2010

WEA goes to impasse in negotiations

Marlene Irons and Terie Maxfield, WEA President and Vice-president, delivered a letter of impasse to Supt. Jacobsen Thursday. After our negotiations meeting Wednesday the WEA team voted to go to impasse. The WEA and the district will now ask State Supt. Larry Shumway for a list of mediators. When we agree on a mediator we will schedule the mediation. Two issues that brought us to this impasse are the refusal of the district to pay increment steps to eligible teachers and their refusal to pay any portion of the insurance increases.

We will keep you informed as the mediation process begins. Most of our WEA leaders will be gone to the NEA Representative Assembly starting July 1 in New Orleans.

Rick

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Utah Schools to Pay Teachers Based on Success in Classroom

Lisa Schencker wrote Wednesday in the Salt Lake Tribune: "Starting next school year, more Utah teachers will earn money based on their performance in the classroom. In five pilot schools, educators will earn up to an additional $2,000 each for boosting student achievement, for the quality of their instruction and for parent satisfaction. Currently, most teachers' pay is based on years of experience and educational background." You can read the entire article at http://www.sltrib.com/


Rick

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Negotiations Update

OEA's negotiation team met with the district's team on Tuesday and discussed contract language changes and heard the district's financial proposal for the first time. Doug Stephens has called a OEA Executive Board meeting to talk about negotiations. The Ogden School Board met in executive session last night, but we have not heard a response to our proposal. We hope that we can come to an agreement soon.

WEA's negotiation team is meeting with the district's team today at 2pm. WEA's executive board met last Friday and discussed proposals on the table. We hope today goes well.

Many of the leaders will be leaving next week to attend the NEA Representative Assembly in New Orleans.

Rick

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

School Districts Face Giant Shortfalls

Molly Farmer wrote in the Deseret News: "the budget problems districts face for the 2010-11 school year are worse than some adminstrators have seen in decades. To make budgets balance districts and boards of education are resorting to a variety of cost-cutting measures, including mandating furloughs, laying off support staff, cutting benefits and increasing classroom size."

Canyons School District ($13 million deficit) is mandating five furlough days and is transferring $4.5 million from its capital outlay account to its general fund.

Davis School District ($31 million deficit) hopes to collect $7.5 million from a tax increase, is raising class size by one student districtwide, instituting 2 furlough days and not filling 65 non-teaching positions.

Granite School District ($17 million deficit) is forcing employees to shoulder all insurance increases, elimating positions through attrition and is shifting $1.1 million from its capital outlay funds.

Jordan School District ($29.1 million deficit) approved a $17.5 million cut to programs, resulting in a reduction of 190 classified, or non-teaching, staff. The board will transfer $10 million from the district capital outlay fund. The board and Jordan Education Association have reached an impasse in negotiations and will go to mediation this summer.

Rick

Monday, June 21, 2010

Pressured Teachers Tampering with Tests

Trip Gabriel wrote for the New York Times News Service: "The staff of Normandy Crossing Elementary school outside Houston eagerly awaited the results of state achievement tests this spring. For the principal and assistant principal, high scores could buoy their careers at a time when success is increasingly measured by such tests. For fifth-grade math and science teachers, the rewards were more tangible: a bonus of $2,850. But when the results came back, some seemed too good to be true. Indeed, after an investigation by the Galena Park Independent School District, the principal, assistant principal and three teachers resigned May 21 in a scandal over test tampering."

rick

Thursday, June 17, 2010

UEA Summer Leadership Training

Several WEA and OEA leaders attended the annual UEA Summer Leadership at the Zermatt Resort in Midway, Utah, June 14th and 15th.
Marlene Irons (WEA President), Paul Fawson (WEA Executive Board and Ogden/Weber UniServ Vice-President), and Mary Margaret Lyon (WEA Executive Board) attended several sessions on leadership, bargaining, and political action. Also attending were OEA Vice-president Lisa Vipperman and Letitia Teneau-Sword (OEA Executive Board). They also heard from Dennis Van Roekel (NEA President) and outgoing UEA President Kim Campbell.

Rick

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Four Educators from Ogden/Weber attend "Ignite" Leadership Training

UEA sponsored an emerging leaders training at the Zermatt Resort in Midway, Utah Monday and Tuesday. Attending from OEA was Sara Byrd (Highland Jr.). Attending from WEA were Allison Pfister (Lakeview Elem), Mary Oregon (Washington Terrace Elem) and Cynthia Auble (South Ogden Jr.). They received information from UEA and NEA facilitators on the roles of leaders, communication styles, behavior styles, building relationships and dealing with difficult people. They joined 11 educators from other local associations in the state. They were able to make a plan of action for future leadership opportunities.

Rick

Friday, June 11, 2010

7 Utah Schools to get cash with strings attached

Lisa Schencker wrote in the Salt Lake Tribune today: "Seven low-performing Utah Schools are about to undergo dramatic changes as recipients of about $13 million in federal cash. The feds hope the School Improvement Grants lead to real changes in the schools. Some educators, however, have mixed feelings about making such dramatic changes. The grants require the seven schools to replace their principals. The schools also must increase learning time for kids, use educator evaluations that take student data into account, provide additional teacher training, reward educators who improve student achievement and remove those who ultimately don't after receiving additional support, among other things." You can read the entire article at www.sltrib.com

Ogden has three schools, Odyssey, Madison and Dee Elementary that will receive the three grants of over $500,000 per year.

Rick

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Jordan freezes teachers' pay again...Deseret News

Molly Farmer wrote Wednesday, June 9th,: "The Jordan Board of education unanimously voted Tuesday night to adopt a 2010-11 budget that freezes teachers' wages for the third straight year while not raising taxes or increasing classroom size." The board is not offering lanes or steps for their teachers.

The JEA has declared impasse in negotiations and the district and the association will go to mediation.

You can read the entire article at www.deseretnews.com

rick

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Ogden Announces Administrative Appointments

The Ogden Board of Education approved the following administrative assignments effective July 1. The assignments they are leaving are noted in parenthesis.

Julie Palmer-Gnotta- Principal at Madison Elementary School
Dale Wilkinson - Principal at Odyssey Elementary School (Ogden High School)
Sondra Jolovich-Motes- Principal at Dee Elementary School (Ogden High School)
Trevor Wilson- Principal at Ogden High School (Mt. Ogden Junior High)
Scott Robertson - Asst. Principal at Ogden High School (Dee Elementary School)
Kevin Kuykendall- Principal at Mt. Ogden Jr High (Mound Fort Jr. High)
Charlotte Parry - Principal at Mound Fort Jr. High (Odyssey Elementary)
Ross Lunceford -Principal at Horace Mann Elementary (Madison Elementary)
Eulogio Alejandre - Principal at Washington Alternative High School

Rick

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Negotiations Update

Ogden's school board met last week to talk about the budget. They listed their suggested cuts and then Eugene Hart, business admistrator gave a newspaper interview detailing some of those cuts. The budget is preliminary and must be presented at the June 22 school board meeting. Our OEA Negotiations team is scheduling the next meeting to discuss financial issues. So far, we have not received any proposals dealing with financial issues from the Ogden district team.

Ogden has a special board meeting tonight at 5:30 to announce administrator assignments for 2010-2011.


Weber's business administrator, Robert Peterson, also went to the press with a list of cuts that will be part of the new fiscal year budget. Our WEA Negotiations team has a June 23rd meeting planned with the district team. We have discussed items, but we have not agreed to anything yet.

Rick

Monday, June 7, 2010

States to establish uniform standards for teaching

The Deseret News reported, Thursday, June 3, "new education benchmarks released Wednesday called the Common Core State Standards, a prject that aims to replace a hodgepodge of educational goals varying wildly from state to state with a uniform set of expectations for students. It's the first time states have joined together to establish what students should know by the time they graduate high school."

Rick

Friday, June 4, 2010

Cash-strapped districts cutting summer school

Heather Hollingsworth (AP) reported in the Deseret News, May 24th that many school districts across the nation are cutting summer schools because of budget cuts. Kansas City district gutted its summer school program this spring. Across the country, districts are cutting summer school because it's just too expensive to keep. The cuts started when the recession began and have worsened, affecting more children and more essential programs that help struggling students.

Both Ogden and Weber have summer school programs that are continuing this summer.

Rick

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Canyons Board of Ed oks 5 furlough days

Anne Forester reported on KSL.com that "students in the Canyons School District will have five fewer days in the classroom next year. The Canyons Board of Education voted Tuesday night to take five district-wide furlough days t help meet a $13 million budget shortfall. The furloughs affect all Canyons employees, from teachers to superintendents.

Rick

Jordan district cutting teachers, aides

The Associated Press reported last week, "Jordan school officials say they plan to cut 88 positions from district special education programs, including 19 teachers and 69 full-time classroom assistants. The Jordan School District's special education department has a $6.5 million shortfall."

Rick