Executive Board

Sidney Kardon
   President
Marcia Rauschendorfer
   Executive Vice-President     
Christine Baer
   Program Vice-President
Jennifer Jump
   Secretary
Nicole Murawski
   Interim 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
   Laurie Moore

Contract Feature

LENGTH of SCHOOL YEAR

Our calendar will be an important part of bargaining this year. As many of you know, several school districts have managed to end the school year earlier. I have received a lot of inquiries from our staff about the possibility of future calendars reflecting that trend. Additionally, many parents that I have talked with are also interested in ending the year earlier.

There are several issues to consider in shortening the school year. Those issues are student instruction time, professional development time, and staff meeting time. These discreet categories of time have bearing on each other so it’s important to understand the significance of each one.

The state mandates 1098 hours of instructional time. There is no longer a requirement for a minimum number of instructional days. We currently meet the 1098 hour standard. Our 1098 hours are all direct student contact hours. This is an important concept because the state allows up to 51 hours of professional development to be utilized to meet the requirement. In other words, we can use 1047 hours of direct student contact and 51 hours of professional development to meet the 1098 requirement. Currently we are not using any professional development time as part of our 1098 hours of instructional time. We are meeting the 1098 standard via all direct student contact time.

We have 36 hours of professional development time in our current calendar. The first workday of the year is considered as 6 hours of professional development. We have 2 full days of professional development – one in November and one in March – which equals 12 hours and we have twelve 90 minute curriculum/school improvement meetings which equals 18 hours of professional development. Our total number of professional hours is 36. None of these hours contribute to the 1098 requirement, although they could. (And in my opinion, they should.)

We also have 10 hours of staff meeting time. This is the monthly 60 minute business meeting. We receive no credit at all for these 10 hours. In my elementary school experience with these meetings, it is typical to convert the meeting from business items to professional development items. We routinely discuss reading and math strategies, for example, and how to best implement them. Clearly this is time which could be considered as professional development time, but is currently meaningless time as far as state requirements.

We have ample time built into our calendar that can be made to work to our advantage. The 10 hours of business meeting time can be conceptualized and counted as professional development time; the 36 hours of professional development time (as well as the reconceptualized business meetings) could be utilized to meet the 1098 standard. We do not need to add time to the day to reduce the number of days in the year. Since we do not need to add time to the day, the school year can be shortened using our current calendar framework.

ImPACting the Future!

Every decision that impacts public school employees is made by an elected or appointed official. Because of this, we need to get involved and stay involved in the political process. Our health benefits, pension funds, and bargaining issues are controlled by our legislators. I recently attended MEA Lobby Day in Lansing. If you could hear the urgent educational issues being discussed, I think more teachers would make their PAC contributions. We heard about K-16 Funding, changes in the Core Curriculum, a Statewide Health Plan, and the School Retirement Plan. 

One way to show political support is by making a PAC contribution. The money raised from our local PAC drive guarantees that our voices will be heard loudly and clearly on issues that are important to us and to public education. Only political candidates that support public education are endorsed; some are Democrats and some are Republicans. 40% of our PAC money is used in local elections for school board candidates, bonds and millages. These have been crucial campaigns recently in Royal Oak, and have been funded by our contributions. Along with monetary donations, there are other ways to be politically involved. There are candidate screening committees, phone banks, neighborhood literature drops and various fundraising events. I encourage you to get involved.

This current school year has shown an increase in our PAC participation. 214 out of 319 teachers contributed a total of $7874.00. That's 54% of our membership. The Lincoln Early Childhood Center had 100% PAC participation. When I asked Dawn Mayers why their building
was so successful, she said "We just do it. Our AR brings the PAC forms to our faculty meeting, and we just sit down to do it right then and there." The Lincoln teachers enjoyed a luncheon provided by the ROEA to recognize their efforts. Congratulations to all of them- Dawn Mayers, Renee McConahy, Hazel McNulty, Mary Beth Morrison, Denise Nett, Eileen Steadman, Minda Tilchin, Danielle Truesdell, Theresa Vernier, and Eileen Weber.

Thank you to the ROEA members that contribute to PAC. You are making a difference!

By taking one or two student assistants, we sometimes don’t realize the ramifications it has on the total student enrollment as related to class size. Class size is always a bargaining issue at negotiations. We all know that the Administration correlates the hiring of teaching staff by the number of students in each class or section. For example, if 60 students sign up for Sociology that would equate to two sections (30 students in a class) or 1/3 of a teacher. On the other hand, if only 8 students sign up for Aerobics, the administration would probably say they can’t afford to run that class cutting 1/6 of a teacher. In the fall of 2005 Kimball had 107 student assistants which equates to more than 1/2 of a teaching position.

We’re always saddened when we see a young new teacher join our staff one year, and then get “pink slipped” at the end of that same year. The reason is usually because there are not enough sections to employ that teacher. This current semester (spring 2006) we have 117 student assistants at Kimball. That would equal 2/3 of a teaching position.

I am certainly not advocating that we not take student assistants. However, sometimes we take student assistants because they want to drop a class or they have an open hour and they need a “place” to do their homework. I am guilty myself of taking a senior for a student assistant as a favor.

Bottom line – let’s make sure we only take student assistants if we truly need them, not just to provide them a place to hang out when they could be in a class learning and saving a colleague’s job. This not only affects our teachers, it impacts the quality of educational programs for our students.

HEALTH SAVINGS ACCOUNTS....bad for your health

The latest trend in employer irresponsibility in the area of health benefits is the health savings account. Health savings accounts have extremely high mandatory deductibles. For individual coverage the deductible is $1050; for family coverage the deductible is $2100. The deductible is your out-of-pocket costs. Because your out-of-pocket cost is so high with an HSA, the cost of an HSA is cheaper for the employer. In essence, the cost of health care is shifted to the employee. Moreover, even after you have realized the mandatory deductible, the insurance carrier may have an additional deductible requirement of its own. Oh, by the way, the carrier won’t be MESSA. MESSA considers HSA’s to be so damaging to our benefits that it won’t participate in an HSA program.

Employers believe they can entice employees into HSA’s for two reasons. First, any money in your deductible account that isn’t used rolls into the next year for future use. Second, the employer may be willing to pay a portion of your deductible. (A caution is necessary here – employers often entice bargaining units by offering to pay the entire deductible; in subsequent years it becomes easy to lessen their contribution by alleging financial inability to cover the cost). A third selling point is that the money you pay into the plan is pre-taxed, but that merely suggests to the employer that you got “rewarded” with pre-tax dollars for paying an  increasingly higher amount of your health care.

The current trendy popularity of HSA’s is not based on quality health coverage for teachers. It is based on the fact that inferior plans are less costly to the employer.

I believe that no one in our unit should bear the indignity of this assault on our benefits. Our education, the quality of our work, and our professional commitment to students dictate good salaries, fully paid health benefits, and a fully funded retirement plan.

As your President, I am committed to no less for our bargaining unit members.

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E-mail Cadine Nicholson at Cadinen@aol.com to be included.