Over the Summer, the CEA Executive Board met to plan for the year. One key piece we found was we were missing an updated “What has CEA done for me?” We went through and created an easy to view powerpoint which can be used in part when speaking with those who would like to be part of CEA. Also, AEA has a new associate member category, for anyone who is a supporter of public education but is not in public ed, you can join. To find out more, please e-mail Jason Schnee at ceaprez@gmail.com
Here is a linked presentation which you can use to show any new potential member about CEA, we were trying to use this at the New Teacher Lunch, but technology wasn’t on our side then.
Here is the address of the link to download the presenation to use: http://www.creightonea.org/Media/CEAPowerpointPresentation.ppt
The Senate and House Republican Leadership of our legislature have come to an agreement on a budget and are attempting to pass it tonight and tomorrow. The budget will be similar to the two separate versions passed over the last two weeks by the Senate and House Appropriations Committees. Therefore it will contain massive cuts to K-12 education.
At this point in time, amendments are being drawn up by Senate and House staff to create a budget that the leadership in both the Senate and House hope to push through the process in the next 18 hours. If the Senate Republican leadership can get 16 of the 18 members of their caucus to support this budget it will pass the Senate and the House will act on it tomorrow.
It is not clear if there is enough support in the Senate or Republican Caucus to pass the budget, although it is speculated that some more moderate Republicans may be convinced to vote for the budget in order to move the process along, despite their opposition to this budget. These less conservative Republicans would be gambling that the governor would veto the budget forcing further negotiations where the budget could be improved.
These partisan games need to come to an end. The governor and Senate and House leaders from both parties need to sit down and begin negotiating a budget that uses a comprehensive approach to resolve our nearly $4 billion dollar deficit.
Thing Happen Fast – Sign up for AEA Twitter so your communications with legislators is received before it is too late. With the quickly changing events at the Capitol, action is needed as a moment’s notice. In urgent situations, AEA can alert you by text to act if you sign up for twitter.
What has become apparent is not only do CEA members read this blog, but also we have community members, board members and administration reading the blog as well. When CEA writes a post, we do our best to make sure the information we put up will be informative and helpful to our members. It may be a call to action for all CEA members, or a tool we use to help our membership. This is paid for by CEA 100% and we want to value you the members. We must be careful when we share our own opinions and think carefully about what we write, as we know once something is written on the web, it really never can be taken back.
Let me take a moment to apologize to Mr. Curtis Coghill and Mr. Joe Nolan. Over time CEA and these gentlemen while on the board had our differences, but we were always professional in our disagreements. CEA leadership has always been professional towards everyone we meet and work with. We represent you the members and the profession and do not want to bring our name to any shame. It came to our attention during the Creighton Governing Board meeting a staff member of our district called and left a message to Mr. Coghill’s work saying some very inappropriate comments. In no ways is this acceptable by any standards and we condone this behavior. There are many ways we can show disagreement, but attacking someone is not endorsed or allowable. Please all members, we must be respectful to the community members, administration, board members, parents, and our students. We are allowed our own opinions, however when your opinion is shared and done in a manner which can be considered to defame a person this is not allowable.
Please come to the CSD Board Meeting on April 28th, 2009….The board wants to increase our instructional day by 70 minutes in kindergarten through 4th grade and 40 minutes in 5th-8th grade. CEA leadership does not support this, but we are only as strong as our members. We all are CEA and we need to stand up for what we feel is just. CEA Leadership has mobilized the members of CEA and we are getting the word out to AEA members across the valley. Please support CEA and wear RED to show the governing board this is not alright with us.
Watch the video below for Mac Users you’ll be able to see it, for PC users you need Quicktime.Read the facts:
Prove to us now, that the Board hears the teachers, votes ‘No’ on the agenda item on increasing instructional minutes, and goes back to the drawing board on this issue.
How can a decision like this be made without buy in? Even to pass a school uniform rule you have to have a large percent in support.
Just the facts:
Grade AZ guideline
(hours per year)
See attached documentation Board Policy
I-0400 ID
School Day
See attached documentation Difference between AZ guidelines and current Board Policy Current Instructional time minus board policy in hours
** how it was calculated below
K 356 484 Over 128 Over 560
1 712 1102 Over 390 Over 32
2 712 1102 Over 390 Over 32
3 712 1102 Over 390 Over 32
4 890 1102 Over 300 Over 32
5 890 1190 Over 300 Over 56
6 890 1190 Over 300 Over 56
7 1068 1190 Over 122 Over 56
8 1068 1190 Over 122 Over 56
**Instructional minutes:
K-4: 4 days per week (MTHF) X 6.5 hours X 36 weeks=936
1 day per week (W) X 5.5 hours X 36 weeks = 198
Totaling = 1134 hours – 90 hours of lunch = 1044 hours instruction (recesses also don’t count but that changes per campus so I didn’t subtract that amount)
5-8: 4 days per week (MTHF) X 7 hours X 36 weeks= 1008
1 day per week X 1 hour X 36 weeks = 216
Totaling 1224 – 90 hours of lunch = 1134 hours of instruction (switching times, recesses/breaks, and homerooms also don’t count but that changes per campus so I didn’t subtract that amount)
Here is the state’s web page of recommended contact hours:
I question why the Board Policy has instructional minutes way over the AZ state guidelines. Can the board policy of instructional minutes be change to better match the AZ state guidelines, so that we are not in jeopardy of having to pay back money like Phoenix Elementary School District no matter who calculates the instructional minutes?
The proposed change would have our students K-8 in school for 7 hours and 45 minutes 4 times a week and 6 hours 45 minutes on Wednesdays -Averaging 7.5 hours per day.
This is way more than even the national average or even globally. It is true that our number of school days is low globally, but Obama has talked about increasing the number of days nationwide and hopefully, with funds to support that. Is now the time to increase instructional minutes without the input from parents, teachers, or even students? No. Vote “No” on this agenda item.
Article stating that extending day/year in not the answer, just another one size fits all strategy:
Below is some more data for you to have and read to regarding instruction time.
Data: http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pss/tables/table_2006_24.asp
National Center for Education Statistics
Table 24. Average length of school year and average length of school day for private schools, by
Table 24. selected characteristics: States 2005-06
Selected Average length of Average length of
characteristic school year in days school day in hours
Program emphasis
Regular elementary/
secondary 178.6 6.8
Montessori 182.1 6.6
Special program emphasis 177.1 6.9
Special education 193.1 6.2
Vocational/technical ‡ ‡
Alternative 186.0 6.1
Early childhood 200.9 6.2
Size (number of students)
Less than 50 181.5 6.6
50-149 180.1 6.8
150-299 179.0 6.8
300-499 178.2 6.9
500-749 177.8 6.9
750 or more 177.7 7.0
Region
Northeast 181.0 6.6
Midwest 178.0 6.8
South 179.9 6.8
West 181.3 6.6
Urbanicity type
City 180.8 6.8
Suburban 180.5 6.7
Town 177.9 6.7
Rural 178.9 6.7
‡ Reporting standards not met.
NOTE: These estimates do not include private schools for which kindergarten is the highest grade.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Private School Universe Survey (PSS),
2005-2006.
In Spain,
The School Year (33 weeks of school versus our 36 weeks)
The academic year in Spain runs from mid-September to mid-June, with the main holidays at Christmas, Easter and the summer break. Spanish school children have very long school holidays (vacaciones escolares) compared with those in many other countries. Schools are also closed on public holidays when they fall in term time.
The school year is made up of three terms, each approximately eleven weeks in duration. There are slight variations among the different autonomous communities and there may be days off and long weekends for regional holidays and religious and national holidays.
Pupils transferring from primary to secondary school are sometimes given an additional two weeks’ summer holiday.
School holiday dates are published by schools and local communities well in advance. Normally parents are not permitted to withdraw a child from classes during the school term. Exceptions can be made if the child has an appointment at the doctor or dentist, however, the teacher should be notified in advance.
The School Day (7 hour day)
In primary schools the school day generally lasts from 09:00-14:00, school meals are not always provided, however some schools offer the option to have lunch at the school and then undertake an extra-curricular activity in the afternoon. Once students reach year 7 (beginning of secondary school [high school]) school days are longer, beginning at approximately 08:30.
In Germany,
For primary school (Grundschule) teachers and students in Germany, the school day is short by U.S. standards, ending no later than 1:00 p.m.. German teachers do virtually all of their planning and preparation in their own homes. (5 to 5 ½ hours per day for Germany) http://hub.mspnet.org/index.cfm/9148
On Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 Dr. Spiller and Mrs. Witte presented to the governing board about instructional minutes in the CSD. They have not yet put any suggestions together but will be doing so soon. Please read the message below from a member who is just as concerned as CEA with this and contact your governing board member to express your concerns:
After last night’s board meeting, I have more concerns regarding the increase of the instructional day:
It was presented and believed by administration that additional time is what we, the teachers, really want. Yes, we have asked for more time but this request has been taken out of context. Time is not an increase in the instructional day, but time within our current instructional day to:
• Plan
• Work with our team
• Reduce the time commitments that continue being added to our days – meetings (site and district), trainings, PLCs, additional programs, curriculum restraints – 30 minutes of this and an hour of that…
• Allow us to teach to the students during the already scheduled time frame with minimal interruptions
If we are “under” the state requirement by 70 plus hours in the middle school, why is the solution in our district to add 180 hours (one hour of instructional time per day) so that we would be over 110 hours?
What impact does this have not only on teacher salary due to being asked to work a 9 hour day, but also, afterschool sports, clubs, etc…. ? I am at an early start school so my day starts at 7:00 and ends at 3:00. After school games can’t start until 4:00, but usually start at 4:30 due to transportation issues. So now will the games start at 5:30? That would put our coaches (and security for those games) working from 7:00am to 7:00pm at least twice a week, and those students from 7:25am to 6:30pm. That is long day for both the staff and students. In the winter months, students will be walking home in the dark.
District offices are only open from 8-4; while some in those offices may work longer, just like every teacher I know, it’s not possible to contact anyone at district by phone after 4. Is district office time going to increase, too?
The district PLCs last until 4:30 right now. Are they going to last until 5:30 and cut more time from our personal lives?
I have heard from administrators that increased instructional time is what we want and in the past we have gotten raises with no increase in district expectations. I am outraged by these comments! First of all we have not gotten a percent raise that was at or above the normal cost of living inflation factor for years; if anything we have been frozen more years than not. Teachers already work “extra” hours out of a sense of duty to the district and site during carnivals, parent nights, PTO events, parent teacher conferences, meetings with parents, home visits, planning at home, researching materials, etc… Teachers are spending more and more money out of their pockets for motivational and instructional items not funded by the district. Any “extra” money we have received has been put back into the district by our devotion to the students and our sense of what is right. Now we are going to be punished for this commitment and have to hear comments such as this from our administration. I have been in this district for 16 years and I have watched the staff morale decline and become demoralized by district. We have been beaten down so much that it is a common belief that our professional opinions and input do not matter.
While this situation is so maddening to me, I still have the same concerns that I presented last night, and I want to remind you of those:
• Adding more students on a caseload due to a loss of a .5 CC teacher and we have to accept the policy change from the recommended caseload of 17:1 to 22:1 with no input to this change and that it was decided upon using inaccurate data.
• Being stuck with a calendar that teachers didn’t support and ironically neither did the parents. Parents voted 149 / 149.
• Having a school that is open for only 350 students.
And now we are being told that we will probably be working an extra hour a day with no increase in pay! That 60 minutes of “extra” is approximately a months work of pay!
Now, during these tough economic times, is not time to make this change, when we can’t compensate the staff for the time, we have limited amount of information available to the majority of the parents, and with no input from staff regarding longer school day.
I urge you to dig deeper into the information presented by district and make correct decisions that benefit everyone involved.
To contact the Governing Board you may do so by clicking on the links below as well as come to a Board Meeting and speak about this as well. CEA will keep you informed when this will be coming up for a vote at the board meeting.
CEA leadership will be meeting with the district administration to express our concerns over this, but we need all of you to also contact them and express your concerns. We must be united and organized to do this. Please share this with all your colleagues and encourage them to join CEA as members.
Thousands of teachers and school employees have received notices that leave their employment next year in doubt. Policy makers need to know that public education is Arizona’s budget priority. Teacher and school staff layoffs can be avoided. On April 15, pick up the telephone or send an e-mail and ask the governor and your legislators to use available stimulus dollars and appropriate revenue enhancements to restore a fully funded education budget.
Why April 15?
Most school districts have policies that require them to notify employees who are being laid off or nonrenewed due to budget constraints by April 15. April 15 is the date taxes are due. It is a good day to remind the governor and legislators that a budget solution is past due. Using the stimulus money and appropriate tax measures, a state budget can be passed that provides full funding for public schools, universities, and other vital state services.
Some legislators are trying to avoid responsibility for their lack of action on a budget by blaming teachers who need the April 15 deadline as adequate notice of impending layoffs. Learn more here.
There are four ways to get involved:
1. Send a personal message to the governor and your legislators on April 15 using the March4Schools email or phone system.
2. Visit the March4Schools Mobilization Calendar for a summary of activities that have been organized around the state. If an activity is planned in your area, please participate.
3. Organize a “Stop the Pink Slips” postcard campaign of your own. Organize your colleagues, friends, and family to participate.
4. Organize your own unique action to engage the public to stop the pink slips. If you organize an action, please report it to Doug.Kilgore@arizonaea.org so it can be publicized in future March4Schools publications.
The CEA and CSD have reached an agreement this year in negotiations. We have sent the summary and ratification document which is going to be presented to the governing board on March 31st, 2009 for approval. Please check your email for this summary document and then vote on the ratification of the package.
While there are many areas we came to consensus on through long and arduous negotiations, there were still other areas we did not agree on. One such item was on increasing instructional minutes for the school day and making all of us work longer along with no extra compenstation. We were also working to get more release time for the CEA President since this position has a larger role in helping with advocacy and concerns across the district. This was referred out to the Superintendent.
We need all members to come to the special governing board meeting to show your support for the package and to also tell the board in these times some of the amenities of the administration should be carefully evaluated. This meeting will be at the Larry C Kennedy Multi-Purpose Room at 6PM. We were consistently told we don’t negotiate for administration during the Interest Based Negotiations Process, which is true, however the board does negotiate with the administration of the Creighton School District.
With the legislature ready to cut at least $5 million from the Creighton School District alone, this is a time when we all must stand united together to fight for public education. We could face the loss of full day kindergarten, the loss of many teachers, administrators and classified staff if these cuts do indeed go through.
We must work together to advocate for k-12 education and let our legislators know that putting Arizona’s children further behind is no way to repair our state. For more information on what you can do, please e-mail CEA and also attend the March 4 Schools Rally. Register online at www.march4schools.com
Governor Brewer has called a special session of both houses of the legislature together on Wednesday at 4PM, the exact time we are set to kick off our Rally. We must show up, all of us, parents, teachers, students, administrators, community members. Spread the word to your neighbors. You can make a difference, right now and right here.
The students in the Creighton School District have indeed learned and achieved well in the past years despite what the Arizona Department of Education has stated in a recent article. For most of our students who are English Language Learners, which means they are still learning English, they are making remarkable progress on their Language Acquisition as well as their academic achievement here within the Creighton School District.
The state requires English-learners receive four hours a day of intensive English development, including oral language and vocabulary, nearly double the time most schools devoted in the past. Creighton has a good record in this area, with 42 percent of students proficient enough to pass an oral English test compared with the state rate of 20 percent. The most recent meeting of the English Language Learner’s Task Force has resulted in the members stating we need to consider more than just one test score to be considered proficient in English for our students. Many of our teachers in the Creighton District work long hours, come in on weekends, over the summer, and tutor the students before and after school to help our students succeed. The staff of the Creighton School district is one of the most dedicated, well trained, and caring group of professionals across the state.
The teachers in the Creighton District are from diverse backgrounds themselves and bring this to their classrooms to share with the students and community. All of the teachers in the Creighton School District are certified by the Arizona Department of Education to teach in the state of Arizona and have met all the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act to be accredited by the United States Department of Education as well. The diverse background of many teachers is as a result of a program, which taught the students to be bilingual, called Dual Language here in the Creighton School District. We needed teachers who were native Spanish speakers to teach our students in their core academic areas in Spanish as well as those same subjects in English. This program’s goal was to help our future leaders to compete globally in the world economy by being able to speak, read, write and comprehend in a language other than English. Unfortunately as a result of the passage of Proposition 203, we have seen this remarkable program used in a limited capacity across the Creighton District.
Here is the how: First click on the title of the entry/article on the blog so you can read only that article. At the bottom of the screen you can leave a comment. You will need to enter your name, your e-mail address (which does not get published) and then you can write your comment. Once you have finished writing the comment you will need to press submit comment.
