January 31 , 2005 Volume 9, Issue 7

ELECTIONS

*Would you or someone you know like to be part of the PVFT Executive Council? Here is your opportunity to make a difference. On February 7th, 2005 at the General Membership Meeting we will be taking nominations for the following opening Board positions:

• President
• Secretary
• VP for Adult Ed.
• VP for Special Ed.
• VP North Zone K-8
• VP Central Zone Middle School
• VP South Zone Elementary
• VP South Zone Middle School

TAX GUIDES
*2005 Educators Tax Guides are now available for $10.00 at the PVFT office. For more information call (831) 722-2331

UPCOMING DATES

• Next General Membership/Building Rep Meeting will be February 7, 2005 from 4:00-6:30pm in Conference Room C

Agenda Items:

• Nominations for Executive Council
• Nominations for CFT Convention
• CFTs strategy with state budget
• NCLB Update

Kindergarten Cop Becomes Playground Bully

Governor Schwarzenegger has recently announced major proposals affecting California workers in his State of the State address and his 2005-06 Budget. These profound changes and their impact on every public school employee will be the topic of many articles to come. In this article, the proposals will be outlined with some explanation of their impact.

The major proposals outlined by the governor fall under four major areas: the Public Pension System, Budget cutbacks, Education, and Redistricting with the threat of a very expensive Special Election if he doesn't get what he wants from the legislature. Many of these proposals sound very much like they came out of the same conservative think tanks that have been advising the Bush Administration. A brief explanation of each proposed change follows. The arguments against these proposals and what CFT and AFT plan to do to combat this assault on the already under funded education system will be addressed at a later time.

Public Pension System:
The Governor wants to privatize the State's public pension system, following President Bush's plans to privatize Social Security. His proposals would eliminate STRS “defined BENEFIT” pension plans and change them to “defined CONTRIBUTION” plans. Under the current system, retirees receive a specified pension and a COLA adjustment. Under the proposed “defined CONTRIBUTION” plan, the retirees will receive pensions based only upon how well their contributions are doing in the market. He has also proposed that the state stop making its 2% contribution to STRS and pass that contribution on to the districts. This shift would impact PVUSD's budget by more than $1 million! So what this amounts to, other than an assault on our retirements, is shifting more of the state's financial responsibility for education onto the district, thus undercutting more of the Prop. 98 guarantees that the citizens of this state passed years ago.

Budget: The Governor's budget proposal includes major cutbacks for health care and public programs and it continues raids on Prop 42 and Prop 98 funds. The impact of these cuts amounts to nearly $3 million to PVUSD. The COLA and enrollment figures that he indicates would add 4% more to the education budget again ignore the Prop 98 formula guarantees that he is taking back which amount to nearly $3 billion.

Education: The Governor's plan for education reform sounded similar to Bush's “No Child Left Behind” program. The proposal emphasized punishing teachers when a school's students don't test well, virtually eliminating tenure, and general assaults on the collective bargaining rights that we fought for decades to secure.

Redistricting: The Governor outlined a proposal to push Texas-style political redistricting in California. The special election is an attempt by the Governor to win legislative races by changing the rules midstream, since he didn't win any races for Republicans in the last election cycle.

Special Election: If the Governor makes good on his threat to call a special election this summer if the legislature doesn't do his bidding, it will cost the taxpayers of California an estimated $80 million which will impact the state deficit even more.

What happened to the moderate Republican who wanted to work with the legislature, think outside the box, end partisan bickering, and work for the people of California? He is ignoring the will of the people with the massive take-backs from Prop. 42 and 98, as well as trying to undo years of work to protect the rights of public employees and guarantee them a retirement income that is reliable and protected. Each and every employee in this district had better be prepared to do battle with these proposals. This is the fight of our careers, and if we don't show up, we will be undone both in job security and in retirement.

PVFT SALUTES THE WHS SOCCER TEAM FOR ITS SKILL AND CLASS!

SHORT TAKES...

Changes to 40 (b) plans: The Bush administration has proposed drastic changes to 403(b) plans. Under the planned changes, 403(b) tax sheltered annuity plans would now be managed by school districts, which would have the right to tell which companies could be signed up with and how the money could be used. For example, under the current rules (which have been in effect for about 40 years) teachers may take out some of the money for house down payments, and other uses, without penalty. That would no longer be possible under the proposed rules unless the school district allows it. Public hearings on this proposal will begin in February so contact your provider to make sure they are going to submit testimony to the hearings.

Special State Council Meeting: President Mary Bergan has called a special council meeting for all CFT leadership on February 5 to discuss the governor's draconian proposals and to begin to develop our strategy to fight this battle. PVFT will keep you informed of what CFT and AFT will be doing to fight the proposals, and what we will need you to do in order to fight this battle against the governator successfully. This is the year for you to get involved. The very survival of our retirement plan, collective bargaining rights, and even the CA public schools, could be at stake. We need to show Arnold who really represents the rights of the people.

Curriculum Council: Perhaps some of you remember when the district had a Curriculum Council in the past. It was a very prestigious and powerful committee, made up of a majority of teachers, who made decisions regarding curriculum throughout the district. It has been defunct for many years, but the district is poised to reform the committee. I would encourage each site to carefully select their representative. This person should be knowledgeable about curriculum, strong enough to present your site's views to the committee, and reliable enough to bring the committee's work and information back to your staff. This could be an incredible opportunity for teachers to have a LOUD voice in the curriculum decisions of the district.

NCLB: THE SEQUEL

The time is now! The schools are identified by father fed! PVUSD has four Year 4 schools and three Year 3 schools facing sanctions from the federal and state governments. So now what? And what are the district and the Union doing about it? The answer: PLENTY!

As most people know by now, if a school reaches Year 5 as an “underperforming school” and still hasn't met its AYP, draconian measures must take place. Many of those required reforms are pretty unpalatable, but among them is “drastic reforms to improve student achievement” which the Board has directed to the district to implement. This makes the required intervention more realistic, plausible and workable. Most of the schools have already implemented major reforms into their curriculum and are definitely having major gains on, not only their test scores, but the truly correct criteria…student achievement. So what are the next steps for these schools?

The first step is for each school to complete the “Academic Program Survey” (APS) required by the state as the driving tool to revise the school plan. This survey is made up of nine components that must be addressed in the school plan. These components consist of 1) instructional program, 2) instructional time, 3) principal's instructional leadership training, 4) credentialed teachers and professional development opportunity, 5) student achievement monitoring system, 6) ongoing instructional assistance and support for teachers, 7) monthly collaboration for teachers facilitated by the principal, 8) lesson pacing schedule, and 9) fiscal support. This all probably sounds all too familiar to most of you.

The process that the district will use to implement the APS will be through APS teams at each of the Year 4 sites all reporting to a District Program Improvement Task Force which will give these teams direction. The facilitators for the District Task Force are Cindy Cordova (the money person), Chris Chatfield Lopez (a state trained facilitator of APS), and Carolyn Savino (the watcher of the hen house). Hopefully, through this process, the implementation of the APS and the required revision of the school plans will be streamlined and will allow the reform already in place in each of these schools to continue doing its magic for the students.

Also, PVFT has been pushing the district to investigate the AFT “Restructuring Schools to Raise Achievement” (RSRA) model to implement any further restructuring. This model creates a partnership between the union and management to implement future changes with a loud teacher voice. As we all know, change that is teacher driven is successful; top-down change is not. A team of union members from the Year 3 and 4 schools along with their principals, district Cabinet and a Board member are traveling to Brooklyn, N. Y. next week to receive the initial training for this model. After the initial training, AFT personnel will support the district in implementing this union driven restructuring process which has been highly successful in other districts around the country.

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