February Rep Council Highlights:

1. Bargaining: The District continues to be unwilling to moderate their proposals of 28/1 class size and five furlough days. In addition they are showing an unwillingness to budge on non-monetary issues. FMEA will be mobilizing the Negotiations Support Team (NST) to organize actions and demonstrate our resolve that the budget crisis can't be balanced exclusively on the backs of teachers. We do need someone from each site to step up for the NST which meets this coming Monday, March 1st at Meadows, room P9.

2. Retirement Incentive: Monday is the deadline to turn in all paperwork.  It's hard to get an exact count since new people have been submitting their names while others have   been retracting, but it appears that we will probably exceed 36. This means that as long as we don't have a lot of teachers who retract next week the payout will be 75%. I will contact all participating teachers next week to discuss this.

A number of teachers have been asking about insurance so I want to reiterate that retired teachers can buy into the District plan for the rest of their life. This means they would get the group discount the District receives but would have to pay the total cost of their plan which is roughly four times more than what is currently deducted from their paycheck for health benefits.

3. Full-Time-Release President vote. There will be an important vote next month on whether FMEA will continue funding a full-time-release president or reduce it to a half-time position. The arguments are laid out in The Paper. The deadline to request  a shared  contract will be over before the full-time-release vote and officer elections so it will not be feasible for next year's FMEA President to split a contract in 10/11. This means that if 50% wins, that change will begin in the 11/12 school year.

4.  March 4th is to be the day to "Stand Up For Schools." CTA has not organized any statewide actions and has asked individual chapters to organize their own actions. FMEA Rep Council decided that because of the late notice and intensity of our local struggles we will not be organizing an action. There are several actions in our region that can be found at
http://www.standupforschools.org/ 

5.  Language Arts adoption: Are teachers generally in favor of a new language arts adoption next year or would we prefer to have a year to integrate all the new materials we've been receiving before any new adoptions?

6. The Santa Clara County CTA Legislative Brunch is on 3/13.  Reps have flyers with details that can be handed out or emailed to anyone interested.

7. There will be a State Council election in late March. The deadline to return declarations of candidacy is March 2nd.   Reps have details and  declarations of candidacy.

8. NEA Representative Assembly is the first week of July and will be in New Orleans this year. FMEA will be electing up to three Local Delegates. The deadline to turn in nomination forms is March 12th. If you want to run for a Local Delegate position and need a declaration of candidacy form let your Site Rep know.

9. The final STRS workshop at Mt Hamilton this year will be March 4th at 4pm. The topic is retirement income management.

10. RIFs: It is still unknown whether there will be teacher layoffs in our district, but it looks unlikely.

11. Calendar: Both FMEA and CSEA chose calendar 3 which was the most similar to this year. Unfortunately it looks like testing might have to begin immediately after spring break. For this reason other versions of the 10/11 calendar are being considered. One possibility is beginning  spring break one week earlier (the week of Good Friday). This would leave a one-week buffer between break and testing. I will keep you posted on any developments.