KNEA Election Time

It's that time again. Members should receive a ballot for electronic voting by email. If you don't, please email us right away at lneanews@gmail.com. Candidate position statements are available here:

Statewide Delegates

Secretary Treasurer Candidates:

Tim Knoles and Sherri Schwanz.

Up for National RA Delegate is our own Robin Crim!

My message to state senator Kelly Kultala today:

Thank you for voting YES on HB 2200.

If HB 2634 should come to you, I hope you will vote NO and help convince other senators to do likewise. Please let the Department of Education do its job in formulating a new evaluation system for the state rather than legislating one. The KEEP being piloted now was designed with all the stakeholders involved, and I have no doubt it will be a big improvement on anything that might be legislated.

Further, if districts are permitted to come up with their own evaluation system, it should definitely be negotiable. Just as we don't want insurance companies making medical decisions or evaluating physicians on purely financial rationale and without input from doctors, we should not have elected school boards making teacher evaluation procedure decisions without educator input.

Ginger Riddle

House Bill 2634 was passed out of the Education Committee but with drastic amendments that make it palatable. Here is the reply that Representative Goodman sent today to all those who emailed her while the bill was in committee.

From Jana Goodman
To Ginger Riddle

The education committee recently voted HB 2634 out of committee favorable for passage. The bill was drastically cut and reworked in committee:

• The section on alternative teacher certification was eliminated.
• Multiple measures of student growth and achievement, as determined by the state board, must be used to evaluate teachers.
• The requirement that a teacher rated as "ineffective" must be automatically terminated was removed.
• The current mentor teacher program was reinstated.
• The section that removed evaluations from collective bargaining negotiations was amended.
• The provision placing the burden of proof on the teacher to show effectiveness was removed.

Attached is a copy of the current version of the bill, as amended in committee. The next step is for the bill to be debated in the House Chamber. This is the link to the bill on the Kansas Legislative Information System, so you can follow the bill's status: http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2011_12/measures/hb2634/

Thank you for your thoughtful input.

Please feel free to contact me at any time.

Representative Jana Goodman
Kansas House District
41410 South Broadway, Leavenworth, Kansas 66048
(913) 547-0565

Get up, dress up, show up, speak up.