The Seattle Times on School Bond Elections

We weren't along in failing ours--around the state, 11 out of 13 bond issues run failed to pass. For a nice short read on the subject, click here.

Highlights from This Year's Legislative Session

Bill Freund, ace state budget analyst for the WEA, sent out an email to council presidents and staff on Wednesday highlighting some of the things we can look forward to next year:

*There will be no change to the phase-in of all-day kindergarten. In the House budget proposal there had initially been talk of suspending the increase in the number of schools served, but things are still on schedule. Sadly, the schedule doesn't reach Medical Lake for several years.

*More money is alloted for libraries and non-employee related costs (NERCs).

*The funded ratio of classified staff is increased from one for every 59 students to 1 for every 58.75 students. No school district can really operate on those numbers; for Medical Lake the old formula would pay for 33.9 paraprofessionals, while the new formula pays for 34.05 (based off of a 2000 student enrollment).

*The Promoting Academic Success program (PAS) has been eliminated.

*Health costs for retirees were scheduled to go up to $65.97 a month; instead, it will be $60.40. This saves us as a district nearly $9,000.

Keep watching this space; I'll post the legislative reviews from the major professional organizations as soon as they release them.

Update (4/23/08): Told you I would. The Washington Association of School Administrators here; the State School Director's Association here.

Clarity

I know that many of you saw the article in the Cheney Free Press relating to the waiver days that the district applied for. We've already used two LID/PDD days and moved the last day of school from June 13th to June 16th; pending OSPI approval, the other 5 days we missed will be waived. Hooray!

There is a piece of the article, though, that needs to be addressed:

Survey results showed respondents were more in favor of using both professional development days and extending attendance in June over a proposal to extend daily instruction time by a total of 30 minutes each day from March 1 through April 30 to make up instruction time. The proposal, according to officials “would send a strong message to our parents and community members of our commitment to protecting instructional time.”

When asked what their thoughts were on the proposal, some of the 89 respondents’ comments board president Julie Albright said she found troubling.

“Some of these answers disturb me, especially coming from some of our teachers. Like, ‘This is against our contract!’....It’s kind of disheartening,” Albright said.

Veltri clarified the proposal, had it been approved, wouldn’t have added to the required seven and half hours per day teachers are contractually expected to be at school. What would increase is instruction time with students, having students stay an extra 15 minutes before and after regular hours.

First, it needs to be understood that the extra 30 minutes a day wouldn't negate the need to make up days. There are dual requirements from the state for a certain number of school days AND a certain number of minutes; we have the minutes more than taken care of, but only with a waiver (like we have for the LID days) can days be skipped. The 30 minutes extra a day would have been just that--30 minutes extra--not a way to avoid the need to make up days.

Secondly, our position remains that the additional time would have been a violation of the contract. It may have been technically possible to operate within the strictest definition of the 7.5 hour work day, but there was no getting around line 11 on page 7:

Employees shall be in their building one-half hour prior to the start of school and shall remain one-half hour after the dismissal of school.

We could have ignored this clause, sure. That sets a dangerous precedent, though, that could have caused problems down the road. Plus, with our school day 20 minutes longer than other districts (like Spokane 81) we already give our kids a level of service that we can all be proud of.

Ryan Grant attended the school board meeting as the Association representative. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

--The MLEA Exec Board--

Richard Semler is Coming to WEA-Eastern! Save the Date!

At our regularly scheduled Eastern Council meeting on Wednesday, April 9th, Dr. Richard Semler will be coming to speak and hear from teachers in our area. Most recently the superintendent of the Richland School District, Dr. Semler is now running for the Superintendent of Public Instruction office against Terry Bergeson. You can check out his campaign website here; he's very thoughtful in his criticisms of the WASL, and we're excited to be able to host him for our meeting!

If you would like to attend the meeting please email Ryan or Wendy so we can forward your name onto the council office.

Vote for Wendy Stewart!

MLEA President Wendy Stewart is running to fill the newly created treasurers position at WEA-Eastern. She's been working in that capacity for the past year; this will just make her official.

We all wish her well in the elections on April 9th!

Good COLA news!

Last night at the Rep Council meeting for WEA-Eastern Washington we had a presentation from Rosemary Wolf, who works in the political action department at the WEA Headquarters in Federal Way. This year's I-732 COLA for teachers is 3.9%, which is based off of the consumer price index in Seattle; added to that will be a .5% catch-up AND a .6% salary equity bump, for a total raise next year of 5%.

Not too shabby!

It speaks very well of the influence that the WEA members have in Olympia. The emails you sent made a difference--we met our goals for both the 7th and 9th legislative districts, which are the main ones for Medical Lake. A special "THANK YOU!" to all the WEAPAC members in the district; the WEAPAC dues pay for our Legislative Action Teams, and that face-to-face contact we have with the legislators is crucial.

We shouldn't ever forget the bad ol' days, when our raises ran 0-0-4-0-3-0 over a six-year span. Since I-732 in 2001 our COLA raises have been 3.7, 3.6, 0, 0, 1.2, 3.3, 4.3, and this year's budgeted 5.0%. That's a measure of security many don't enjoy, and that's why we're encouraging everyone to email their legislators to say "Thank you!" for their support of education this session. You can send them an easy email throug the State Legislature website here or the WEA portal, here.

They're not part of our district....

....and I don't think they're represented by the WEA, but all of us wish the paraeducators association in Eastmont the best of luck for a just settlement as they near the end of their second full year of bargaining their new contract.

That's right, two years. That's a looooong time at the table!