Dear Colleagues,
Hopefully, the end of the excessive heat is upon us and we can move forward with educating our students. We hope that curriculum night was a success and you were able to meet many of your families. We have many updates below so please read all the way until the end. If you took coursework over the summer please submit your credit hours to HR by September 15 for salary credit. Also, if you are eligible for tenure please remind your supervisor to submit your name. Thank you all for the donation of water bottles. We had an amazing response to get water bottles in the hands of the students in the very hot buildings.
Logo Contest:
This is the final week of the CHTU logo contest. We have several amazing entries already. If you would still like to enter a logo please send it to Tiffiny Underhile tunderhil@chtu.org. All entries should be submitted by September 3. For details, please check out our flyer.
FMCS Survey- We need your feedback:
Last year at our Summit Ms. Kirby suggested working with a mediator to improve the relationship between Union and Administration. The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) provides federal mediators to work with our Union and management in negotiations, or to mediate grievances, and in this case, trying to help strengthen our relationship. We are asking you to complete this survey of your views of the Union-Administration relationship. The link for 795 members is here. The Administration has been given a survey with a separate link with similar questions. All of the answers will go directly to the FMCS. The Administration and Union will not have access to individual survey responses and will only see the overall results. The survey link will be available until September 15th.
Retirement Enhancement:
If you have completed 30 years of service as indicated by your STRS/SERS Annual Statement of Account, you are eligible to receive an additional payment of $700 during years 31, 32, 33, 34, and 35 of teaching service. If you have already received a retirement enhancement of $1,150 during years 28-30, please see p. 77 of the contract to determine your enhancement eligibility. This additional compensation will be paid in monthly increments throughout the contract year.. To qualify for these payments, you must submit written documentation of your eligibility EACH YEAR on or before November 15. There are two documents required: your annual STRS statement that comes in October which can be printed from your STRS account, and the form letter you can find with the FAQ’s on our website.
Back To School Campaign:
Over the summer some of our colleagues participated in our “Back to School Campaign”. This campaign took place in the evenings and these members went door to door with CHUH literature to encourage charter school families to return to our district schools. The following members participated in the campaign:
Lisa Husein and Yvonne Wallace: co-chairs
Greg Nachman
Linda Honey-Dixon
Tamiko Patton
Tamar Gray
Michelle Alexander
Josephine Shelton-Townes
Harron Hartig
Cynthia Booker
Lee Anne Chambers
So far the results are very positive. The members that went door to door successfully recruited 20 families. The district ran its own campaign and brought many students back as well. Overall we are proud of the work of our Local 795 members because even just one family returning to use our public school's thanks to our efforts is a success.
TUSH:
We originally planned on hosting our first TUSH (Teachers Union Social Hour) on Friday, September 17 at Boss Dog Brewery. We have decided to delay the event until it is safer to be together socially. Unfortunately, Covid numbers are not going in a positive direction right now. We wouldn’t want anyone getting sick and missing work because of a CHTU social event. Stay tuned for a later date.
In Union,
Karen Rego
CHTU President