What a great summer! I traveled all over North America, including Philadelphia to attend the NEA Representative Assembly on behalf of Vacaville TA.

I could write some long report about all the new business items we voted on (95!), and all the speeches from 8 presidential candidates (in person too!), and all the other business we do (sitting for 4 days, 14 hours straight makes one really tired!), but I think the best way to get the info is to visit http://www.nea.org/annualmeeting/raaction/index.html.

I will tell you a fun story though: President Reg Weaver had all 10,000 of us call the Capitol Switchboard to tell our congressperson that they should follow the NEA agenda for the reauthorization of ESEA (basically, gut NCLB and have the law makes some sense!). I finally got through to George Miller’s office and they said “Are you from the NEA? We have heard already.”

Your new VTA Executive Board met for a planning session on August 15th. We will be building a focused program for this year and will be bringing this to the membership for input and feedback.

On 8/16, a few VTA leaders welcomed over 45 new members at a luncheon cosponsored by First Pacific Federal Credit Union. We gave goody bags and 4 scholarships to the CTA Good Teaching Conference. I also delivered goody bags and information to Cooper and Browns Valley new teachers that day.

On 8/17, your negotiating team (Kent Puddy, Joanne Baker, Tim Yearnshaw, Gary Masterson) and I met with the district negotiating team for a few hours. This was a meeting to discuss ground rules and hear some “concepts” from the district. As our team has not had time to meet with the Executive Board, we did not propose anything. A Bargaining Update #2 will be out soon.

Also, I want to address the change in our bargaining team upfront. Ken Ratti, anticipating the possibility of making a move to administration, took himself out of VTA business on all levels in late April 2007. He has not been part of the bargaining team since then, and hence has not been part of any planning for the 07-08 proposal. The team chose Kent Puddy to fill the role of Bargaining Chair. I have full confidence in Kent and the rest of the team.

We also have a school board race. The following candidates have submitted their papers: Larry Mazzuca, Michael Kitzes, MaryKay Sogge, Jay Yerkes and Steven Baker. We hope to hold some events for you to meet the candidates.

We have some other events planned already:

9/11: Site Council Representative Training-In my travels from site to site, I hear a lot of concerns about how site councils are run. If you serve your site in this capacity, please plan on attending: 3:45pm, Jepson Library, RSVP ASAP to Pat Lerseth: plerseth@cta.org

10/23: CTA Member Benefits Workshop-location TBA

I look forward to another year, improving our communication with our membership and bargaining a great contract settlement. I will be around to sites again and look forward to chatting with you in person.

Have a great start to the school year!