COMMITTEE REPORTS
ARC (Appraisal Review Committee): Next meeting April 24 – need to discuss process of evaluations. We believe the rubric should be available before the post-conference for an observation so that conversation can center around areas that may not have been rated with all of the information taken into account.
Community in Schools Task Force: Initial meeting held on April 11 with Josephine and Ari attending. Group will be meeting monthly through December to determine how best to coordinate our community partners in our schools. There are three sub groups: investigating possible models to recommend, developing a needs assessment to be used by schools to see what their students need, and a group determining what we should use to determine if the programs we implement are successful. We will present our recommendations to the BOE in December.
Cuyahoga County Educators Summit – Cuyahoga County Educator’s Summit – Past CHTU President Tom Schmida represented us at a meeting on March 23. Ohio Education Association’s Policy Research and member Advocacy Department Director, Patty Nyquist spoke about ESSA updates.
DLT (District Leadership Team): DLT was March 22. Next Meeting April 26.
ER&D: Summer Registration started.
INSURANCE: Nothing new since November 2 meeting.
MASTER TEACHER: Portfolios due in the beginning of May. Scoring will occur May 8.
MOBILIZATION: The mobilization committee will reconvene to discuss actions to organize this spring.
CHTU Listening Project Works In Tandem with Heights Coalition
Volunteers needed to deliver around 5 postcards to families of charter school students asking for an interview, to do an online survey or to attend an interview May 4 (4-6) or May 6 (10-12). We are trying to learn what goes into the family decision to send a child to a charter.
RETIREMENT: Secretary Lausche attended the STRS meeting in Middleburg Heights (will attach notes for executive board). Decisions will soon be made on how to stretch the money in the pension system for as long as possible.
SOCIAL: May 5 is coming soon. Participate in our Baskets Raffle to fund the Glenn Altschuld Scholarship for a Heights senior.
SUMMIT: Met April 7. Discussed ways to get more math in elementary, trying to get the One Book program district-wide, Kindernet, before/after school changes. We also looked over the PD summary from the year. Next Meeting May 12.
TRANSITIONAL WORK PROGRAM: nothing new
1. Negotiations – The monitors contract is not yet settled. We have a bargaining session scheduled for May 11.
2. Removal of letter Grievance: On March 8 a hearing was held for a member who believed that she was unfairly disciplined with an official reprimand. The grievance was denied. We meet for a step 3 grievance mediation on April 19.
Assault Leave Grievance:: A member was denied assault leave for documented mental anguish associated with an assault leave. The Step 2 hearing was held on April 6 and denied. The Grievance committee will be asking the executive board to authorize the local to skip step 3 and go right to arbitration.
3. Fact-Findings -
a) A member had a fact-finding on January 20 because the principal thought the member sent an email with a “disrespectful tone.” Awaiting disposition.
b) A member had a fact-finding on January 27 for a plethora of accusations of poor IEP documentation. While awaiting disposition we received a second invitation to a follow up fact-finding for February 16. Another fact-finding was scheduled then postponed.
c) Follow up fact findings have been held and scheduled for three of the high school monitors to review video footage from the high school hallways the day of the alleged sexual assault in October. No disposition.
4. High School Scheduling – A simple 50 minute period schedule was developed and presented to staff on January 31. TBTs were used to discuss the schedule in more depth on February 7. Administration decided that Intervention Specialists did not need two planning periods as called for in the contract. President Klein met with administration to determine if there were trade-offs that would make this acceptable. Administration offered very little to balance the loss of over 70 hours of planning. President Klein met with the high school special ed department April 12, but could not come up with alternatives that would be acceptable to administration. A better schedule at the cost of our special education colleagues is not acceptable.
5. Lay-Offs: 10 teachers were laid off in 14 positions (?????). 5 monitors were laid off losing 6 positions. Part of this is due to the closing our program at Bellefaire.
Administration laid off the monitors 6 weeks earlier than the contract calls for, so these letters were rescinded and monitors told they would be reissued Mid-May. Before recalling one of the monitors administration arbitrarily determined a tiebreaker to use for two monitors hired on the same date. We agree that there should be tiebreaker language and it makes sense to match the teacher language, but nothing is currently in place.
A 0.6 position was declined last year by two tenured teachers and accepted by a non-tenured teacher. Next year the position will be full time. Ohio law indicates very clearly that the tenured teachers have a right to be recalled to the full time position. The non-tenured teacher was laid off April 18 and one of the tenured teachers, who is not working for CHUH this year, has been offered recall.