ROEA Reporter

Executive Board

Sidney Kardon
   President
Marcia Rauschendorfer
   Executive Vice-President     
Christine Baer
   Program Vice-President
Jennifer Jump
   Secretary
Beth Morrison
   Treasurer
Barbara Pollis
   Middle School Director
Pat Hein
   Elementary Director
Vince Caruso
   High School Director
Betty Ong
   NEA Third World Delegate
Tracy Crawley
   MEA Delegate
Kara Daunt
   MEA Delegate
Stuart Asch
   NEA Delegate
Nila Wilson
   NEA Third World Delegate
Betty Ann Garlak
   PAC Chairperson

Uniserv Director         
Paul Chambers

February, 2005

MEMBERS AT WORK

Several of our members have volunteered to work on committees that have been established either by our contract or at the Joint Committee.

Early Retirement Incentive Committee

This committee was established during contract negotiations.  Although the Administration is not committed to establishing an ERI, this committee at least gives a contractual basis for dialogue about an ERI.  The ROEA members who have been appointed by the Executive Board to serve on this committee are Stuart Asch, Vince Caruso, and Tom Steeby.  Our MEA Uniserv Director, Paul Chambers, will work with this committee as well.

No Child Left Behind Committee

This committee will develop contract language designed to expand the definition of “Highly Qualified” as it pertains to our teaching staff and protect our members from the unfair regulations of NCLB that allow for arbitrary changes in our job status in the event that a district does not meet Annual Yearly Progress goals over the course of a few years.  The members serving on this committee are Karen Banat, Susan Cox, Betty Ong, and Barbara Pollis, all of whom have been appointed by the Executive Board.  Marcia Rauschendorfer and I will also be a part of this committee.

Elementary Specials Committee

This committee was agreed to at Joint Committee.  At several elementary buildings specials teachers are doing work that the ROEA considers unprofessional such as supervising the parking lot.  The administration feels that it has the unfettered right to make our teachers do whatever they deem appropriate during planning time that exceeds the contract minimum of 200 minutes.  We do not share that belief.  The committee is the result of our different perspectives.  The purpose of the committee is to establish appropriate professional jobs that our members can do if they are in excess of the 200 minutes of weekly planning time.  Please note that this is an administrative issue that has been imposed upon us; our contention at Joint Committee has been that all of our members are using whatever planning time they have to enhance their particular program.  The members of this committee are Debbie Buffa, Donna McCatty, and Marcie McLellan.

My thanks to all of these members who are volunteering their time in order to serve us.

Editor’s Note:  We ran this article earlier this year, but there are always questions about paid leave and there are a few new wrinkles to discuss.  Here is the original article with some modification.

Contract Feature
Paid Leave

Paid Leave, often referred to as sick leave, includes different categories of use. Please refer to page 33 of the contract for more information.

All teachers receive 11 days of paid leave at the beginning of the school year. Days that are not used are carried forward to the following year. If, for example, a teacher uses 5 paid leave days this year, that teacher will have 17 days (11 new days plus 6 carryover days) available for the 2005-06 school year.

Paid leave days can be used for various reasons. The primary uses are for your own illness or illness in the immediate family. If your child is ill, for example, you can use paid leave days to take care of your child. You can use as many days as you need for this purpose. The limitation on the number of leave days that can be utilized to care for a family member comes into effect for family members who do not reside with you or who are not your dependents. (A child at college is probably still your dependent and you could utilize as many paid leave days as necessary for their care since they would be an immediate family member.) If you are helping to care for an ill parent who lives in the area, you can have 3 paid leave days for this purpose. If the ill parent lives out of the area, 5 days of paid leave are available for their care.

Paid leave days are also used for the death of a family member (3 days for the metropolitan area; 5 days if the deceased is out of the area) and for personal business leave.

Personal Business Leave

Personal business leave is covered on page 36 of the contract.  The 3 days of personal business leave are part of the 11 paid leave days which are allotted annually.  Personal business days are not lost if unused. They are converted into accumulated sick leave days the following year.  The forms for personal business leave are in the school office.  The form was modified recently by the Joint Committee to take into account our one discretionary personal leave day.  For the discretionary day, you do not have to sign the part of the form which delineates the conditions for which you cannot use the two regular personal leave days.  You can take the discretionary day for any use of your choice.  However, you cannot use the discretionary day to extend a holiday.  If you need a personal day to extend a holiday, it has to be approved by the Joint Committee.  Approval is also needed to take personal leave during the last 5 working days of the year.  For this year that means that Joint Committee approval is needed to take personal leave days on June 14^th through June 20th.  Approval of the Joint Committee depends upon your reason for wanting to extend the holiday.  It cannot be merely for a longer break.  Inform your principal that you will be using personal business leave.  Additionally, you must call your absence into the SEMS employee absence system.

Extended Illness or Health Conditions

If a teacher needs days beyond their accumulated days due to a long term illness or health condition, paid days can be drawn from the sick leave bank. The bank starts out the academic year with 325 days available to us as a group. 

After 15 days of an illness, health condition, or need to care for a dependent, we are eligible to draw time from the Sick Leave Bank if we have exhausted our own paid leave time. (Due to the 15 day requirement of the bank, there could be a gap in coverage if a teacher doesn't have 15 accumulated leave days. In this event, the teacher can apply to the Joint Committee for consideration of full coverage due to a financial hardship.)

A typical example of drawing days from the Sick Leave Bank is for maternity. A teacher may have 20 days of accumulated leave and her doctor recommends 6 weeks (30 school days) for the post partum recovery period. The teacher would exhaust her 20 days of accumulated time and would then draw 10 days from the Sick Leave Bank. The entire recovery period would be covered in full.

Snow Days

SUPPORT THE BOND

As of this writing (2/8/05) the outcome of the bond vote is uncertain. But one thing isn’t uncertain and that is the efforts of the ROEA and its members to support the passage of the bond. From the initial kick-off of the bond campaign on January 5^th and until the final phone calls are made on February 22^nd our members have participated and volunteered and contributed. Financially, we contributed $2000 to the Friends of Royal Oak through MEA-PAC funds and spent approximately another $1000 of ROEA money for a mailing to 1200 MEA members and approximately 150 Michigan Federation of Teachers members who live and vote in Royal Oak. Together, individual teachers have contributed hundreds if not thousands of dollars to the campaign. Our members helped staff the phone banks in January when absentee voters were called and will be a substantial part of the phone bank callers in February. We probably sent out at least a thousand Friend to Friend postcards.

It’s impossible to thank everyone who contributed to our efforts. I do want to highlight, however, the contributions of a few members who invested considerable time in the campaign. Paul Chambers, our MEA Uniserv Director was instrumental in obtaining the $2000 MEA-PAC contribution. Tom Steeby, Marcia Rauschendorfer, Barbara Pollis, Vince Caruso, and Bruce Anderson are phone bank captains for the final weekend phone bank. Beth Morrison led the effort to design, print and distribute the Friend to Friend postcards. Finally, the entire ROEA effort was ably led by Linda Flynn and Betty Ann Garlak. Linda and Betty Ann coordinated our efforts, acted as the teacher liaisons to the Friends of Royal Oak, and insured that all of the small tasks that equal one great task were done efficiently and well.

On behalf of the Executive Board, I heartily applaud and thank all of you.

MESSA Under Attack…Again

Acting on the apparent belief that teachers are overpaid and do not deserve good health care coverage for ourselves and our families, State Senator Shirley Johnson has introduced two bills designed to put MESSA out of business and deny us the right to bargain health insurance in any form whatsoever.  Senate Bill 55 proposes to put teachers in one state-wide system along with other state of Michigan employees for health care, similar to our retirement system.  This means that all decisions about health care would be made by the legislature, not at the bargaining table.  The retirement system health care program is an instructive example of how this works.  Currently, retirees are paying $20 for their prescription co-pay.  The increase to $20 was made by legislative fiat.  Deductibles have risen as well in the same manner.  Basically, any time the state needs a financial bailout, they can rob the retirees health care system since the cost is a state financial obligation.  Under Johnson’s bill, the same thing would happen to our work benefits.  If the state controlled our health care benefits, at any time that they perceived a financial crisis (which is all of the time) they would unilaterally pare back our benefits to save money.

If you believe that there is a school health care crisis when local Michigan school boards collectively hold 1.8 billion dollars in fund equity which should be used for operating expenses, you may also believe that there is a social security crisis, despite the acknowledged fact that social security is solvent for the next 50 years.  It’s the kind of crisis that I would like to have with my family finances.  Like social security, the real crisis is a philosophical one:  many people believe that as a society we should not provide social security for seniors and the disabled and many people believe that we should not provide a living wage and sound health care benefits for teachers.  It has nothing to do with finances and everything to do with values, particularly the self serving values of the wealthy and powerful.

Senate Bill 56 is a companion bill to 55.  It takes away our right to collectively bargain health care with our employer.