Due to uneasiness in 14-15 enrollment numbers (including the enrollment loss due to the Kairos Charter School) and in the ending balance for 13-14, the District did not want to talk money increases until the fall.

To be better prepared for bargaining, the VTA Bargaining team agreed to open negotiations in September.

Consequently, we will be using the 14-15 Salary Schedules in the contract (Appendix C, Sections A-K), which have the 1.5% one-time increase from 13-14 taken off.

These can be found at: http://www.vacateachers.org/vta-documents/salary-schedules/ When you click on the correct salary schedule, click on “13-14 and 14-15 Section _.”

The salary schedule highlighted in blue is the 14-15 salary schedule.

Look at the salary for your next step. In many cases, the next step on the 14-15 schedule is LESS money than the previous step on the 13-14 salary schedule.

VTA has the survey data related to bargaining salary increases and other money items and will be using members’ priorities in crafting an initial proposal for the fall.

We wanted to make sure that you were aware that your July and August paychecks will, in many cases, be lower than your June check. We will be working to reverse that ASAP.

Dear Colleagues,

This is an election year for our School Board, and the race has begun for most of our candidates. You may have candidates who ask for your endorsement. The Vacaville Teachers Association won’t make a formal endorsement until the end of August, after input from our members.

VTA will host a forum, where you can hear each candidate speak on the educational issues that affect our schools, students and district. The forum will be held on Tuesday, August 19th, beginning at 6:00 pm, at WCW’s Wildcat Theater.

This event is open to the public, so tell your family and friends! Please contact me if you have any questions.

Thank you,
Dawn Kelly
VTA PAC Chair

I completed one of my goals this summer to convert Come With Me Science into usable videos for classroom use. I managed to include: “Mammals of the Woods”, “Birds”, “Insects”, “Zoo Animals”, “Sea Animals”. and “Farm Animals”.

You can access my work by going to:

Five animals in each unit, so I figure that’s about 30 weeks worth of curriculum if you do this with Project Glad and you do one animal per week. Plus, I made a separate animal song video for each animal from the original fact video.

Hopefully, this will be helpful to you.

Keep having a glorious summer and see you in many, many, many, many days!

Gary

VECHS MOU

VTA and VUSD have met several times in the past 4 months, in bargaining and informally, to discuss Common Core Implementation issues and concerns.

Through these critical conversations, VTA and VUSD have reached an MOU concerning the impact of transitioning to the Common Core Standards.  That MOU can be found at the end of the bargaining update at:

http://www.vacateachers.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/CCbargupdate5.pdf

The following are implications of the MOU:

-More teacher-direction in: professional development, use of Wednesday PLC time, use of non-pupil workday time, number of district assessments

-Less meeting in time in the three days before school starts

-Use of Wednesday time for grading of district assessments (CFA/other)

-Use of Wednesday time for planning

-District mapped out assessment per year, revisions with teacher input

-Less meeting hours for 2014-15

-Planning time included in standards related professional development

-Limited meetings during TK-6 grade reporting months

-Common list of terms to be developed so everyone is on the same page

-When released for some committees/professional development, members will be released early to compensate them for writing sub plans

-When released for new standards professional development, about 28% of the time will be dedicated for planning

Also the District has altered its original CC implementation plan in the following ways in response to VTA members’ needs:

-Fewer CFAs (K-6 CFAs math only)/District decreased assessments at many grade levels (from original plan)

-Postponed K-6 ELA implementation until 2015-16

-CFAs will be scheduled around other assessments, end of grading periods and conferences.

-IMAP teams have control over formative assessments, with the flexibility to create or revise at individual school sites

-IMAP teams should have more control over their meeting agendas

-Extra assessment assistance for K-6, with proportionally more support for K-1 due to the individual nature of the assessments

-Feedback process between IMAP team members and grade levels/departments established

VTA would also like to encourage its members to do the following:

-Give feedback to your fellow VTA members serving on these important committees:  Instructional Map (IMAP), professional development (PDAC), K-6 report card, Special Education, and Wednesday Collaboration.

-Push for more member-voice at your school site. One of the ways that you can do that is by taking a VERY brief survey (for your school site only) on the use of outside the duty day meeting time. Early in the 14-15 school year, your VTA reps will be sharing this information with individual site administrators. Our hope is that will help site administrators to effectively plan the use of these meetings.

Please go to the appropriate link for the site that you were working at in 2013-14:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/meetingsACE

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/meetingsALAMO

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/meetingsBROWNSVALLEY

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/meetingsBUCKINGHAM

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/meetingsCALLISON

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/meetingsCOOPER

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/meetingsCOUNTRYHIGH

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/meetingsFAIRMONT

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/meetingsHEMLOCK

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/meetingsJEPSON

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/meetingsMARKHAM

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/meetingsORCHARD

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/meetingsPADAN

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/meetingsVACAHIGH

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/meetingsVACAPENA

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/meetingsWOOD

-VUSD was VERY reluctant to allow 50% of the Wednesday PLC collaboration meetings be strictly member-driven. This is a fantastic opportunity to show our administration the incredible, hard-working professionals that we are and that we deserve their trust in this endeavor.

Thank you again for all you do for VUSD students and for your fellow VTA members.

Moira McSweeney

VTA President