As you may know, many Oakland teachers are using a “work-to-rule” strategy (working to the letter of their contract, but not doing any work beyond that) to draw attention to their frustration with the ongoing contract negotiations with OUSD. Teachers at Tech, in the interest of our students, decided not to do that, and are instead having a “Grade-in” on Friday afternoon, 3:45-5:45, on the front lawn of Tech. Teachers spend many hours outside of school grading papers and tests and preparing report cards. They hope that their presence, grading papers on the front lawn, will draw attention to their plight and that parents and community members will show their support.
PLEASE stop by to tell your children’s teachers how much you appreciate all the hours they put into supporting your children. And feel free to bring coffee, cookies, fruit or any other food!!!!
Oakland teachers are the lowest paid in Alameda County and we all know that their jobs are very demanding and stressful. Let’s show our support!

Take a moment to read this petition, sign it if you agree and share with others.

https://www.change.org/p/jody-london-substantially-raise-ousd-teacher-wages

Ms Gonzales kindly shared the below information for parents, beginning with a meeting tonight 3/3 about What to do about Teacher Turnover.  Thank you Director Gonzales for keeping parents in the know.

Also, March 10 is the deadline for submitting a Statement of Interest Form for serving on a Site-Based Committee for the Call for Quality Schools.  These committees have the important role of informing the proposal-writing (design) teams of the needs of the students and community, evaluating the proposals received and making recommendations to the district regarding the proposals received.  The form needs to be turned into the appropriate school (Brookfield, Castlemont, Frick, Fremont or McClymonds) by 3 pm on March 10.  Download the English form here and the Spanish form here.

Upcoming Events and Board Meetings

3/3 6 pm What Can We Do About Teacher Turnover? (Featuring Dr. Kimberly Mayfield Lynch, Education Department Chair at Holy Names University)  Cesar Chavez Branch Library, 3301 E 12th Street, 2nd Floor.  A stable, committed teaching force is key to addressing academic success in all schools.  Since 2009, Teach Tomorrow in Oakland has worked to address the barriers that face communities of color in entering the teaching profession, and has placed over 100 teachers from Oakland into our schools, with a 78% retention rate.  Attend to learn more about the challenges and benefits of such programs. Please RSVP so we know you are coming!

3/5 6 pm Frick Community Quality School Committee  Frick Middle School Library, 2nd Floor.  This group is working diligently to plan for making Frick the middle school of choice for East Oakland.  They would love to hear your ideas about school culture, academics, and leadership, so please consider attending.  This committee meets every other Thursday at 6 pm.

3/11 5 pm OUSD Board Meeting  La Escuelita, 1050 2nd Avenue.  You can see the agendas for the upcoming meetings here.  I know many people did not get to speak at the last meeting.  I recommend requesting a speaker card online, and requesting to speak on the first item on the agenda, to avoid having to wait until the end of the night to speak, in the event that there are many people wanting to make comments.

3/18 6 pm John George Democratic Club Education Forum  Buttercup Grill, 229 Broadway Avenue.  I will be speaking at this Education Forum.  Please RSVP so we know you are coming!

3/31 6 pm District 6 Education Advisory Committee  Parker Elementary School, 7929 Ney Avenue.  This is a monthly opportunity to come and share what’s on your mind about education with me.  Please RSVP so we know you are coming!

4/14 6 pm Challenges for Special Education Parents and Teachers  Cesar Chavez Branch Library, 3301 E 12th Street, 2nd Floor.  This discussion will feature special education teachers and parents sharing their challenges and strategies for supporting one another.  Please RSVP so we know you are coming!

Other Opportunities for District 6 Residents

3/7 9 am – 1 pm Dog Etiquette for King Estates Open Space  Meet at Sterling, Crest and McCormick streets, at the King Estates Open Space.  King Estates Open Space now allows off-leash dogs!  We took our dog their last weekend and she loved it.  This is a discussion to help dog owners who use the area to play nicely with the other users of this great public resource.

3/21 1 pm  Free Self-Defense Workshop for Oakland Teens  81st Avenue Branch Library, 1021 81st Avenue.  Suigetsukan Martial Arts School is doing free self-defense workshops for Oakland teens ages 12-18.  A permission slip is needed to participate.  This workshop will also be held 3/4 at the Asian Branch, 4/25 at the Chavez Branch and 5/13 at the Rockridge Branch.  Pick up a permission slip at the branch.  More info on this workshop here.

3/22 2:30 – 7:30 pm  Finals for the 36th Annual MLK Jr Oratorical Festival Phillip Reeder Performing Arts Center, Castlemont High Schoool, 8601 MacArthur Blvd.  Elementary schools will be on from 2:30 – 4:30 and secondary schools from 6:00 – 7:30 pm.  Click here for more details.

Also, OreMi Mentoring Program is looking for volunteers who want to mentor Oakland youth with incarcerated parents, or who are foster children.  Volunteers commit to meet with their mentee once a month for at least a year of service.  They are holding a Mentor Training on March 21.  More information here or email oremi@fssba-oak.org.

Thank you for all that you do,
Shanthi

Gonzales for School Board
http://gonzalesforschools.nationbuilder.com/

School District Leaders Earn Top Pay

By Ken Epstein

http://postnewsgroup.com/blog/2015/02/27/school-district-leaders-earn-top-pay/ 

OEA Bargaining Update

February 24, 2015

On February 24, 2015 the OEA and OUSD bargaining teams met.

The OUSD bargaining team presented a package proposal to your OEA team in response to our package proposal presented on February 10^th, 2015.

In summary, the only change from the district’s prior package is in Article 24:  Compensation.  They are now offering 0.5% more for 2015-2016 bringing their offer from 3.0% to 3.5% beginning January 1, 2016.

Both teams felt a bit stuck in the process that we have been engaging in so far. We also agreed that we are not ready to call it quits. In an effort to move forward from this point, both teams agreed to engage in a different process at the table. Rather than “taking turns” on presenting proposals and waiting for the other side to make movement, we will attempt to co-construct proposals in areas where we feel stuck. Ideas and options will be generated to examine each party’s interests on key articles, and areas of concern will be tackled with the goal of reaching contractual solutions.

Officially, these conversations will be non-binding, parties will preserve their prior (pre-package) positions and proposals, and parties may still opt to present counter proposals. 

Both teams also agreed that in order to create a safe climate where risk taking and candid and courageous conversations can occur what is postulated would remain confidential. Information will be made public as soon as either side makes a formal proposal or when any agreement is reached on an article.

Both parties have made a serious commitment of time by scheduling more sessions both during the week and on the weekend:

March 9^th and 10^th

March 22^nd, 23^rd, and 24^th

April 19^th, 20^th, and 21^st

May 12^th and May 26^th

More sessions may be scheduled for the month of May after an assessment of progress in March.

The Battle Over Teachers’ Seniority Rights

Oakland Unified’s push to overhaul teacher seniority rights has sparked an intense contract dispute.
By Sam Levin @SamTLevin

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/the-battle-over-teachers-seniority-rights/Content?oid=4203321

In recent weeks, teachers at more than twenty public schools in Oakland have cut back the hours they spend on the job in an effort to advocate for a better contract. Through this so-called “work-to-rule” protest — in which instructors work the minimum required hours and skip typical after-school labor, such as curriculum development — the teachers’ union has drawn attention to its ongoing fight with the district. At tense school board meetings and in news stories on work-to-rule, teachers have spoken out about the importance of securing meaningful salary increases and the need for smaller class sizes.

But while wages and student-to-teacher ratios are critical components of the negotiations, it’s the fight over a relatively more obscure part of the contract that has recently caused intense friction between the union and the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD). The district’s proposal to scale back seniority rights in teacher transfers has deepened teachers’ distrust in new Superintendent Antwan Wilson — and could be the issue that ultimately leads to an impasse in negotiations or even a strike.

Wilson and district officials, who are currently negotiating a three-year contract with the union, have proposed a substantial overhaul to Article 12, a policy that governs how OUSD fills vacancies and reassigns teachers when their positions are eliminated due to declining enrollment, budget cuts, or school closures. Currently, when teachers have to transfer schools due to factors outside of their control, they apply to fill vacant positions within the district and school principals must honor their requests in order of seniority. That means teachers with the most experience in OUSD receive their first choices, and principals can’t fill positions with newer teachers or outside candidates until instructors who have been forced to transfer get new assignments.

The district’s proposed rewrite of Article 12, a copy of which was obtained by the Express, would largely eliminate the role of seniority in this process so that schools would consider all candidates applying to fill vacancies regardless of the number of years they’ve worked in the district. Additionally, reassigned teachers would have to compete with outside candidates for the open positions.

The district has proposed establishing school “personnel committees” that would be responsible for reviewing applicants and making hiring recommendations to the principal. The committees would have a maximum of seven members, and the majority of the members would be on-site teachers. However, the principal would make the final decision on hiring. If teachers don’t receive job assignments through that process, the district would place them in instructional support roles, such as substitute teaching or curriculum development.
“This is personally very upsetting to me,” Trish Gorham, president of the Oakland Education Association (the union), said in an interview. Unlike previous negotiations, this round of bargaining had been mostly respectful and productive — until the district presented its Article 12 proposal, she said. “With this potential impact on labor rights … it’s a great disappointment.”

District officials argue that the proposal would significantly expand the role that school communities play in the process of hiring teachers through the establishment of the personnel committees, which could include parents and students. Unlike the current seniority-driven process, the proposed overhaul of Article 12 would help ensure that the teachers who are most suited for specific positions ultimately get the job, supporters say. “This isn’t about eliminating teachers. They are going to be working in the district somewhere,” said Troy Flint, OUSD spokesperson. “It’s about finding the right match. … More than anything, the focus is on student needs.”

Jody London, a school board member who represents North Oakland, added: “I know of no other industry where the only criteria [in hiring] … is whether you have more years on the job than another applicant.”

Opponents, however, argue that the district’s proposal constitutes a major threat to teachers’ job security and that the district could use this rewritten Article 12 to push out teachers for unfair reasons. They also argue that the current system doesn’t need to be reformed.

The fight over seniority comes at a time in which tensions between OUSD leadership and teachers have been intensifying. Much of the conflict centers on the district’s new “Intensive Support Schools Initiative,” a controversial effort to turn around five low-performing schools in the district. Wilson, who was hired as superintendent by the school board last summer, put out a request for proposals to redesign those schools — inviting both current leaders at the sites and outside charter school organizations to submit proposals. Some fear the process could threaten the jobs of teachers at those sites by encouraging takeovers by charters, which aren’t part of the union (see “A New Era for Charter Schools?” 1/21/15).

This turnaround initiative, which teachers first learned about in December, has raised new concerns about the district’s intentions with Article 12 — a proposal that Gorham said came as a surprise when OUSD presented it for the first time in November after months of bargaining. With the district simultaneously working to overhaul five schools and reform the process of teacher placements during school restructurings, teachers said it seemed clear that OUSD had a concerted agenda to strip away teachers’ seniority rights.

While teachers throughout Oakland agree on the need for a substantial salary increase — OUSD pay ranks among the lowest in the country, when considering cost-of-living — Article 12 has sparked some internal debate. Vilma Serrano, a transitional kindergarten teacher at Melrose Leadership Academy, a dual language school in Maxwell Park, told me that she has heard from teachers who said they would be willing to strike if the district doesn’t budge on Article 12 — while others have said they would consider crossing the picket line if the union striked for that reason.

As a teacher in her third year at OUSD, Serrano said she could initially see the appeal of the district’s proposal, which could benefit her if she had to compete with a more senior teacher during a transfer process. But she said she ultimately came to the conclusion that the Article 12 proposal was a bad idea. “We need to think about ways to make this into a sustainable profession,” she said. “This really does seem to be aligned with what’s going on at those five schools and … destabilizing teachers’ rights and teacher job security in Oakland.”

In interviews, teachers and parents across the district expressed differing opinions about the Article 12 proposal. Marijke Conklin, a first-grade teacher at Melrose — whose teachers have adopted the work-to-rule tactic — said it’s critical that teachers maintain protections tied to seniority, saying, “I’m a strong believer that teaching experience makes a huge difference in the classroom.” But she said she believes there is room to increase flexibility in the hiring process so that seniority is not the sole determining factor. “Let’s try to craft creative language that allows us to involve the community and involve powerful criteria,” she said, arguing that the district’s proposal could be improved by allowing the personnel committee members to have a direct vote on candidates, not just an advisory role.

Caitlin Healey, a special education teacher at Emerson Elementary School in North Oakland, said OUSD needed more data and analysis on the role of seniority in transfers before moving forward with this kind of dramatic change. The district and union have in the past followed an “advisory matching” process that facilitates meetings between schools and potential transfer candidates, but officials have not studied the success of that effort, noted Healy, who is also a member of the union’s executive board. Ultimately, she said there didn’t seem to be evidence that relying on seniority resulted in problematic placements: “People want to work at a place where they will fit in.”

Other teachers said they felt strongly that the Article 12 proposal could be used to punish outspoken teachers. “It’s a way of driving out the more experienced teachers who tend to be the ones who stand up and say what they believe,” said Mark Airgood, a teacher at Edna Brewer Middle School and a union site representative. “This is just a way of attacking the union.”

In Fruitvale, at Fremont High School, one of the five schools in the intensive support process, some longtime teachers are concerned that the Article 12 changes could prevent them from continuing to teach their current students once the school is redeveloped. With existing Article 12 protections, when schools close, teachers have a right to follow their students to a new facility. “If our school disappears around us … can we stay with our kids?” said Patricia Arabia, a teacher at Fremont High since 1999. If new transfer rules and the turnaround initiative ultimately forced teachers to separate from their students, “That’s horrible for the kids and horrible for the teacher,” she said.

It’s unclear what kind of compromise, if any, the district and union could reach on seniority rights. Flint said the district is willing to negotiate the terms of its Article 12 proposal, but noted that bargaining in general had grown strained in recent weeks — with substantial disagreements on the rate of salary increases, in addition to the rift on seniority rules.

But with something as fundamental as basic job protection, Gorham said, “We feel we have to take a strong position.” She added: “What we really want to protect is the dignity of teachers who are displaced through no fault of their own.”

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Montclair Teachers and an OEA rep will be speaking and answering questions Wednesday February 25th at 7 pm at the Montclair Women’s Club 1650 Mountain Blvd, please click on the flier for more information.  All interested families are welcome.

Montclair teachers meeting flier

Edna Brewer teachers, parents, and students are planning to march on February 25th to the school board meeting. OEA Reps spoke at our PTSA meeting tonight and got a lot of support. We are planning to leave Brewer at 3:30 and march down to the lake, meeting up with others at the Colonnade at 4pm and march down the side of the lake to the Board Meeting. We are hoping that other schools will join!