By now, you probably have been exposed to the “Gloom and Doom” rhetoric from the District. It’s been everywhere… the VUSD website, in our mailboxes, in our email inboxes… It’s like Chicken Little running around yelling, “The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling!”

I had one member email me an interesting point: He saw on the news that the San Francisco teachers, administration and school board members held a joint press conference to state publicly that they would all work to make sure these proposed cuts don’t come to fruition. Why are our administrators appear not to be doing the same?

The truth is I don’t really know. They should be. They are members of ACSA and the school board members are CSBA, both part of the state Education Coalition, comprised of CTA, CSBA, CASBO, ACSA, PTA, CSEA, CFT, CCSESA and SEIU (alphabet soup, anyone?).

Here are some of the Education Coalition’s talking points:

“While it is clear there are extraordinary challenges in balancing the state budget, the Education Coalition strongly opposes the governor’s 2008-09 budget proposal and his plans to eviscerate Proposition 98. Our students and schools did not create this budget problem, and their progress shouldn’t be undermined because of it.”

“Voters passed Prop 98 almost 20 years ago to ensure our students and school receive minimum funding. They strongly reaffirmed their support for the minimum funding law in 2005. Proposals to suspend Prop 98 conflict with the will of the voters and jeopardize the minimum education funding levels Prop 98 provides for students and schools.”

“The most pressing challenge is to enact a balanced budget that continues the momentum of educational improvement that had been built since the late 1990s. This budget does not do that, and anything less is unacceptable.”

I know that you have “special guest speakers” coming to your site soon. Make sure inquire what those members of ACSA and/or CSBA are doing to stave off the governor’s reckless proposal.

CTA is working on the issue. For more information on the state budget campaign and how to contact the governor and the legislature, go to CTA’s Budget Crisis Center at http://www.cta.org/issues/current/Budget_Crisis_2008-09.htm

I’m sure that CTA will be letting us know how they want us to help in the fight to keep cuts away from students. Right now the focus is in on contacting your government officials. I’m sure there will be more to do later.

We also have contract negotiations still going on. Our next session is February 15, 2008. We need everyone to read the latest DISTRICT proposal in Bargaining Update #11 and give feedback to your nearest Exec Board member. Feel free to email Kent Puddy or me for questions about the District proposal. We have a VTA Executive Board Meeting on February 5, 2008.

Other info:
-LAYOFFS: As of 2/1/08, I do not have confirmation of layoffs in the District. The District has until 3/1/08 to notify VTA of impending layoffs.
-ARBITRATION HEARING: The hearing for the remaining member in the evaluation grievance was on 1/29/08. Doug Appel, CTA Staff, represented VTA very well. We won’t have the arbitrator’s decision for a few months.

Thank you for all you are doing every day for students and standing together as members.

Brenda