**Our Health Care Committee is up and running! Thanks to Alyson Brauning who will chair the committee, and Brenda Hensley, Kent Puddy, Scott Bassett, Nancy Anderson-Louie, Lisa Aspey and Stacie Smith who have signed up to take on this job. The role of the committee will be to research alternative options and gather data that will help us make informed decisions about how we provide health care benefits to our members. The committee will report to the Exec Board, Rep Council, and membership, and solicit input from members to inform the bargaining process.

**There is a School Board workshop January 23rd at 5:30. The purpose of the workshop is to finalize the parameters for the Smarter Balanced (SBAC) testing and for the Board to share its vision for future technology in VUSD. One of the decisions before the School Board is whether to use wired labs with desktop computers or mobile carts with wireless notebooks for the SBAC testing we will be required to do this spring. There was much discussion at the January 9th School Board meeting on which option is best. Below is a link to the January 23rd workshop agenda and to the video of the January 9th Board meeting if you would like to get caught up on the discussion. I strongly encourage members who have an opinion about this topic to share it with Board Members. Their email addresses can be found on the third link.

What is it? Design a t-shirt logo for the VTA. The logo will be put on t-shirts or clothing attire which can be purchased by teachers that work in the Vacaville Unified School District.

 Who can participate? Anyone!!

When is the deadline for entering? March 20th 3:00pm     

Prizes: 1^st place $100

2^nd place $50

3^rd place $25

Designs will be judged by VTA site representatives from each school in the district on March 25^th at the monthly site rep meeting. After the contest is completed all design submissions will be returned to the students.

Questions: email Director Sylvia Shepard at sylvias@vusd.solonocoe.k12.ca.us

Rules:

Design size : 10 inches wide by 9 inches high

Each design must contain two items:

1 – VTA or Vacaville Teachers Association

2 – the slogan: Proudly educating Vacaville’s future

Designs must be submitted on a paper product so they can be viewed for the contest. They also need to be available to be sent by email to the t-shirt company once the winner is decided upon.

Each design must contain: The name of the artist, the school the artist is from, the grade level and contact information (e.g. phone number and address)

Each design should be sent or delivered to:

Ms Shepard

Browns Valley Elementary

333 Wrentham

Vacaville, CA 95688

 (the school office is open Monday thru Friday 7:00am to 4:00pm)

If you’d like to see our current logo, and get some ideas, go here.

New site provides educators with tools to ensure students are college and career ready

WASHINGTON – The National Education Association (NEA) and BetterLesson launch a new web site today, cc.betterlesson.com/mtp. The site, where teachers share what works in the classroom, features more than 3,000 classroom-ready lessons that are easily accessible and can be integrated into any curriculum. This new BetterLesson product was built entirely for the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and features the lessons of 130+ Master Teachers (MTs), who represent every K-12 grade level for math and English Language Arts & Literacy. This is one of several long-term partnerships NEA has pursued to support its members’ professional development and leadership in the teaching practice; members have been recruited around the country to participate and develop comprehensive materials along with these partner organizations.

“The new Common Core State Standards are a transformation for the students in our nation’s public school system and we owe it to them to provide teachers with the time, tools and resources to get it right,” said National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel. “The best ideas for the classroom come from classroom teachers, and our new site will allow educators to share lessons to help ensure all students have the skills they need to succeed.”

“When we teamed up with National Education Association last summer on The Master Teacher Project we knew there would be powerful results,” said BetterLesson’s Alex Grodd, CEO & co-founder. “We are so excited to offer the most comprehensive body of knowledge around Common Core teaching.”

Before the CCSS were introduced, 62 percent of teachers in the U.S. reported feeling unprepared for daily work in the classroom, according to the “Educating School Teachers” report. BetterLesson aims to help those teachers become more prepared by providing 5 to 10 lessons for every single common core standard. By the fall of 2015, BetterLesson will have more than 16,000 Master Teacher lessons live. According to a NEA poll from this past September, more than 75 percent of NEA members supported the standards wholeheartedly or with some reservations. Unfortunately, while two-thirds of members indicated they had participated in trainings around CCSS, just 26 percent said the trainings were helpful.

“The power of educators’ expertise is important and educators are passionate about promoting student success,” said Van Roekel. “Our partnership with BetterLesson allows us to tap into the passion, creativity, and power of those who spend their lives in the nation’s classrooms. Educators will be able to customize the shared lessons to their students’ individual needs and provide high quality instruction for all students, regardless of their zip code.”

Early Resignation Notice 2014

Exec Board Agenda Jan 14 docx