Rep Council Meeting Minutes
April 9, 2013 – 3:30-5:20
Chevy’s in Vacaville
Members present – Bob Blaine, Mark Richardson, Sylvia Aquino, Alyson Brauning, Samantha Mauder, Tracy Begley, Ginny Miller, Linda Phelan, Pat Parker, Joy Holleran, Sylvia Shepard, Moria McSweeney, Carolyn Thomas, Katherine Epstein, Gary Eisenberg, Larry Baker, Diane Dahl, Cathy Valdez, Linda Covey, Chris Fickes, Tom Buck, Kathy Steiert, Jennifer Brown, Suzi Morgan, Aja Cook, Tricia Cowen, Julie Timmerman, Brenda Hensley, Helen Blood, Lenore Hubal, Stephanie Munzinger, Sharon Riehl, Julie McGee, Russ Tucker, Corey Penrose
Members absent – Todd Blanset, Christine Williams, Debbie Cavanaugh, Dawn Waid, Sofia Felix-Hatfield, Marsha Rucker, Tom Kutz, Lili Fisher, Miranda Merino
1 – Approval of the minutes – the minutes were approved
2 – Approval of the agenda – the agenda was approved
3 – Business
Elections nominations and voting timeline – the following nominations were taken for VTA officers for the 13-15 term.
President – Moira McSweeney
Vice-President- Alyson Brauning
Treasurer – Brenda Hensley
Recording Secretary- Corey Penrose
Corresponding Secretary – Aja Cook
WCW director – Todd Blanset
VHS director – Julie Timmerman
Jepson director – none
Vaca Pena – Ginny Miller
Elementary directors (5) – Stephanie Munzinger, Dawn Kelly, Sylvia Shepard
There will be two elections for this cycle, one for state council and one for VTA officers. Site reps are reminded to follow procedures and that ballots will be distributed on Thursday and be collected the following Thursday.
LGBT, Human Rights, Women’s Issues Committee – Alyson reported on the Day of Silence and reviewed the history and specifics.
Motion – the VTA create an equity team for the 13-14 membership year. The team would consist of a GLBT chair, women’s issues and human rights chair – seconded and approved.
4 – President’s report – Moria reported on the following:
Health care – we’re still trying to track down some specifics on the logistics of applying for health care coverage on the exchanges.
New superintendent – There will be a special School Board meeting this Thursday, April 11th, for the Board to approve the appointment of Kenneth Jacopetti as the new Superintendent for VUSD. It will be at the ESC on 401 Nut Tree Rd. at 6:00.
Leave issues – Moira has been meeting to discuss the problems with the employee leave tracking system. The district has been docking people who exceeded the three day limit on PNL-EO, but procedures have not been followed. Moira will be speaking with the district about this issue and, if you know of someone who has had their pay docked, please let her know. The report finished with a general discussion on this topic.
Heritage Peak – the Heritage Peak charter application was reviewed and discussed.
Professional growth credit for in-district workshops – the yellow cards are coming back! The procedures for picking up units was also reviewed.
Elementary prep/report card prep MOU – discussions with district are ongoing. Status was reviewed and discussed.
Presidents meeting/budget update – common core, Brown’s budget, and smarter balance testing was discussed.
Redwood awards – we will be working with Travis, Vallejo and FF to honor Jon Riley for the next meeting for his help with the passing of prop 30 and failure of prop 32.
The report finished with a discussion of the status of site visits.
5 – Treasurer’s report – after reviewing the treasurers report, and the proposed budget for the 13-14 school year, the treasurers report was approved and site reps were directed to review the budget so it may be amended/approved during the rep council meeting for next month. Members interested in seeking the rep reimbursement are also directed to fill out the rep reimbursement forms.
6 – Committee/Chair reports
Action – Corey reported on the the following items:
Chamber dinner – was introduced and discussed. After the dinner was discussed:
Motion – Approve the purchase of three tickets for the dinner- seconded – the motion carries
State of the City address – which will be presented by Mayor, Steve Hardy and City Manager, Laura Kuhn and Corey will represent VTA at that event.
VTA bulletin board contest – will be revisited in the fall.
American Cancer Society – about working with VTA on a project. Corey will pursue the project and report back to rep council in May.
Bargaining – Brenda reported that we’d opened the following articles:
3: Wages
4: Hours of Employment
5: Health and Welfare Benefits 9: Class Size
14: Unit Member Safety
and that Randy Henry, VUSD Chief Negotiator, had opened the following articles:
3: Wages
4: Hours of Employment
5: Health and Welfare Benefits 6: Leaves
7: Assignments
8: Part-time Employment
9: Class Size
10: Evaluation
16: Miscellaneous
19: PAR
The report finished with a general discussion about political and economic factors which will affect this bargaining session. All of the bargaining reports from this session can be found at http://www.vacateachers.org/vta-documents/bargaining-updates/.
Grievance – Sylvia reported on various personnel matters.
Human Rights – was covered in new business
Women’s Issues – was covered in new business
PAC – rep council is reminded to be sure to stick around for the mixer!
Special Ed – none
Leave Bank – none
Membership – none
State council – the full report can be found at http://www.vacateachers.org/about-us/state-council-representatives/state-council-report/
7 – Conference reports –
Karen Peters – reported on the retirement 101 workshop in February. For more information, please visit ctainvest.org
8 – Other – there was some general discussion on the health care audit and some discussion about special ed referrals at Padan. We have also sent a card to Mark Fraizer’s wife
9 – Raffle – the following items were won:
Gary Eisenberg – won a ten dollar starbucks card.
10 – Adjournment – the meeting was adjourned at 5:17.
Respectfully submitted, Corey Penrose
