WEA Rep Assembly:
If you are interested in attending the WEA Rep Assembly in Spokane Washington May 14-16th, please send a 1 paragraph interest statement to Tracie Morris by February 19th. This is a great way to see your WEA in action and to have a voice in the direction your union is going. Ballots will be going out February 26th and must be returned by March 12th.
Exec Meeting 2/19 Rep Council Meeting 2/26:
The FEA Exec Board is meeting this Thursday. Please contact any representative if you would like to add an agenda item to our next Rep Council meeting February 26th or if there is an issue you would like discussed. The Staff Safety Demand to Bargain (attached) will be going to the table sometime in March. We will keep you posted.
FEA Executive Board:
Tracie Morris (Skyline) FEA President
Dave Esser (Mt. View) FEA Vice-President
Thirza Zaglow (Cascadia) FEA Secretary
Cheryl Frazier (Skyline) - FEA Treasurer
Bud Larson (Cascadia) Elementary School Rep-at-Large
Jay Sozanski (Vista) Middle School Rep-at-Large
Susan Smith (FHS) High School Rep-at-Large
Adam Goldstein (Horizon) - Head Negotiator
Susan Gelhar (FHS) - Legislative Rep
Lyn Sherry 4th Corner Uniserv Rep
FEAtures Deadline:
We are always looking for FEAtures ideas and articles. If you have an idea or would like to submit an article, please send to Dee Schulz
New Educator Night: February 24, 2009 and March 25, 2009 are the next New Educator
events occurring at the Skagit Ridge in Bow
Retirement Seminar: WECU in Bellingham Friday, March 13, 2009 6 pm– 9 pm and continues
Saturday, March 14, 2009 8 am– 4 pm Deadline to sign up is March 6th.
Information for both can be found at the Fourth Corner website
HB 1410/SB 5444 Update:
Hopefully many of you have may now have a better understanding of how much of a “big deal” HB 1410/SB 5444 really are to public education, and how detrimental they could be to our profession. Your emails and phone calls have been making a difference. It is CRITICAL that you continue to take action and contact your legislators – not just once, but repeatedly. This is no joke: legislators are counting emails and phone calls for or against this proposed legislation.
CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATORS at www.OurVoiceWashingtonEA.org or call the Legislative Hotline: 1-800-562-6000. Please call or email daily! Remember to use your personal phone, computer, and/or email address. Also, if you are a Facebook user, you can join (and invite your friends to join) the anti-1410 group on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=53336361219.
Attached to this email you will find an 11-page summary analysis of the 111-page HB 1420/SB 5444, prepared by WEA staff;
I know that many of you would also like more information on the World Class Schools Bills, sponsored by Senator Rosemary McAuliffe, Chair of the Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee, which is based on the Full Funding Coalition proposal. You can view the bill at: http://ourvoicewashingtonea.org/legislative/resources.php.
I would also encourage you to visit the Full Funding Coalition website to view their proposal, PowerPoint(s), and FAQ at http://www.fullfundingcoalition.org/. In addition, on the Our Voice website compare several of the differences between the two sets of bills. http://ourvoicewashingtonea.org/legislative/resources.php
Please ask yourself: do we want to advocate for change? Of course.
However, do we want to advocate for change for change’s sake, or because we want to make things better?
I would hope the latter.
Do we need to change the way that we fund public education in Washington State? Yes.
Do we need to redefine Basic Education? Yes.
But what is the MOST important thing for us to be focused on right now? The money.
We need to fully fund public education and protect it as much as possible from what may well be devastating cuts due to our national and state economic crisis. Not only will HB 1410/SB 5444 not do that, it will put us further behind.
I want to point out a specific line in the bill: “the bills actually state, “Basic education shall be considered to be fully funded by those amounts of dollars appropriated by the Legislature” - in other words, the bills do not obligate the legislature to provide any additional funding. Moreover, this proposed legislation would result in public education being considered “fully funded” no matter how much (or little) money is provided for it by the legislature.” If you want to better understand why this is the case, please take the time to read the attached “HB1410concernsV5” document.
Is it important to advocate for positive change, such as that in the World Class Schools bills, HB 1817/SB 5607? Absolutely. However, it is even more important to help our community, parents, school board, and legislators to understand that HB 1410/SB 5444 must be stopped. It will only put us further behind. We need to be working collaboratively to move forward, and we cannot do that while these bills threaten our students, our districts, our colleagues, and our profession.
Your voice matters!
Thank you and have a good week,
***
Tracie Morris
FEA President
*Working for the benefit of educators in the Ferndale School District to maintain quality for our students.