Jordan Education Association at Impasse

Jordan Education Association also started their mediation process with the district this week. The Jordan District is not offering steps again this year. JEA declared impasse and they met with the Federal mediator, LaVonne Ritter Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

Rick

OEA Negotiations Update

Our last communication from Brenda Ruffier (spokesperson for district negotiations team) said that we would plan to meet again after the August 5 school board meeting. The board will meet in executive session to discuss negotiations. Our OEA negotiations team (Doug Stephens, Lisa Vipperman, Sherrie Dame, Whit Freund and Rick Palmer) is hoping to meet soon after the board meets on August 5th. Our last proposal was to restore the payment of increment steps.

Rick

WEA Negotiations Mediation Update

Our WEA Negotiations Team met with Lynn Trenbeath yesterday and discussed our interests and gave her some background on where we were in negotiations. We set up our next meeting (with the District team also) for August 11. That was the soonest we could get everyone back in town.

Rick

WEA Mediation Starts This Morning

The WEA Negotiations team (Marlene Irons, Terie Maxfield, Kirk Ottley, Lee Claycomb, Shari Combe and Rick Palmer) begins meeting with Lynn Trenbeath (mediator) this morning to start the mediation process. Lynn has already met with the district team. Non-payment of contractual step increments for over 60 percent of our teachers is the main objective.

Rick

USA Today: Free Speech for students

Tuesday, July 20th edition of USA Today has an interesting editorial (Ken Paulson) on free speech in public schools. I suggest you go to www.usatoday.com and read the entire article in the "Forum" section. He argues that students have some rights to criticize public administrators and teachers on social networks.

Have a nice Pioneer holiday.

Rick

OEA Negotiations Update

We are waiting on the district to respond to our last meeting (three weeks ago) and the latest news is that the district team has met with the board leadership and Supt. Zabriskie and does not have anything for us at this time. Our next meeting has not been scheduled, but it is looking like August before we can meet.

Rick

Districts Give Steps in Negotiations

Out of the 21 districts that have settled or are close to settling negotiations, 20 have received their contractual increment steps. Only Provo District did not receive steps and took a one time bonus. Some districts like Davis and Canyons are taking furlough days (days without pay) to pay for steps.

In Weber District, over 60 percent of our teachers are eligible for a step increment. They range from a low of $408 to a high of $1871. These increments are important to long term earnings and must be preserved to keep the integrity of the salary schedule. The three days of Quality Teaching pay is also a large salary issue. Three days of salary range from a low of $555 on Lane One, Step One to a high of $1002 at the top of the salary schedule.

As we start mediation next Monday, July 26, our goal is to work to preserve the step increments.

Rick