ROEA Reporter
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Executive Board Sidney Kardon Uniserv Director
Royal Oak Education Association |
BARGAINING UPDATE After successfully bargaining the 2006-07 calendar, the attorney led administrative team seemed to apply the brakes in negotiations. On August 25th, we spent the entire day bargaining without making any progress. The only person profiting from the day was Board attorney Gary King who most likely bills the administration – and by extension the Royal Oak community – on an hourly basis. At the end of the day, our sole accomplishment was scheduling two more bargaining sessions. Administration then cancelled the September 13th session on September 13th as Mr. King needed emergency dental surgery. We returned to the bargaining table on September 27th. Our discussions were extensive and detailed, but we didn’t attain any new agreements on contract proposals. To date, all bargaining has been during non-school time even though we have offered to pay the cost of subs for our bargaining team. However, our next bargaining session will be an all day one. Administration’s heretofore refusal to bargain during the day seemed to belie their claim that they wanted to negotiate a contract expeditiously. The surprise and welcome offer to spend an entire day bargaining may be a reflection of our team’s persistence in demanding administrative responsibility in bargaining with us. The Board had refused to extend our contract during bargaining. However, at the October 10th board meeting a motion passed unanimously which extended our contract through November 9th. Full day negotiations and a contract extension are indications of the Board’s willingness to bargain in good faith. However, any extension is a temporary one which can be overturned by the Board and should not be equated with a binding long term contract. Without a new contract we continue to be in a crisis. Given that we made our initial offer to negotiate in February, we are still looking at a process that is close to stonewalling and certainly disrespectful to teachers and unmindful of the needs of students. Hopefully, we will make real progress on October 19th. Our commitment as your bargaining team is to persevere and obtain a fair contract for teachers, a contract that recognizes our personal contributions to the welfare of the district and our professional contribution to the lives of Royal Oak students. Sid |
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Robert Landry, ROEA Member ROEA member Robert Landry has taught art to Royal Oak students for 21 years. Rob is also a professional artist. One of his sculptures, "Hope, The Joy of Selflessness," is currently on display in New York as part of the Twin Towers Memorial exhibit. It had previously toured the country with the World Memorial North American Tour and is now being considered for the permanent world memorial exhibit which will eventually be at the site of the World Trade Center. You can view "Hope, The Joy of Selflessness" at http://www.world-memorial.org. The 9/11 tragedy has profoundly shaped our world and everyday lives. Robert's view of the meaning of his work is: “This sculpture is a message of hope that through education and awareness, tolerance and understanding will prevail in the world." To be able to put a visible and tangible face on our national pain and suffering, as Rob has done, and to be able to move such suffering towards a triumph of our collective spirit is a great contribution to our society. On behalf of the ROEA family, thank you, Robert.
View more of Robert
Landry's work at
www.rllandry.com |
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Contract Feature Paid Leave Paid Leave, often referred to as sick leave, includes different categories of use. 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 2007-08 school year. Paid leave days can be used for various reasons. The primary uses are for your own illness or illness in your 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 may still be 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 paid leave days for the following year. The forms for personal business leave are in the school office. The form was modified last year 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. Approval of the Joint Committee depends upon your reason for wanting to extend the holiday. It cannot be merely for a longer vacation 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.
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 fully |
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