Mediation Countdown - 28 days

Only 28 days until Mediation Meetings begin between OCSD and OEA's Negotiation team on July 22. Lavonne Ritter, Federal Mediator from Las Vegas, will serve to mediate the contract impasse called a couple weeks ago. Stay tuned to this station for updates.

"Utah legislative leaders were told last Tuesday that tough financial times are still ahead", writes Bob Bernick in the Des News. Next year could be a worse financial year than this one was for public education. Tax collections are down 11.7% for the first 11 months of the fiscal year.

An Associated Press story last Friday, warned that the Dept of Education will withhold federal stimulus funds if states do not use them correctly.

Both Weber and Ogden School Districts have benefitted from stimulus money.

I will be on vacation until Monday. Rick

Transformation Team Meeting on Advocacy

I met for several hours Friday with the "Products and Services" subcommittee of the UEA Transformation Team and discussed several topics including: Political Action, Legal Services, Bargaining, Message and Visibility. The entire team will meet again July 13 to start preparing for our August presentation to Local Presidents at Council of Local Presidents.

Rick

OEA sets Negotiations mediation meeting

OEA sent out postcards Thursday notifying members of the upcoming mediation process. Both the district's team and the OEA negotiations team will meet with Lavonne Ritter, Federal Mediator, on July 22 at 10 AM at the district office to begin mediation. Ms. Ritter will meet separately with each group to address their concerns and work to find a common resolution. We will continue to update you during this process.

Lisa Vipperman, incoming Vice-President of OEA attended the Organizing Training at UEA Wednesday and Thursday. She reported that she learned a lot about leadership and organizing that will help our association.

Rick

Peanut-Butter Politics: Newsweek June 15, 2009

Jonathan Alter writes about education funding in his June 15th article entitled, "Peanut-Butter Politics". He writes "...teachers can't be evaluated on whether their students actually learned anything between September and June" (referring to restrictions on evaluations in San Francisco). He lays the blame at the feet of the "teachers unions". It is an interesting read, but shows Alter's bias (I actually like his political writing) against the NEA and AFT. He sees us as stumbling blocks to reform. If perception is reality, we have some work to do to show that we aren't here to "protect bad teachers" , but to help improve the profession and protect due process.

OEA will be sending out postcards with info on the scheduled "mediation" in July. Look for a bright pink postcard coming soon.

Rick

Breaking News: OEA Negotiations to start mediation

We received confirmation that the OEA Negotiations Team and the Ogden City School District will enter into mediation starting July 22 with Lavonne Ritter, Commissioner in the Las Vegas office of the Federal Mediation Service. Stay tuned for more updates. Rick

Background Checks for Teachers

Both the Standard-Examiner and the SL Trib weighed in on the benefits of requiring teachers to get a background check every five years when they relicense. Both newspapers had editorials in their opinion sections this week. This decision by the State Board of Education seems to be a reaction to the audit that showed a few employees with marks on their record. UEA will work hard to get the legislature to help subsidize this 65 dollar cost (on top of the regular fee for relicensure). Rick

USA Today: The Permanent Recession

Go to www.usatoday.com to read Laura Vanderkam's scathing indictment of our public ed system. She writes "Despite the roughly half a trillion dollars that governments lavish on education each year, it turns out that America's schools are inflicting on us the equivalent of a permanent recession-though at least one overdue reform might help pull us out." Read the rest of the article.

Rick