Redwood City Teachers’ Association Rep. Council
RCTA Mission Statement:
The Redwood City Teachers Association exists to promote and protect the professional health and longevity of its members. It is dedicated to the pursuit and support of excellent teaching, equity, collective bargaining, and fair working conditions. We are devoted to the education of the children, their families, and the community of Redwood City.
Date: Monday March 4th, 2019 3:45 - 5:15 Food served at 3;30
Location: Red Morton CAB: 1400 Roosevelt, Redwood City
Called to Order: Parliamentarian at 3:50 p.m.
February 4th Rep Council Minutes Approved. (2-5 Min): Minutes Approved.
Site Collaboration and Reports (15 minutes) Clifford: Principal on leave. VP was gone last month. Cathy Okubo is filling in. Hoover: CPR Classes, 10 teachers interested. Yosemite trip went well. Kids went cross country skiing. 48 kids went with 5 adults. Roy Cloud: Staff wants to know if there is going to be a principal change. (Kevin said he heard that there are no more principal changes.) Kindergarten teachers are being targeted. Last staff meeting Principal was upset that no one volunteered for the principal advisory council. Principal was told that she is not very approachable. Many changes implemented by the new principal. Kevin: Keep track of things. Hoping to see a change in the principal. Low turn out from staff at the annual fundraiser. North Star: Everyone is frazzled. NS has a lot of special needs students. Not really a time for sharing at staff meetings. No real time for staff to talk about teaching and direction of where we are going. We have people coming in to talk to us and we have no say on who these speakers are. Teachers worried about what is happening in our district. People feel that North Star is in the cross hairs of the administration downtown. Selby Lane: A lot of apprehension. Principal meet and greets are held at the same time at many school sites so teachers can’t go to more than one. How do the three choices work? Kevin: The idea of top three choices was not in the MOU. Kevin has noted to talk to the district about this. Orion: We were all told many things that didn’t get to fruition. Orion was told that Orion was moving as a program to Gill. If you are interested in what makes Orion different. Orion rep here to answer questions. Principal is not going to the new site. Morale is down. Adelante: Staff not happy with MOU. We were told the MOU would not be signed until we had seen it here at the RCTA Meeting. We are not happy with the two days per diem for moving. There is no way to unpack and set up a classroom. We were talking about having 5 days. We are so unhappy about this. We found out that we have to bump the Selby teachers out of their classrooms. Taft: We are in a state of transition, also. We changed our focus to make it a STEAM school. We are encouraging Fair Oaks parents to come. We have Kipp on our site. Kipp is going to be closed. Is Kipp going to Fair Oaks? Kennedy: Lots of construction going on. We have a lack of subs? Students are saying that they got Mr. Baird fired. We haven’t had a staff meeting so we haven’t had a ten minute meeting. MIT: They are rewiring. We got little notice about vacating our classrooms. Literally only a day’s notice. Telephones are now located by the door, bad location. No one asks the teachers questions about remodeling. John Gill: We will no longer have Title 1 money. Little communication about what is going on. In the past Title 1 has been used for the reading specialist. Roosevelt: Rumblings (disatisfaction) about the administrators. We hear we are getting one more classroom per grade level next year. Roosevelt is being forced into 6 days of training with the Urban Alliance. Lack of subs is a real problem. Nurses: We went to a conference last weekend. We will be doing a presentation. A program called Vision To Learn is coming. Program will come to the campuses and do free vision screenings, free prescriptions and free glasses. There may be a way to shuttle kids from schools that are not a Title 1 school. If you are not Title 1 reach out to the nurses. Henry Ford: Music for Minor program There are conflicting reports on whether Music for Minors was cut back due to a lack of money or a curriculum decision made by downtown. This was brought up but not answered at the Board Meeting. John Baker said he would look into it. He initially said it was a lack of funds. The Henry Ford PTA president said she had just gone to an RCEF meeting and they said it was a curriculum decision by the DO.. Henry Ford principal was grilled by the board about how they were going to integrate new students and staff. The Board did not take any apparent responsibility for their role in this process. Have heard that the new head of tech wants to give us Chromebooks instead of MacBook AIrs. CDC: CDC from Fair Oaks heard today that they going to Hawes and Hoover. Fair Oaks: Fifth graders went to Outdoor Ed. First grade teacher is out and kids are being split. Question about PE. Teachers get a prep time when kids go to PE. Upper grade teachers are not getting the same prep time. Subs situation is a big problem. Regarding health insurance distress was expressed that when you retire and you are not 65, the district pays for the lowest plan. Now the cost for the lower plan has gone up and teachers are now paying more. Hawes: Not happy about the 2 days for meeting. The MOU process is very frustrating. They want to know who took what job so we can keep the district honest. Sad to see our principal leaving. We are frustrated not knowing what our site will be. Hard for the DO to be coming and talking about this in front of the kids. District is doing inventory on the weekends. Kevin -- We are still pushing for another day for movement to new schools.
Negotiations Chair: Brian Cagle: Prep time. K-3 has no prep time, 4 -5 has prep time if practicable. Middle School is provided 2 preps. Old MOU had two days for moving out and two days for moving in. Negotiating team wasn’t formed this year. Still keeping a small team Cathy Sheckter, Michelle Territo and Michelle Washington ( a non voting member). Brian wants us to get started early. District likes to drag out negotiations. From the 13-14 school year to 19-20 school year we have seen a 19% increase. We benefited from the LCFF (Local Control Funding). We are going to meet about 8.4.4 - Exceptional Circumstances. This has replaced weighting Inclusion Students. District couldn’t agree to what an inclusion student is. Please, forward any concerns to Kevin and he will forward the comments to Brian. Bargaining for next year: We can’t bargain for compensation. We need to survey our members to be best prepared for next year. We want our Sunshine Proposal to be ready for negotiating. Kevin - ask staff for their concerns in your ten minute meetings. Get these concerns back to Kevin. Brian - A meeting will happen in April for 8.4.4 and we are getting ready for our negotiations for next year. There will be a report next week about a conference that was attended. RCTA Equity and Human Rights Committee: Meeting March 20th 4:00 p.m. at Roosevelt School.
Adjourned: 5:20 p.m.
Site Reps. to do list: each one nets you a raffle ticket for a wonderful prize.
School Site or Department
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Hold the 10 Minute Meeting
Sign up Staff Volunteers to help Reassigned Teachers
Survey staff Concerns and questions for 2020 contract negotiations
(Sunshine Proposals)
Reminders:
• Paradise Charity Dinner 3/15/19
• Subbing credit
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Next meeting Monday April 1
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