Levy Rally Draws Support

Let’s hope that all the phone calling, sign waiving, and everything else will mean that the levies pass!  Check out this link to a story about the Levy Rally held on Feb 6th.

http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/south_king/ken/news/83848897.html

Spread the Word!

OK, folks, it is time to spread the word!  We are short of readers, despite the fact that some important and perhaps even enraging info has been presented on this blog in the past few weeks.  That’s why we’re asking you to spread the word to your colleagues, community members, etc. to check out the blog and comment when they see fit.  Ask your Building Rep to forward our blog address to the members in their buildings.  Remember, the blog can only be accessed from home computers.   Cut and paste our URL and send it to your friends! 

It is time we wake up the Kent community to the fact that the problems didn’t go away when the strike ended.

Thanks!

Dr Vargas Ignores Teacher Workload

The following was sent from a member of the Crestwood Elementary staff.  We believe it is illustrative of the current relationship between KSD’s Superintendent Dr. Lee Vargas and the teachers and staff of Kent:

Well, the meeting at Crestwood on Friday morning with our new superintendent was VERY interesting. First of all, the day before the meeting, our KEA Rep sent the staff the KSD Action Plan, including what the district plans for SpEd inclusion, ELL push in, and Tiered intervention. From that discussion we found out that KEA wouldn’t even know about what was coming down the pike, but for their attendance at board meetings. The staff was shocked and upset.

The meeting began.  He talked for about 10 minutes about why we have to fix the achievement gap. Then he took questions. Our KEA Rep’s question was, “In the Preliminary Action Plan that the school board has already approved, you want to implement SpEd inclusion, ELL push-in, and Tiered Intervention in the core classroom. Since workload was arguably the most important issue in our recent strike, how do you plan to implement these changes without further impacting our workload?”

And he was off to the races, telling what these programs were and why they were good. He NEVER touched the issue of workload. He proceeded to not answer anyone else’s question, either. The other questions were about what kind of support we could expect in the classroom next year, about Crestwood’s difficulty with projections (when we learned our principal has the figures and hasn’t shared them with us), ELL programs looking different from building to building and about the perception of the parents of kids who are at the top end about including children who need much help without the support, so their children go by the wayside. He honestly didn’t answer any question that was asked.

The meeting went right up to the bell. Some that could, stayed after. The whole building was buzzing afterward and the entire day long! NO ONE was impressed with him – all saw through his circular talk. I am feeling like feelings of dissatisfaction among staff are right under the surface. It makes me feel hopeful that KEA can organize in response to this Action Plan.

Support the KSD Levies At The Rally Feb 6th!

Saturday, February 6, the Kent Education Association is hosting a Rally to Support the Kent School District Levy. It will be held at Mill Creek Middle School, 620 North Central Avenue, in Kent from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Community leaders will speak in support of the levy. Bella Voce Choir of the Rainier Youth Chorus and KEA member and recording artist Darren Motamedy will perform. Members are asked to bring families and friends to this event.

Sign waving outside of the school will run from 11 a.m. until noon. At noon, we will go into the cafeteria for the speakers and the music. Come show your support for passing the Kent School District Levy. The Levy provides 20% of the Kent School District budget.

What’s Next For KEA?

• KEA is currently working on a Class Size/Case Load Grievance.  Since the new contract was adopted, KEA has repeatedly requested information from the district, only to have inaccurate or inadequate information provided.  KEA’s own investigation discovered that there has not been the promised overload help for SPED and ELL, that there is not the base level of para-educator support, and much more.  In fact, one ELL teacher at Panther Lake currently has 217 students on her roster, while the contract calls for a ratio of 1 ELL teacher for every 90 students.  Rather than lower her class sizes by hiring more teachers, the district instead provided 60 hours of daily para-educator time!  The district has also failed in many schools to provide Special Ed teachers with the base para time required by the new contract, or to determine how those hours can best be used.  KEA believes that the district is not trying to live up the contract in this regard in any reasonable way. 
• Two additional arbitrations are upcoming.  One is related to last Spring’s layoffs/RIF’s, while the other is related to an issue with a teacher evaluation at Kentlake.  Both are currently at the stage in the process of selecting an arbitrator.   A decision in either is not expected for a few months.
• Daniel Elementary has the dubious distinction of having 5 grievances filed about the same issue over the past 3 years.  It seems that when Daniel Elementary’s teachers send students to the Principal’s Office for serious behavior issues, the principal often sends the students right back to the teacher.  This goes against teacher rights under Article IV of the contract, district policy, and state law.  KEA had filed 3 previous grievances over this issue in the past.  Two were settled with a written agreement that said the Principal would stop doing this, and a third was otherwise resolved.  Now KEA has filed two additional grievances over new occurrences of the same issue!  It seems that some people never learn.  One wonders what would happen to a teacher who was disciplined five times for the same infraction?

KEA Successfully Defends Member Rights

In addition to the big arbitration win, the last several months have seen some other significant wins by KEA and its members, including:

•  KSD finally agreed to allow Shared Leave for a teacher who had a Caesarean Section.  Human Resources argued that since the procedure was scheduled, rather than an emergency, it didn’t count as a, “serious medical event.”  Through the grievance process, KEA was able to encourage the district to come to their senses.  Henceforth, C-Sections will be included in the list of acceptable uses of Shared Leave.  (Article V in the contract)
• One teacher discovered last year that her final evaluation included complaint letters from other teachers in the building.  The KEA used the grievance process to have the district remove these letters.
• Another teacher who taught a “0” period in addition to a full day of classes had not been paid extra for teaching the additional class.  KEA and the teacher filed a grievance that resulted in the district paying the extra pay retroactively.
• Instructional Coaches in the various buildings had been told that they were required to attend trainings over the summer, and then in the evening through the school year, amounting to 30 hours of class time.  They were also given additional, “homework,” they had to complete.  Yet another grievance led to the district acknowledging that this class and the accompanying homework were optional.

What is KEA doing for you?

So, the strike has been over for a few months now, and everyone is back in their rooms.  After hearing so much from KEA before and during the strike, it has been pretty quiet recently.  As a result, you might be asking, “What has KEA been doing for me lately?”  The answer is, more than we can put in this blog entry!   Expect regular updates in the next few weeks.

KEA Wins Another Arbitration, KSD Weeps Gently

In the process of enforcing the contract, KEA has been forced on several occasions to file grievances about various violations of the contract.  Currently, Lisa, Mike, and Temple have about 20 they are working on!  Sometimes, when the initial steps of the grievance process cannot resolve the problem, KEA is forced to request an arbitration hearing to settle an issue.  In this case, a neutral arbitrator is selected to hold a formal hearing and rule on the matter.  KEA had already won two previous arbitrations in 2008 over the issues of seniority and an involuntary transfer, as well as the district’s overreliance on subcontracting through outside private agencies to hire teachers.  Yet another arbitration was decided in December.

At issue in this arbitration was the professional goal setting forms that were being used throughout the district in relation to our formal evaluations as teachers and certificated staff.  Depending on which building you worked at or which administrator was your evaluating supervisor, you may have seen any of several different forms.  These many different forms had been created across the district by various administrators, but were not included in the contract.  Additionally, some administrators in the district went so far as to assign the professional goals of teachers without their input, and tie teachers’ evaluation goals to their students’ test scores or to the buildings SIP plan!  At one elementary, the principal wrote on a Special Ed. Teacher’s goal sheet that 80% of their students would meet standard on the Reading WASL!  Obviously this was in violation of our contract and the spirit of our professional goals, but the district refused to acknowledge this fact.

While the district claimed it had the right to do this as part of their rights as management, KEA argued that the forms violated the contract.  (Article VIII of the contract)  Specifically, the District argued that there was a relationship between student test scores, the SIP plan, and the CAM (Certificated Assessment Model).  KEA’s own Mike McNett, however, argued that the forms went against the whole idea of a teacher setting professional goals based upon their own personal reflection through a collaborative process.  McNett also stated that teacher evaluations should be based on the professional practice of the educator and the extensive evaluative criteria already negotiated into the contract (CAM rubrics), not on student performance.  According to the contract, test scores are used appropriately when they are used by teachers for planning and preparation, not to determine whether a teacher is being effective or not.   We all know that teaching is about more than test scores…

The end result:  KEA won!  The arbitrator noted in his decision in favor or KEA that the Kent School District cannot continue, “unilaterally adopting goals and criteria,” that it wants without bargaining.  Instead, the arbitrator said the evaluation process must be conducted in a way that allows for, “uniformity, equity, and objective assessment throughout the District.”  So when the district invented different forms in each building that were not in the original contract, it went against the contract’s provisions for equal assessment criteria throughout the district.  The ruling went on to say that some teachers were, “inappropriately guided in the selection of their goals,” by their supervising administrators.  KEA was pleased with the result, to say the least.   Once again it was shown that the district’s administration continues to erroneously claim power over KEA members that is not a part of our contract. 

So now that the decision is in, what’s next? The arbitrator ordered KSD to immediately stop using any forms not currently in the contract, and told both parties to go back to the bargaining table to settle the issue of which forms would be used in future goal setting conferences.  Since that time, both sides met in a bargaining session that Lisa and Mike described as, “surprisingly pleasant.”  The proposed changes that KEA brought to the table were largely accepted, with only a few suggestions by the District for minor changes.   KEA will let you know how this might affect you as more info is available.  Talk to your Building Rep if you have questions.

It still seems amazing to many of us that the district truly believed that it could dictate our goals to us, and base them on student scores rather than on the criteria in the contract.  Once again, the district continues to downplay the professionalism of its employees.  KEA maintains that when any KEA member sits down with their supervisor, it should be in a spirit of collaboration, rather than an exercise in dictatorial top-down management in violation of the terms of our contract.  Let’s hope that this arbitration decision will help the district see that it is better to work with KEA’s members than against them!

Chris Davies Resigns From KSD School Board

In a shocking and unexpected move at tonight’s School Board meeting, Chris Davies announced that he will be resigning from the KSD School Board, effective February 11th, 2010. Davies cited family and business commitments that had made fullfilling his obligations on the School Board impossible.  The Board voted to accept his resignation.  You can read his resignation letter here:

Chris Davies Resignation

You can read KEA’s Board Watch notes from the School Board Meeting by clicking here:  

Notes 13 Jan 2010 School Board

In addition to the resignation by Mr. Davies, discussion of current class size issues, security/safety report, and other important issues were discussed related to the Levy Campaign. 

You can read the text of KEA Vice President Connie Compton’s comments to the School Board regarding class size issues in ELL and Special Ed classes here:

Comments School Board 1.13.10

Please feel free to post comments to this blog entry after reading this week’s Board Watch notes.  REMINDER:  Personal attacks will not be posted.  Please keep it civil!

KEA Strike Leadership Meets To Reflect

About 30 KEA members  met at the WEA Offices on Nov 21 to debrief on the strike and plot the future for KEA and its members.  Strike picket captains and organizers, along with KEA’s elected leaders and WEA staff discussed the positive and negative experiences related to the strike.   Among the issues of concern raised at the meeting were the division in some buildings between members who chose to cross the picket line and those who did not, how to communicate better with the membership, how to avoid losing focus or momentum, and many other topics.  KEA’s leadership plans on moving forward with several ongoing grievances and arbitration hearings in the works, while the Bargaining Support and Organization Team will work on several goals, including improving communications with members, providing useful services to members, improving KEA’s profile in the community, and continuing to monitor the KSD School Board.

The Bargaining Support and Organization Team meets on the first Tuesday of each month from 4-6 pm at the KEA offices.  We encourage all members who want to make a difference in improving education in Kent to attend.

Letter to KEA Reporter

The following letter was published in the Saturday, Oct 31, 2009 edition of the Kent Reporter.  It was written by KEA Secretary-Treasurer Cindy Prescott, who is both a teacher and a taxpayer in the District.

October 26, 2009

To the Editor:

Last week, I attended the debate between the Kent mayoral candidates that this newspaper sponsored. Since Mr. Berrios is at the helm of the Kent School Board as its president, a question about the Kent teachers strike was asked. The question concerned whether there was a lack of transparency in the cancellation of a school board meeting during the strike. In response, Jim answered, paraphrasing, “I would answer that you just don’t know Jim Berrios.” He went on to detail conversations he had with teachers during the strike, inferring that he did his best to resolve the dispute quickly. Additionally, Mr. Berrios indicated that he has been “fiscally responsible” during his tenure on the school board.

As a teacher and a voter, I ask Mr. Berrios to think about how he could have used his position and influence to avoid this strike entirely, or at best, to resolve it well before almost three weeks had gone by. It is of some note that the Kent teachers have not gone on strike in thirty years. Furthermore, it is interesting to realize that Mr. Berrios’ “fiscal responsibility” has resulted in a district that has some of the highest class sizes in the Puget Sound (even after the new contract was negotiated) and has significant trouble retaining the very best and brightest teachers because pay is lower than in many surrounding districts (yes, even after the negotiations were finished.) Ending the year with a larger fund balance than the previous year, it would seem the Board’s spending priorities are suspect.

Recently, Mr. Berrios requested that Mayor Suzette Cook be more transparent in her budget figures. In my opinion, Mr. Berrios has been less than transparent, himself, in explaining to the citizens of Kent the part he played in causing teachers in this district to feel they had no recourse but to go on strike.

Cindy Prescott