CHTU Updates

Dear Colleagues,

Usually before elections there is a President’s recommendation on voting.  I am happy to give opinions on a few races, but know that our local has not endorsed anyone or any issue in the November election.

Issue 1:  YES.  Having a process to make voting districts more compact makes a lot of sense.  If passed, this issue does not resolve all gerrymandering problems, but it helps.  The issue has widespread support, including the Ohio Federation of Teachers.

Issue 2 and 3:  NEUTRAL.  Ban monopolies?  Allow limited marijuana production?

Issue 8:  YES.  Arts and Culture replacement

Dear Colleagues,

By statute in Ohio, Teachers earn 1.25 days of sick leave each month.  This is repeated in our contract.  But, what is sick leave, who does it belong to, and can a person get in trouble for using it?

Sick leave is yours. You earn it.  It is an insurance policy that you hope to never have to use.  When a teacher moves from one public school district to another, sick leave can transfer to the new district (handy to know if you worked somewhere else or plan to leave).  If you retire in CHUH after at least 10 years, you get paid severance for one quarter of your unpaid days.  It

Dear Colleagues,

The Appraisal Review Committee (ARC) met yesterday and discussed several important evaluation related issues.

1.  SLOs – we got a preview of the SLO form that teachers will be using this year.  It should be much easier than last year as Ed Services is making use of google forms.  Much of the form will already be filled.  At the end you “submit” and the info goes to the correct place.  A lot of work was done to try to save teachers time.  Please do not use the old form as it will not have anywhere to go.

2.  Improvement Plans – some teachers are on “improvement plans” from the

Dear Colleagues,

What happens when your principal emails the staff at 7 PM one evening about an unplanned assembly the next day?  You get an email over the weekend about an IEP meeting for Monday and are told what you need to do to prepare for it.  At 9:15 in the morning a list goes out in email of students who are to be sent to the office if you have them in class.  We get so many emails that we are expected to read, understand, and act upon it is hard to keep track.  And when do people read their school email?  My guess is that most teachers read them during lunch and at home.  The problem is

Dear Colleagues,

What could possibly be new for the start of school?  Like usual it will be very warm in classrooms this week, even though August was relatively cool.  Some copy machines don’t have paper, even though it is likely that teachers will need more paper at the beginning of the school year than usual.

More important things right now:

1.  Students Growth Measures – principals will get the word this week that the Appraisal Review Committee has made changes to the evaluation system based on changes in state law.

          -Almost everyone does one SLO.  If you teach both ELA and Math you

Dear Colleagues,