Welcome back!   I hope you enjoyed a restful relaxing summer break.  Before you begin the year take a moment to reflect on your accomplishments educating and supporting our most precious resource: our children.  Remember that no matter how much we are attacked and maligned, we know that we make a difference in the lives of our students and their families.  We chose our profession because we deeply care about our students, our community and our nation. We will continue to fight for our public education system and hence our democracy. In April I visited Monticello, the home of my hero, Thomas Jefferson, and as he so well stated: “"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."  Ignorance is our enemy and is bred in a society that doesn’t value a free and fair public education. It is plain to see that we have reversed our former commitment to adequately fund our children’s future.  (Go to cta.org/taxfairness to see how we have fallen to more that 43^rd in per-pupil spending and this trend is being echoed throughout our country.)  We must fight the forces willing to sacrifice public education and our democracy for the selfish ideology of greed.   

It always seems that we face a myriad of challenges when we return for a new school year and this year is no exception.  This year our own district has rolled out a new evaluation system as well as a monitoring and documentation process. There are many new developments in this area including new proposed state legislation. PRPE, in consultation with our CTA and CFT partners, has issued a demand to bargain these changes since they are within the scope of negotiations.  We realize that these are important and complicated issues that need to be discussed thoroughly at the bargaining table.  We hope to work closely with the district administration to improve our evaluation system.  Part of the CTA Teacher Development and Evaluation Principals state that: “The purpose of an effective evaluation system is to inform, instruct and improve teaching and learning; to provide educators with meaningful feedback on areas of strength and where improvement is needed; and to ensure fair and valid employment decisions.  An effective evaluation system must include both formative and summative methods that must be integrated with quality professional development and the necessary resources and support for teachers to improve their practice and enhance student learning.”

Fred Kloepper (6-12 PRPE Vice President), Charlie Berry (KK Site representative) and I attended the CTA Summer Institute concerning the national common core standards that have been adopted by 48 states.  We studied the concurrent assessment piece, the implementation timeline and the standards themselves and how they align with our California State Standards.

At the CTA Presidents’ Conference in July I heard about the many changes related to our Program improvement status happening state-wide including Response to Intervention models and massive changes to Special Education credentialing, delivery models, inclusion and IEPs/504s .  We have an ongoing grievance that is in the binding arbitration phase (Level 6) and a concurrent PERB (Public Employees Relations Board) unfair labor practice charge on this topic that asks as a remedy that we sit down in formal negotiations about these changes to the terms and conditions of our employment. 

We also have a new grievance related to the misapplication of the contract language in Article 9 concerning involuntary transfers and reassignments. 

In addition, we have a very volatile state budget that depends on an increase in state revenue projections by December so that we can avoid further disastrous cuts in our schools. 

There are many people helping us with our commitment to serve you and they deserve our gratitude for the countless hours and effort to support our organization: In addition to the aforementioned Fred and Charlie, we salute Jennifer Lutz (VP)  K-5 V-P,  Lisa Tate (KK) Bargaining Chair, Robert Skinner (PRHS) Treasurer, Samantha Brossette (FMS) Corresponding Secretary, Nanette Carminati (LMS) Recording Secretary, and Steve Arnette (PRHS) our new membership chair. Your Negotiations Team includes Brigid Woods (WP), Kathleen Saxby (VP), Jenny Martinez (LMS) along with Robert Skinner, Lisa Tate and I.  Your site reps include: Beth McGill (VP), Maribeth Bonomi and Sheila Wynne @ (WP), Robin Kosin (BS), Mary Roberts (PB), John Hutchings (FMS), Kelly Green and Colleen Macklin-Musial @ (LMS),  Ray White and Shannon Gidcumb (PRHS).  These fellow teachers are ready to hear your concerns so we can take them to the administration, our affiliates or even the courts, if necessary.  Please seek them out so we can discuss them at our regular monthly PRPE Executive Board and Rep Council meetings.  Our first meeting of this school year will be on September 12^th at PRHS. 

Having said all that we still have a very good working relationship with Dr. McNamara, the district administration and school board.  We are committed to being proactive about looming changes, mandates and laws.  We will work together with all the public education stakeholders to improve our profession and provide a high quality education to the students of the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District.

Jim Lynett

PRPE President

Resources:

www.pasoteachers.org  Your association website, contract, updates etc.

www.cta.org   Tax fairness, member benefits and much more

www.ctaipd.org  Teacher Evaluation, Special Ed., Common Core

www.ctainvest.org Retirement, 403b/457 advice etc.

www.cft.org  Our merged affiliate

www.cde.ca.gov  Common Core, Curriculum/Instruction, School Finance etc

www.corestandards.org Common Core State Standards Initiative

http://commoncore.org  Common Core Curriculum Mapping Project

www.smarterbalanced.org  New assessments coming

www.achievementstrategies.org  Bobb Darnell’s great stuff!

Google “Rick Morris”  for some great classroom management stuff.  He will also be at the upcoming CTA Good Teaching Conference in January!

Acknowledgement and Remembrance: I also want to thank all of our retirees from last year who dedicated their lives to public service, and especially three PRPE stalwarts: Velva Hakim our former membership chair, Terry Dyksinski our former K-5 Vice President and past president and Willow Running Hawk, the former site representative at Georgia Brown.   Last but not least, I want to remember with a breaking heart the fine teacher and colleague, Mike Bland, whom we lost over the summer.  Our thoughts and prayers are with his family. He so demonstrated the commitment to our students that we all share.  Hug and spend time with the ones you love.