GEA-GSD Negotiations
May 7, 2012
The Association and the District met for two hours. The meeting was facilitated by Mary Suzuki
and Ken Tang was the recorder.
The first order of business was salary.
The District presented three revisions to
their analysis of the general fund balance. They were altered from the original
in three ways. Once the District places these documents online, we will link to
them here.
Version 1 – Included the savings from 8
certificated layoffs and an offset due to resource teachers being placed back in
the classroom.
Version 2 – Included items in “version 1”
and added savings from the elimination of prep periods at the intermediate
schools.
Version 3 – Included everything above plus
savings from a hard insurance cap, a 1.5% salary reduction and 2 furlough days.
The Association asked several questions
about the numbers and eventually decided they would pool their questions after
the meeting and send them to the District for response. The Association plans
to address the new data in future sessions.
The second order of business was calendar.
The Association made a proposal agreeing to
the calendar presented by the District at the last meeting. (http://garveyea.org/calendar.pdf)
Below is an excerpt from the District’s
summary of the last meeting on April 27th.
“After taking a caucus, the District repeated its
preference for a September 4 teacher orientation date. Alternatively, if GEA
was going to insist that the District’s Business Services Office spend the time
to cover an 11th pay period, the calendar might as well be configured to be as
close to Alhambra Unified School District’s calendar as possible, meaning a
school start date of August 27 with teacher orientation occurring on August 24.
GEA team members objected stating that it was too late in the year to shorten
the summer by one week, among other things. The District agreed about the
lateness in setting the 2012‐2013 calendar and that is why the
District prefers the traditional option of starting school and having teacher
orientation occur after Labor Day.
GEA
stated that since the District had not previously presented a school start date
of September 5 as an option, its bargaining team needed to consult and consider
the matter. The parties tabled further discussion of the matter until the next
bargaining session.”
The Association agreed to the September 5th
start date (orientation day on the 4th), as well as lining up the winter and spring breaks, yet the District
refused to agree to the calendar they had proposed and repeatedly pointed to as
their first choice. The District stated they had just completed a phone survey
of parents and were not ready to agree to a calendar. The Association voiced
its displeasure of agreeing to two different calendars proposed by the
District, during two separate bargaining sessions, just to have the District renege
on their own proposals.
The third agenda item was staff development.
The Association presented questions (http://www.garveyea.org/4-16-3.pdf)
regarding the use of funds for staff development on April 16th. As
of the meeting on the May 7th, no written response had been received
from the District.
Mary Suzuki made an oral presentation
regarding the questions and shared her plan to send the information already
gathered to GEA. She also shared that some of the questions would take more
time to research and she would get that information out to GEA as soon as it
was compiled.
The final item for discussion was duty hours.
The Association presented a proposal
regarding early dismissal after 4 rainy days. (http://garveyea.org/dutyhours.pdf)
Presently when a rainy day schedule is
called, teachers give up 15 minutes of their duty-free uninterrupted lunch and
provide 15 extra minutes of instruction to students. If 4 rainy days occur, the
staff and administration from the school choose a day in which the students go
home an hour early since they received an extra hour of instruction already. Teachers
do not get to go home early.
GEA proposed that teachers may also go home
an hour early on the days students go home early since they gave up duty free
time when they could have been off campus.
The District took it under advisement.
The next session is scheduled for May 14th.
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