Sunday, May 27, 2012

Negotiations cancelled

The District and Association had been scheduled to have a negotiation session on Tuesday May 29th in order to discuss the financial proposal presented by the Association to the District on May 21st.

The District cancelled the session. It has been rescheduled for June 1. The original proposal from the Association was to expire on May 31st at the conclusion of the Board of Education Meeting. It has been extended for one day, but the timing may be problematic as there are no more School Board Meetings scheduled before school ends on June 15th. Ratification would have to take place by then.

Monday, May 21, 2012

May 21, 2012 Negotiations Highlights

GEA-GSD Negotiations
May 21, 2012

        The District and Association met at 9 AM. Genaro Alarcon facilitated the session while Ken Tang was the recorder.

        The Association presented a Package Proposal. The proposal was designed to free up general funds, bring back unit members who have been laid off and address possible budgetary deficiencies in regards to state funding.

      A summary of the proposal can be found here: http://garveyea.org/packagesummary.pdf

      The actual proposal can be found here: http://garveyea.org/GEAPackage.pdf

      The District took a 1 hour caucus.

      Upon the District's return, the discussion returned to calendar. The Memorandum of Understanding regarding the 2012-2013 Calendar was signed. We will link to the documents once they are posted on the District's website, or we receive a final copy.

      The District needed more time to fully analyze the Association proposal. The session ended at 11:30 AM. 


       The next session is scheduled for May 29, 2012 at noon.

     

May 14, 2012 - Negotiations Highlights

GEA-GSD Negotiations
May 14, 2012
 
    The District and Association met for about two hours. The meeting was facilitated by Ken Tang. Michael Coughlin was the recorder.
 
    The primary discussion surrounded calendar. A calendar agreement was reached.
 
    The first day of school for students will be September 4, 2012. Orientation day will be held on August 31, 2012.

     Unit members will be paid in eleven equal payments. The first at the end of August 2012 and the last in June 2012.

     The Memorandum of Understanding will be signed at the next meeting on the 21st.

     The next session is scheduled for May 21st from 9 AM to 3 PM.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

May 7, 2012 - Negotiations Highlights


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 20122013 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.