Several interesting developments at Tuesday's Board meeting:

1)  The District gave an adminstrator a $23,000 pay raise for an updated job description.  We keep hearing from the District that we all have to do more with less...unless you are an administrator in which case you will get more to do more.   Keep in mind that the District is asking for six days from the certificated unit and an increase in class size and adjunct duty to go along with eight laid off teachers.  The term "equity" was thrown about at last night's meeting; apparently equity does not apply to negotiations.

2)  The following Tier III programs were swept into the general fund:

• Hourly Supplemental Program: $75,000
• Deferred Maintenence (was approved in February): $85,000
• ROP: $31,383
• School Safety and Violence Prevention: $12,145
• CAHSEE Intensive Innstruction: $13,168
• Instructional Materials: $131,830
• Staff Development for Math and Reading: $4,070
• Professional Development Block Grant:  $50,843
• Targeted Inst. Improvement BLock Grant:  $88,653

Total grants swept into the general fund:  approximately $500,000

 Click on the title to read more.

Academic –Administrative Personnel Federation – Local 3983

To date your negotiation team has met with the administrative team on:  February 24, 2010, March 4, 2010, March 17, 2010, March 31, 2010, April 14, 2010, May 4, 2010, May 26, 2010, June 7, 2010, June 16, 2010 & June 29, 2010.

It is important to note at this time that significant progress has been made on numerous language items.  Again, although these items have been “signed off” on, I cannot yet share the specifics due to our confidentiality agreement.

There was no change in the financial offer made, and as I shared previously, we do not feel it is fair and equitable and once again rejected it.  In accordance with the New Jersey Employee Relations Act, we have requested comprehensive financial documents from the college.  Upon receipt of the requested items, a member of the research department, of AFT NJ State Federation (formerly NJSFT) will review them and share her findings with our team.  Time will be needed to gather and review the requested information; therefore, we do no not have any further meetings scheduled at this time.

We expect to re-convene once above is completed.

Again, I want to thank each of you for your patience and support.   Please know that your team is committed to settling a fair and equitable contract as soon as possible.

As of July 7, the District has swept the following TIER III funds into the general fund:

• CAHSEE Intensive:  $17,194
• Instructional Materials (IMFRP): $53,533
• Professional Development Block Grant: $24,087
• Targeted Instruction Improv. Block Grant: $81,365

The following summer project requests by teachers were denied by the district:

The California Federation of Teachers has targeted three priorities in the 2020 mid term election:

• Proposition 25 (vote yes)
• Governor (Jerry Brown)
• State Superintendent of Public Education (Tom Torlakson)

The CFT is currently raising money and is seeking your assistance (money, volunteering) to get the job done.  We hope to count on you to support your profession and fight for the improvements necessary to best educate the students of this state.

The House of Representatives recently passed a supplemental spending bill, HR 4899, that contains $15 billion for education spending.  The point of the bill is to provide quick financial assistance to school districts in order to preserve teachers' jobs during these difficult times.

However, Senator Dianne Feinstein is balking at the measure.

Contact Dianne Feinstein and ask her to vote for this bill. 

Call your representative to support the $15 Billion supplemental education funding bill. 

Ten billion dollars will go to local districts to save the jobs of up to 300,000 teachers and another five billion dollars will go to Pell Grants.

A rally scheduled for today protesting became exciting for non-tenure track faculty at Central Michigan University.  CMU and the American Federation of Teachers agreed on Tuesday to recognize non-tenure track faculty as a bargaining unit.

Ian Fulcher, a project organizer for the AFT Michigan, said the agreement will allow non-tenure track faculty teaching at quarter time or greater to be in the union. Fulcher said it means those teaching three credit hours a semester will be included. If they didn’t they could just … undercut the union people and the students,” he said. Fulcher said the next step for the group is to go over lists with the university to see who is covered as well as negotiating a contract.

GUTTENBERG FEDERATION OF TEACHERS

Contract Bargaining Update

June 25, 2010

The Guttenberg Board of Education is seeking to provide little to no wage increase over the next three years, while our members become laid off and our class sizes grow.  Meanwhile very little, if any, “shared sacrifice” is being discussed for the upper-levels of administration.  We need you to ask, “why not”? 

The Board would like to provide us with a less-than-comparable health insurance plan while we pay 1.5% of our salaries towards it. They would like us to extend our work hours without ample compensation.  What are you willing to do about it?  We will need to call upon all GFT members to support our alternate budget choices during the summer and into next school year.  Researchers from AFT have begun analyzing financial information from the Guttenberg School District including financial statements and expenditures from the previous fiscal years.  This analysis will help us to prepare economic proposals that are fair and reasonable, unlike those already proposed by the Board.  Please be prepared to do whatever it may take to ensure our message is heard loud and clear by the Board.  You will be updated via our website (http://nj.aft.org/gft) and other methods throughout the summer.

The GFT Negotiations Committee has met with the Board for a total of six meetings to date.  The most recent meeting was held on June 9th, 2010.  Our next meeting will be held on July 7th, 2010.  The negotiations sessions are moving at a slow pace, in part because of the uncertainty of both the State and local budgets.  Our voices must be heard on this issue. 

Based upon your input, we have proposed about a dozen items (some are new contract articles while some seek to modify existing articles).  We feel that our proposals are both practical and proactive in nature.  For example, we have proposed a professional development language that is creative yet cost effective.  Most of the Board’s proposals seek to eliminate long-standing benefits and to create more work for our members with little/no compensation.  This is unacceptable! 

Unfortunately, no provisions or new articles have been tentatively agreed upon to date, and the Board seems reluctant to make progress at the bargaining table.  This is also unacceptable!  Again, we need your support outside of the bargaining table as we continue to meet throughout the summer.

                In solidarity,

                Negotiations Committee

                Guttenberg Federation of Teachers

Director of the Public Employee Labor Relations Board makes a decision.