Dear Colleagues,
Welcome back to the 2018-19 school year. Still feels like summer to me, somehow.
CHTU Shirts on Friday
Many of you have stopped by the office if you needed a new Union T-Shirt or wanted to buy our 50/50 embroidered Polo. We believe that showing solidarity with colleagues across the district at convocation is important - especially in a negotiations year. I hope that all of you with school or tigernation garb wear it on Monday to show your students that the building has a unified purpose.
Fridges
The biggest buzz on our buzzmeter lately has been about refrigerators in classrooms and offices. George Petkac sent a memo to principals stating that no one should have a personal fridge. Some of them forwarded this message to staff. Many people are now in a panic.
No one should ever have had a fridge in their room, but since this has been ignored for so long many people do. I have already been in conversation with Superintendent and we agree that there needs to be a process in place to analyze the needs of the buildings. For instance, an elementary school with 1 refrigerator for 45 staff members is not enough - so guess what? People have improvised over the years - not a surprise. There are a hundred reasons why people have accumulated these appliances and many of them are valid.
So - no one is coming to confiscate your fridge or give you an energy ticket. We have just started talking. Stay tuned.
New Members
Please extend a warm welcome to 24 new members who joined us this week. Most come to us with experience, but will probably still have questions. Please help where you can.
In Union,
Ari Klein
CHTU President