Dear Friends,
If you are paying attention to the emails coming furiously back and forth, you can't help but notice that the current Superintendant is intent upon breaking the union and has no interest in negotiating in good faith. She uses her office of public affairs communications through the email to explain her anti-union activities to teachers and staff who may or may not understand the contract in an effort to supersede the union. If you have gone to the Seattle School District's website and evaluated the current proposals by the Seattle School District, they are intent on clumsily gutting the previous contract and inserting willy nilly language about the 5 year strategic plan and the District Improvement Plan and the Continuing School Improvement Plan while till leaving in the language about Academic achievement plans and transformation plans. If you took the time to evaluate our WASL scores over the past 10 years you would also see continued improvement year after year which would suggest that there is no reason to be gutting the contract and starting over in the way the Superintendant intends. These are not friendly or collaborative rumblings from the district and they are certainly being done without the consent of our collective bargaining agency or meaningful input from BLTs. As we look forward to the coming negotiations it appears that the Superintendant is intent upon steam rolling over the union and based on their preparation and the SEA's lack of preparation for what was coming their way, it is not hard to imagine that the SSD will be getting its way in these negotiations. We will get nothing except reduced wages and more liability for improving student performance, while the district will get a sense of limitless power. Perhaps it is time to let the superintendant know that we, the employees of the Seattle School District, are out here and we have not only been doing a good job based on improving test scores but that the way we work in Seattle is through collaboration not confrontation. Perhaps, we should consider a wild cat strike and leave our posts right now and let the Superintendant figure out how to run her school district without us. Perhaps if she sees that her confrontational ways are non-productive now and will actually honestly invite our Collective Bargaining Agency to the table to have meaningful input, we might avoid an extended Strike at the open of the new year. Based on how things are going, she simply doesn't care what we have to say.
SHMUEL
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Top Down Management Destroying Site-Based-Management
Dear Hale Teachers,
Earlier in the year I reported that Bellevue went on strike over not only salary but the idea that the district would determine the curriculum and all teachers would be required to teach the same thing. The Bellevue strike was successful.
Not more than a month ago, the Seattle School District without any consultation with the Leadership Committee, composed of themselves and representatives of the SEA, went forward and decided without any consultation with the BLT's of any of the schools that they were going to mainstream all of special education into the regular classrooms. Most recently the Language Arts department has been informed that all of the High Schools must use the same books. Our union was late in responding to the inclusive SPED program and the Union was not even aware that there was an agenda to make the LA curriculum offerings common across the district.
I communicated with the SEA president to find out if they were going to file an unfair labor practice action against the district for being in clear violation of Article II of our Collective Bargaining Agreement which institutes site-based management leadership system under which we are organized. The SEA's response was that they were not informed of the LA move but that the BLT's of each school should do everything they can to assert their rights under the contract.
I have informed the Hale Senate president that these intrusions upon the BLT's authority are grievable violations of the contract and that we at Hale should file a grievance and seek exemption from the District driven agenda's because we have accomplished the goals of our academic achievement plan and are showing continued progress in these efforts.
The SEA informed me that a similar grievance was brought on behalf of West Seattle High School and that, it was not successful.
What is happening here is that the superintendant's office is making programming decisions with total indifference to the terms of our contract. The SEA believes that the only way we will be able to stop this encroachment upon our Contracted rights to determine our curriculum offerings is through grass roots level organizing and real resistance to the change, whether that means work stoppage as it turned out successfully in Bellevue or negotiated settlement with the district that requires that they reestablish our organizational structure and that all actions that have been taken outside that structure be made null and void.
It is clear that if we don't start standing up for our indepence in knowing what is best for kids at the local level then soon everything will be offered from down town not for the benefit of the kids but for the benefit of the district to save money and to commoditize teachers and what they teach.
At the end of the day, if we don't start speaking up now to both the district and the SEA, that we will not be able to speak up for anything to preserve what little autonmy we have as teachers and a site.
Bellevue struck over these matters and won. Is it time to start talking strike around the Seattle School district and see how much longer they are going to act without the involvement of the Teacher in their decision making process?
It's a valid question. It begs the question is there anything left at Hale that we should try to preserve, like CES principles, or is it just time to throw out what we have done and start once again with the latest in remedies to fix "all the problems with School."
What do you think?
Earlier in the year I reported that Bellevue went on strike over not only salary but the idea that the district would determine the curriculum and all teachers would be required to teach the same thing. The Bellevue strike was successful.
Not more than a month ago, the Seattle School District without any consultation with the Leadership Committee, composed of themselves and representatives of the SEA, went forward and decided without any consultation with the BLT's of any of the schools that they were going to mainstream all of special education into the regular classrooms. Most recently the Language Arts department has been informed that all of the High Schools must use the same books. Our union was late in responding to the inclusive SPED program and the Union was not even aware that there was an agenda to make the LA curriculum offerings common across the district.
I communicated with the SEA president to find out if they were going to file an unfair labor practice action against the district for being in clear violation of Article II of our Collective Bargaining Agreement which institutes site-based management leadership system under which we are organized. The SEA's response was that they were not informed of the LA move but that the BLT's of each school should do everything they can to assert their rights under the contract.
I have informed the Hale Senate president that these intrusions upon the BLT's authority are grievable violations of the contract and that we at Hale should file a grievance and seek exemption from the District driven agenda's because we have accomplished the goals of our academic achievement plan and are showing continued progress in these efforts.
The SEA informed me that a similar grievance was brought on behalf of West Seattle High School and that, it was not successful.
What is happening here is that the superintendant's office is making programming decisions with total indifference to the terms of our contract. The SEA believes that the only way we will be able to stop this encroachment upon our Contracted rights to determine our curriculum offerings is through grass roots level organizing and real resistance to the change, whether that means work stoppage as it turned out successfully in Bellevue or negotiated settlement with the district that requires that they reestablish our organizational structure and that all actions that have been taken outside that structure be made null and void.
It is clear that if we don't start standing up for our indepence in knowing what is best for kids at the local level then soon everything will be offered from down town not for the benefit of the kids but for the benefit of the district to save money and to commoditize teachers and what they teach.
At the end of the day, if we don't start speaking up now to both the district and the SEA, that we will not be able to speak up for anything to preserve what little autonmy we have as teachers and a site.
Bellevue struck over these matters and won. Is it time to start talking strike around the Seattle School district and see how much longer they are going to act without the involvement of the Teacher in their decision making process?
It's a valid question. It begs the question is there anything left at Hale that we should try to preserve, like CES principles, or is it just time to throw out what we have done and start once again with the latest in remedies to fix "all the problems with School."
What do you think?
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