Information About Dues

Hello again,

I received an informational packet last month about a grant that the WEA offers for release time. The piece inside that I wanted to share relates to the average local dues for districts statewide.

The average for locals with 100 to 300 members is $116.21 a year.
The average for locals with 301 to 600 members is $234.71 a year.
Here in Medical Lake, the cost for a full time employee? $60.

All of us on the exec board have worked hard to be dilligent with the local budget. It will be coming out for your vote soon; please read it over and let us know if you have any questions. We appreciate the input!

With thanks,

--Ryan--

President's Newsletter, October 10th

If I type really fast I can post this at 10:10:10 on 10-10-10. The math major in me would find that delightful! :-)

What we've been working on this week:

New Uniserv Council Rep: Over the years I know that many of you had the chance to meet and work with Mike Boyer, one of the staff members at the WEA-Eastern office in Spokane. He's moved up to work more directly with grievances and bargaining, and last week we hired a new staff member. Our field reps are some of the hardest working people in the union--Lord knows that I keep ours, Sally McNair, hopping--and they're our first contact when things go off kilter. I think we hired a good one; I'll let you know when things are official!

Evaluation Survey: Next week the Teacher/Principal Evaluation Pilot team is having another series of meetings to work on the new evaluation system. Going into that meeting I'm putting together a survey to help guide me in what you as members want out of a new evaluation tool; look for a link to that to be coming out this week. If you could give it 5 minutes of your time, it would be greatly appreciated!

Homecoming Game: It was great to go out to the High School on Friday night and see such a dominating performance by the Cardinal Football team. The band looked and sounded great, the team played lights out, and the excitement from all the students was a neat thing to see. Thank you to all the High School staff for making this such a great week for the kids!

Politics: Remember that you can always find the official WEA recommendations on the Our Voice WEA website. If you want to dig deeper into the initiatives I'd highly recommend the Inside Olympia program on TVW. Ballots should be mailed out this week.

The Spokane Children's Fund: For those of you who live within the boundries of Spokane District 81, you'll also be voting on the Spokane Children's Fund Initiative. This video from KSPS gives a good look at what fund would mean for the kids in Spokane, as well as the taxpayers who would need to fund it. If you need more info, it's a good piece to check out.

Have a great week!

--Ryan--

Dollars for Scholars

This is from Brenda Vasquez, a Title teacher at Hallett and Michael Anderson who has also had two students attend MLHS:

Purpose of DFS: to expand educational opportunities through scholarships and academic support and encourage educational achievement and support students pursuing education beyond high school.

This is a non-profit, volunteer-operated organization: At ML, we try and raise funds to help as many MLHS students as we can. Students must apply for scholarships and they are granted based on need, merit, or both. Some fund-raising activities through the year are the Silent Auction and the Big Yard Sale at Denny's parking lot in the spring. Scholarship dollars are acquired through the fund-raisers plus through donated gifts, memorials, etc. People donating to the Cardinal Star help scholarship money go into an endowment fund to ensure there is permanent scholarship money available. Thousands of dollars were raised to help our own MLHS seniors last year.

The Dollars for Scholars organization needs people to contribute to the Cardinal Star endowment fund. All that is needed is a $50.00 contribution per year for 3 years. The goal was to raise $50,000 for the endowment fund (though the economy has brought it to $30,000) which in turn will be used for scholarships for our seniors right here in our own community. If we could find 100 individuals/families to commit the $50.00 for 3 years, then the endowment would grow to about $45,000. If someone wants to donate yearly, but can't do the $50.00, then any amt. is greatly appreciated. Any donation, whether a one-time gift, or the 3 year committment, is greatly appreciated at whatever amount. All donations are tax deductible. Should you have goods/furniture to donate for the yard sale, we are collecting and storing them now.

Dollars for Scholars is a great group that has poured tens of thousands of dollars into our students over the years; if you have the chance to support them by either joining the Cardinal Star endowment that Brenda mentioned, or by signing up for a monthly donation via payroll deduction, you can count on it being money well spent.

The New Evaluation System

Hello again,

Some of you have asked for information about the new Teacher/Principal Evaluation Pilot that Medical Lake is a part of; OSPI has a website set up here with everything there is to know. Right now the group is in a very exploratory stage with no definite products yet, but be assured that as they come available I'll be around to talk with you.

Those of you who have access to the works of Charlotte Danielson might be interested as well; a lot of what we're doing comes straight from her books.

--Ryan--