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

May - June, 2005

ELECTION  VICTORY

A tremendous effort by union members helped re-elect Kevin McLogan and Christine Hartwig to the School Board. The importance of this election can not be underestimated. McLogan and Hartwig support comprehensive curricular and extracurricular programs. Both support a bond to create a better teaching and learning environment. And neither delineates an artificial barrier between students and teachers as did their opponents.

Acting in concert with parents, we have held back an anti-public education movement that was attempting to establish firmer roots in Royal Oak. On behalf of our Executive Board, I’d like to thank the following teachers for their leadership in being advocates for public education:

Dawn Mayers, Denise Nett and Hazel McNulty insured that all Lincoln parents were contacted; Andrea Averbuch, Jennifer Jump, Andrea Kirkwood, and Tom Steeby organized the Longfellow effort. Mary Ann Campbell helped organize Northwood; Karen Christian, Anita Heap, Pat Hein, Teri Matynka, Kim Stanley, Kendra Bach, and Michelle Villerot made calls. At Oakland, Kris Ryan, Jennifer Smith, and Val Smith met with building parents to organize efforts there. Kathy Kapera joined them for telephone calls. Christy Osborne did a great organizational job at Oak Ridge; Diane Alvin, Norma Sanders and Sandy Kannianinen made calls to parents. PAC Chairperson Betty Ann Garlak organized the effort at Starr school; staff members Nancy Hollyer, Leslie London, Dorothy Popovich, Dayle Prinstein, Anna Falkiewicz, and Alice Turrett insured that all Starr parents were contacted. Sue Potter coordinated the effort at Twain with able phone call assistance from Sue Witt and Lyn Legg. The Whittier effort was coordinated by Dave Copp along with Kara Daunt and Beth Morrison. Marion Angeli joined them for phone calls. Alice Calvin, head custodian at Upton was our main organizer there. Along with Alice, Jan Kyle, Kate Rybicki, Vicki Forster, Charlotte Watts, and Michell Weinclaw called Upton parents. The Keller effort was lead by Jason Taylor, Nancy Dryer, Kristina James, and Dan Attan. Nancy Adair, Jeff Couzens, and Karen Sirovy assisted with calls. The Adams effort was capably led by Barbara Pollis, Nila Wilson, and Susan Paree. Derek Miller and Linda Flynn organized the Kimball effort; Marsha Rauschendorfer and Terry Powers made calls. Lynn Renkert organized Dondero while Betty Ong, Rosa Tinetti, Mary Sutton, and Janet Norling made phone calls. Debra Sutton from Churchill and Jane Strunck from the Board Office made phone calls as well. Support staff from our secretarial and custodial units were also involved. Sandi Luckhardt, Maureen Jolly, Pam Bordy (along with her husband Alex), Sylvia Sopata, Francis Renou, and Bruce Anderson were a significant part of our effort, as was administrative secretary Karen Patrick.

YEAR END NOTES

Personnel Files

The contract allows us to petition Administration to remove discipline which is more than four years old from our personnel file. If Administration does not automatically remove older discipline at your request, let us know and we will help you with an appeal. Even though under the tenure act discipline which is more than four years old is not supposed to be held against you, it is important to have it removed from your file. We have dealt with situations in which discipline that was15 years old was held against our teachers in subsequent disciplinary issues. Past discipline is potentially harmful even though it may have been without basis or you attached a rejoinder to it. It affects the perspective of administrators in current disciplinary issues and may have bearing on your evaluation as well as assignment requests and bids for positions.

We don’t think very much about discipline because none of us plan to do anything to incur discipline. However, disciplinary situations sneak up on us. The most common situations leading to discipline are student and parent complaints. The complaints have often been found to be baseless, but Administration has disciplined the teacher nevertheless.

A few examples which have occurred recently illustrate the importance of cleaning out your file. Last year a student accused a teacher of hitting him on the hand when she confiscated his CD player after asking for it several times. The student claimed that as the teacher went to grab the CD player, he did also and the teacher’s hand landed on top of his leading to the complaint that he was “hit.” The student had a long history of behavioral problems including numerous suspensions for aggressive actions, but Administration chose to take the word of the student over that of the teacher. The disciplinary letter stayed in the teacher’s file long after the student dropped out of school.

In another incident parents of a special education student filed charges alleging that a teacher violated the educational rights of their child. Both the county and state investigated and neither found a basis for the charges. Nevertheless, a disciplinary letter was placed in the teacher’s personnel file. 

I was disciplined when a student wanted to talk to me at the end of the day and I had already left the building to go to the board office to take care of a union matter. The disciplinary letter from the principal which said that I was absent from my duties was upheld as valid by the administrator in whose office I was sitting during my “absence.”

Past discipline, much of which is undeserved, affects the Administration’s present perception of us which could in turn adversely affect our working conditions. So use your contractual rights to clean out your file. Check also for other correspondence which should not be in the file such as critical letters from principals or other supervisors or parents. They should be removed as well.

Successful Grievances

We had several successful grievances this year. We started with an arbitration win in ROEA Vice president Marcia Rauschendorfer’s salary case. The union maintained that Marcia had enough graduate credits to advance to the Master’s + 15 step on the salary schedule. The Administration refused to change Marcia from the Master’s schedule saying that since some of her credits were taken prior to obtaining a master’s degree, they didn’t count for advancement. The arbitrator ruled in our favor stating that the contract didn’t specify a particular order for obtaining credits for advancement. Marcia received her advancement on the salary schedule with back pay to the date of the grievance.

Dave Potter, a physical education teacher who specializes in working with students with disabilities, was questioned by administrators about whether he properly filed for a personal business day. Dave felt uncomfortable by the questions and believed that the meeting could possibly lead to discipline. He asked for a union representative. The administrator in charge denied the request stating that the meeting was an investigatory one, not a disciplinary one. We filed a grievance based on contract language which gives teachers the right to union representation in situations which they believe may lead to discipline. Investigatory meetings certainly fit this category. The grievance resulted in an internal hearing with Superintendent Tom Shorkey as the hearing officer. Mr. Shorkey ruled in our favor, stating that the request for representation was contractually proper and should have been honored.

At one of our elementary buildings some of our members had to sign in and out. We filed a grievance saying that the practice was not a professional one. Moreover, only certain categories of teachers had to do this, creating different working conditions for specials teachers and other teachers who were not full time K-5 teachers. Several members were prepared to sign the grievance, but after a Step One verbal meeting, the principal wrote a memo to the staff ending the policy.

It takes courage to file a grievance as you are clearly proclaiming your opposition to a policy or the actions of a principal or supervisor. In this context, I want to thank Marcia, Dave, and the Upton staff for strengthening our salary standards, our contractual rights, and our professionalism.

Postings

You can apply for any posted position for which you are qualified. Do not allow a principal or another administrator to dissuade you from doing so by saying that you won’t get the job or you are not qualified for the position.  Put your request in writing. If you do not get a position for which you are qualified and have more seniority than other applicants, we can only help you if you applied for the position in writing. Let Administration know in writing that you want to be notified of summer postings. You can apply for a posted position even if you recently obtained a new position. Remember that your certification and seniority give you access to a new position, not an interview with a principal. Although Administration can require an interview, the subjective judgment of a principal is contractually meaningless. Please inform us if you are turned down for a job which you believe that you should have received.

Correction

In the last REPORTER we published an article about local failing school districts under the No Child Left Behind act. The article cited Walled Lake district as one of four failing districts in Oakland County. I received an e-mail from James Geisler, Superintendent of the Walled Lake School District. Dr. Geisler informed me that upon appeal the state corrected its earlier citation of Walled Lake as a failing district under the Annual Yearly Progress provisions of NCLB. Walled Lake has passed all state education objectives and is not a failing district.

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