U.S. Supreme Court Debates Strip Search of Student

Tuesday the nine justices of the Supreme Court talked about places middle school students might hide drugs. In 2003 Savana Redding of Safford, Arizona was brought down to the office of her middle school and searched for Ibuprofen. The female nurse and administrative assistant asked her to pull back her undergarments looking for the contraband pills. Attorneys used terms such as the "ick" factor to describe why students would not put pills in certain private places. Justice Breyer thought it was logical to do that. The question the justices will decide is whether the school officials went beyond "reasonable and prudent" behaviorin preforming the search. These type of cases will resonate down to each of our schools as educators work to make sure our schools are safe from weapons and drugs while preserving students constitutional rights. Stay tuned for more. Thanks Rick

Negotiations Update

Both OEA and WEA Negotiation Teams have met with their district counterparts. The first meeting in each case was to trade packages and list of items to be discussed. The next meetings start the process of discussion and receiving information on contract language and programs. As we receive more information on insurance costs we will enter into discussions of salary and benefits. We have tough decisions to make to make up for the cut in funding from the state legislature. Our goal is to make sure the decisions are made in an equitable manner. We do not believe that budgets should balanced on the shoulders of teachers. We must all do our part.
Rick

Transformation Continued

Second day at UEA Transformation Team Meeting will put us to work matching up our theme clusters (don't ask) into our UEA Strategic Goals. Finally, some product from the hours of data analysis and defining terms. Yesterday we worked on clustering the themes and writing summaries of the new clusters for our work today. The UEA's four strategic goals that move the agenda for our organization will be the center of attention today. We will also create some questions for House of Delegates this Saturday. My hope is that our final product will reflect real change (that you can believe in) not just a cursory cosmetic redo of the status quo. Thanks for reading. Rick

UEA Transformation Team Meeting

Representatives of all member and staff classifications have been working for months on a transformation process looking to change and improve UEA's system of delivery and services and the products we deliver. Today we begin the final process to come up with a product that we can present to the membership leadership. We will meet today and tomorrow and present a preliminary report to the UEA House of Delegates Saturday. Stay tuned. Rick

School's Stip-search of Teen to be heard by Supremes

I have been following the story of the Safford, AZ student(13 year-old girl) who was strip-searched by school admininistrator and a nurse in 2003 under suspicion of having prescription strenght Ibuprofen. Today's Deseret News has an opinion from Dan K. Thomasson that you can read at www.deseretnews.com .

Most of the school law cases that we talk about are usually based on court decisions. It will be interesting to see if the Supreme Court ways in on the rights of students (privacy) or will give schools more ability to search students for contraband.

Thanks Rick

UEA House of Delegates

Tonight delegates from OEA and WEA will meet at the UniServ office to discuss the new business that will be brought to the UEA House of Delegates, April 25 at Alta H.S. Each year delegates from all over the state meet to discuss the business of the UEA. Each delegate will have voting power and the meetings are run by President Kim Campbell using parliamentary procedure. This year there are several proposed bills dealing with membership dues. They include the following topics:

• Create a statewide retired group of members
• Freeze UEA dues at the current level for one year (Ogden/Weber is the sponsor)
• Freeze UEA dues at the current leverl for two years.
• Require a 2/3 vote of the house to change dues.
• Change dues structure for new teachers in first three years
• Change the meeting procedures for the UEA Board
• Combining Bargaining into the current Professional Rights and Responsibilities Committee
• Change the nomination procedure.

We will discuss these issues and take positions tonight at our Pre-House meeting.

Thanks for reading the blog. Rick

Congrats to Karl Powell and Debbie Green

Winners of $25 Chili's gift cards are Karl Powell (Rocky Mountain) and Debbie Green (Sand Ridge).

I have a great opportunity to help teach a class (ED 1010) at the WSU-Davis Campus this afternoon with my colleague from Davis Education Association, Joel Briscoe. I show a version of the professionalism power point I have presented at faculty meetings plus I have taken a few court cases for discussion. It is a great class to talk about the career of teaching. It is the first class for these possible candidates for teacher education at WSU. I appreciate Mike Cena giving us the opportunity to talk to them about school law and the association.

Sara Israelsen-Hartley wrote today in the Deseret News about porn being downloaded by 11 year olds in American Fork. The boys evidently bypassed the district filters "using trial and error". Go to www.deseretnews.com to read the article.

Thanks again for reading. Rick (stop the snow)