Good evening Board members, District officers, staff and student representatives,

I am Brenda Hensley, President of the Vacaville Teachers Association, proudly representing over 700 hard-working and, on a day like I’ve had today, overwhelmed members.

It has been my privilege to visit with members at Cooper, Browns Valley, Fairmont, Alamo, Vaca Pena, and Orchard and with the nurses just yesterday. Principals and staff have been welcoming and friendly which is greatly appreciated. I have scheduled more visits to sites through the end of October.

Although members bring up a number of issues important to them as educational professionals, like duty day hours, prep, meetings, etc., the concerns I hear about most often are about the children that attend school in this district. Our members’ true passion is working with children and doing right by them.

Our members care about student safety in overcrowded Physical Education classes. Our members are saddened that students may be losing out on science, social studies and electives because of program improvement. Our members are worried about student health and safety when we only have 8 full- and part-time nurses to cover 15 school sites and thousands of students. Our members are concerned and sometimes a little stumped about how to help each and every student in their classes. I could go on and on.

Some of this can be solved through negotiations. Some of these issues can be solved by setting different financial priorities and providing professional development. Most of them can be solved through consistent, effective and constant communication from the District officers.

I am a mathematician, so inherently I am a problem solver. I even do it for fun sometimes. The meetings I have had with district officers so far around program improvement especially have been productive and a good start in tackling some of the concerns my members have.

I am also having monthly meetings with Mr. Aycock and Mr. Hawkins to address issues on an informal basis. Good communication is going to be the key to nurturing a healthy relationship between the district and the association. They may not always like what I say or who I say it to, but I can guarantee that whatever I say will be the truth and will be intended to continue the problem solving we have already started, and not meant to embarrass or demean anyone.

In closing I would just like to thank a few folks I have had the pleasure to work with in my short time as president.

I want to publicly thank our VTA bargaining chair, Ken Ratti for his eloquent words at the last board meeting regarding the charter school proposal. We are assisting District Leadership on this matter in any way that we can. For-profit schools are often just that, for profit. We are public education, NOT-for-profit, and we are for student achievement. We are for kids. Ken represented VTA’s position very well in my absence.

I would also like to publicly thank Dr. John Niederkorn. John has met with me on several occasions to discuss ongoing pay issues, including tracking me down at my school site today, and I really appreciate his willingness to tackle a problem, dissect it, and come to solutions together with me.

Working together whenever possible is the way I like to problem solve. I use cooperative groups in my Pre-Algebra 7 XL classes and the method transfers nicely to the adult world, where I tend encounter much more messier problems than algebraic ones.

Thank you for your time and have a nice evening.
Brenda L. Hensley VTA President VTA/CTA/NEA 707-365-1715