ESTA UPDATE

WELCOME BACK!

It was great seeing the staff all together again to start the new school year! Now that the state budget was finally signed by the governor, the effective COLA that East Side will be receiving is the Revenue Limit of 4.53% over last year. Under our current contract, 2.53 % of that will be directed to all levels of compensation, including the various certificated salary schedules. Printed below is the 2007/08 salary schedule for 182-day employees. All other salary schedules will be on the ESTA website soon.

	BA	BA + 30	BA + 45	BA+ 60 w/ MA +65 w/o MA
Step	A	B	C	D
1	$48,434	$49,123	$49,817	$51,200
2	$48,435	$49,817	$50,509	$51,892
3	$48,435	$50,509	$51,200	$57,875
4	$49,123	$55,004	$57,987	$60,968
5	$55,115	$58,099	$61,081	$64,063
6	$58,208	$61,191	$64,174	$67,156
7	$61,304	$64,284	$67,267	$70,248
8	$64,396	$67,378	$70,361	$73,343
9	$67,489	$70,471	$73,455	$76,435
10	$70,583	$73,566	$76,547	$79,527
11	$73,676	$76,659	$79,640	$82,622
12	$76,769	$79,752	$82,734	$85,715
16			$85,220	$88,201
20			$87,704	$90,686
24			$90,187	$93,169
28			$92,673	$95,654
32			$95,159	$98,141

Master’s Degree  $1,662

Doctorate             $2,214

NEW TEACHERS

The District has hired a total of 87 new teachers for the 2007/08 school year. This number is nearly half of what was hired last year. The reason for the number decline is because during the 2005-2006 school year, ESTA made an agreement with the district to allow three extra students in our classrooms to help the district financially. During the 2006-2007 school year, class size returned to contract numbers and this was the reason the number of new hires was so large.

If you are one of these new hires, I would like to welcome you again to ESTA. I met with almost all of the new teachers for lunch last week. In the brief time we had together, I zoomed through a list of assorted information that may be of interest. Here’s a recap of that presentation.

Hours/ workdays: No teacher shall be required to have a workday longer than 7½ hours, which includes a 30 minute duty-free lunch. Most bargaining unit members are also required to provide up to 30 additional work hours referred to in the contract as supervision hours in Article 14. Also, the ESTA contract requires that all classroom teachers work 182 days a year, including two days which do not include students. A handful of ESTA members work 192 days, and they are on a different salary schedule.

Building Presidents: The ESTA members at each site in the district elect a Site President each year. These members are the local “go to” people for ESTA members with questions or concerns about work-related issues. Here is a list of the current Building Presidents:

Andrew Hill Wendy Stegeman

District Office Jon Alota

Evergreen Valley Hernan Diaz

Foothill Jennifer Ludwig

Independence Kevin Heyman

James Lick Mike Gatenby

Mt. Pleasant Robert Rumph

Oak Grove Kim Schaupp

Piedmont Hills Paul Landshoff

Silver Creek Jerry Dyer

Santa Teresa Theresa Flores

WC Overfelt Eleanor Aguirre

Yerba Buena Blanca Espinosa

Keys: Keep your keys in a secure place at all times. Last year more than a few members had their keys stolen on their school site campus. One member even had her car stolen and students were caught joy riding. I cannot stress enough to keep those keys hidden!

Sick Leave: Full time teachers are advanced ten sick leave days at the beginning of each year. Unused sick leave days accrue from year to year, and eventually convert to increased STRS pension amounts if carried into retirement. (If you have unused sick leave days in a former school district, you can have them transferred to East Side.)

Use sick leave wisely. As long as you have unused sick leave days, you will receive full pay on days you are legitimately absent. Refer to Article 6 in the contract to see all leave provisions.

Everyone who is currently not a member of the Sick Leave Bank (SLB) should consider joining. To join SLB, all you have to do is sign up (forms should be given out next week) and for two consecutive years, one day will be taken from your sick days. Once your first day is donated, you become a member and will be able to apply for withdrawal in the event that you run out of sick days. The application can be found on the ESTA website and once turned in, will be given to a committee for approval on a case-by-case situation.

Meeting with Administration: When asked to meet with an administrator, always bring along an ESTA representative. The Building President expects to be contacted, but any other ESTA member can attend a meeting with you. It perfectly fine to tell your administrator you need to ask your ESTA reprensentative when they are available before accepting a meeting time.

Delta Dental: If you are not at 100% coverage with Delta Dental, then you need to make sure to use it before January to receive the 10% increase in coverage. All new teachers who have not had Delta Dental before coming to East Side are at 70% coverage and will increase to 80% in January if they go to the dentist before the year ends.

LOTTERY MONEY

Once again, ESTA members will be reimbursed due to funding from the Lottery “Proposition 20.” The district is in the process of writing a memo that will outline the items that are allowed for reimbursement through this funding. We should be seeing the memo in the next few weeks, so hold on to your receipts. The amount should be around $215.

CLASS SIZE WAIVERS

Our contract contains a table of departmental class size maximums in Article 15. All new teachers received their copy of the contract at the district inservice on August 24. If you missed that day, and still need a copy, Human Resources at the district office has the extra copies that were not picked up.

ESTA monitors class sizes very carefully; each site President looks over the master schedule frequently at the beginning of each semester. The ESTA class size committee meets with the district per the contract language outline in Article 15.2.1.

In certain unavoidable situations, teachers may have to accept a very small number of “extra” students. When this happens, the teacher will be compensated $1 per day for each such student, payable from day 18 of the semester.

Many teachers may be approached by site administrators and asked to sign one or more “Class Size Waivers.” Signing such a waiver erases the class size limit and also eliminates the $1 per day overage compensation. So, before signing a waiver, speak to your Building President.

ESTA ONLINE

The ESTA contract can be found online at the district website www.esuhsd.org. We are currently working on updating the ESTA website (www.EastSideTA.org) and encourage your suggestions. We will begin posting upcoming events. As you know, this is the last year of the collective bargaining agreement and the bargaining team will be at sites in the fall for suggestions and input for the spring negotiations. Stay tuned for more information.

SIXTH CLASS?

On occasion members are asked to take a 6^th class. People who accept such assignment could earn about $3000 a semester, but consider the “real” cost: complete loss of preparation period every day, along with 30 plus more students, and the time demand that comes with the additional load. So think really hard before accepting this offer. When members ask if they should take on an extra period in order for the kids to have a teacher, I remind them that the district will find someone and that by accepting the assignment, they are keeping someone from getting hired. Often one period open turns into more after the master schedule is looked over by the class size committee. It is not uncommon for several more sections to be created during the second or third week of school pending student need.

EVALUATION PROCEDURE

I wanted to remind everyone of the following contract language that I often receive questions on:

11.3.2 Every permanent teacher who is not on remediation or on the unsatisfactory evaluation track shall be notified in writing of his/her status as on-track or off track. This notification shall take place by September 15 of any given year. Such notification shall identify the teacher’s administrator of record. Accompanying this notification will be the self-evaluation profile for completion by the on-track bargaining team member.

Article 11 is all about the Evaluation Procedure. I encourage all members to read through it at this time of year when you will be told your status. Also, keep in mind that if you were a probationary 2 teacher last school year and worked in East Side, then you are now tenured. Your status will officially change at the October school board meeting.

ESTA RELIEF FUND

In April, the ESTA assembly decided to approve an ESTA Relief Fund. The Fund was created to help teachers in need whose personal property was stolen or degraded through vandalism at the work site. At this time, we need five to six committee members willing to serve in the event there is an applicant. I don’t imagine this committee meeting more than a few times a year, but it would be nice to have it in place in the event that someone submits an application. Please contract me and let me know if you would like to join the committee. Currently I am also looking for a committee chair.

TEACHER BEING HONORED

Congratulations to Marianne Cogorno who teaches French at W. C. Overfelt High School. She will be honored on September 24, 2007 at the 38^th Annual Teacher Recognition Day. Bob Nunez and I will be there to celebrate with her. The Masters of Ceremonies will be Colleen B. Wilcox, Ph. D., County Superintendent of Schools and Brian Adams Vice President, Orloff/Willams & Co., Broadcaster and Community Leader. Way to go, Marianne!

ESTA ASSEMBLY REPRESENTATIVES NEEDED

On September 19^th at 4:00 PM at Mt. Hamilton CTA, the ESTA Assembly will be meeting for the first time this school year. Currently the following sites have an opening for an additional representative: Andrew Hill, District Office, Piedmont Hills, Santa Teresa, WC Overfelt, and Yerba Buena. If you would like to attend to fill in one of the open spots, let your Building President know. Each site is allowed an assembly representative for each 40 teachers, and only those elected members are allowed to vote on issues during the meeting. Alternates can vote if they submit their name at the beginning of the meeting.