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--

President's Newsletter, September 18th

Hello again,

Many of you are aware that my stepfather was diagnosed with leukemia in July of 2009. At that time they said his particular symptoms usually meant that patients had about 13 months left; on Tuesday morning I got an urgent phone call from my brother and was in my car driving home to Olympia by 8:00. I share this with you in order to thank the staff at Anderson for helping my sub during my absence, particularly Jackie and Sandy on the 5th grade team, lead secretary Dolores Martin for passing along the sub plans I emailed, and everyone else who sent along their well-wishes.

The Medical Lake School District is a great place because of the people who work here and make it go. Thank you to everyone for what you do!

State budget update: Thursday's kick in the teeth was the announcement from the state's Revenue Forecast Council; you can watch the meeting here or read Seattle Times coverage here.

The Governor is ordering an immediate 6% cut to spending. For us that gets a bit hard to figure because so much of our funding is mandated by the state constitution, but there are two pots of money that aren't considered basic education that mean a lot for us: levy equalization and K-3 class size enhancement. Put them together and those cuts equal about $120,000; combine that with the decline in enrollment (30 kids, or $150,000) and you can get an early handle on the problem we're facing.

A small ray of sunshine: Last month the big push by the NEA congressional lobbyists in DC was to get the education jobs bill to pass through the congress; it did, which will mean about $200,000,000 for Washington and $400,000 for us here in Medical Lake (assuming that all the relevant projections come to pass). It probably won't cover the full deficit that we're being faced with this year, but every little bit helps.

Busy week for education reform: There's a ton of things going on around the state this week. On Tuesday the Quality Education Council is meeting in Olympia; they're the legislative taskforce charged with managing the recent school reform bills. Also on Tuesday I'll be in Federal Way for a PAC meeting to hear about where we're at with elections and initiatives. On Thursday the Evaluation Pilot Project is having a meeting at the ESD, and on Friday the State Levy and Local Effort Assistance Technical Workgroup is meeting in Renton to talk about potential policy changes to levies and levy equaliation.

And for good measure, a new staffer too! Many of you may know Mike Boyer; he was our field staffer out of the WEA-Eastern Uniserv office for a number of years. He's recently taken a new position with the WEA where he'll work on arbitrations and bargaining, which means we'll be hiring a new face at the Uniserv soon. I'll let you know how it goes!

---

As always, if you have any questions please feel free to call or email. Go Eags!

--Ryan--

President's Newsletter, September 12th

MLEA Members,

I hope you've all had a great start to the school year!

Enrollment Update: It's been shared with some buildings that our enrollment has again come in below projections. We planned for 1,900 students for the district; we're running about 1,870. Last year there was a spike in Running Start students that was a large part of the issue; this year, there isn't really a pattern to the enrollment drop.

What this means is an instant $150,000 hole in the budget. Further, our enrollment tends to be at it's high point in September and October; as families move away and struggling students drop out, the enrollment tends to trend down during the year.

It's something I know the administrators keep a close eye on; the impact will be felt most directly in April and May, when we start setting the budget for the 2011-2012 school year. If you have any questions, please let me know.

The WEA Children's Fund: You may have received an email two weeks back from WEA Vice President Mike Ragan about the WEA Children's Fund. It's a great charity that we've had cause to access in the past to support families in crisis. If you have a child who could use their help the application process is easy; if you have the ability to make a donation to support their work, it would be very much appreciated. You can also make the Children's Fund your United Way designated charity; I'll offer more information about that process in the next newsletter.

Another great group to support is the Medical Lake Dollars for Scholars. Brenda Vasquez at Hallett and Michael Anderson is a board member for them, and the work they do every year getting scholarships to deserving Medical Lake grads is to be commended. You might also get a request from Citizens for Medical Lake Schools; you can donate to them through payroll deduction. It's a great way to support our levy elections on a consistent basis.

Class Size: We've been made aware of some class size problems in different buildings. The 4th grades at Michael Anderson were running at 30+ kids each until last week; they've since added a class that is being staffed with a long-term sub. We're now hearing about general ed classes at the High School with 40+ kids; that should get settled this week.

We have some of the best class size language in the area, but that's only doable as long as you speak up and let it be known how important class size is. If you're currently faced with an overload please talk with me or your building rep so that we can go over what options and relief you can have.

Negotiations: This is the last year of our three-year contract with the school district, meaning we'll be entering into negotiations soon. We'll be running a survey to gather your ideas on what the process should look like, so please be thinking about the areas where the contract has mattered for you and how you think that process could be improved. Look for the survey soon!

I hope you've all had a great start to the school year, and Go Cardinals!

--Ryan--

Your Weingarten Rights

For a while now I've wanted to share this newsletter from Sharon Bacon, a recently-retired rep for the Spokane EA. It gives a great overview of your Weingarten Rights, which is your right to representation during a meeting with administration.

Please give it a read and keep it in mind!

--Ryan--