Changes to Teaching Assignments

If your teaching assignment has to be changed during the school year, our negotiated agreement now provides for either time off to pack and move or payment for the time you will spend making changes and doing new long-term planning, and the money you will likely spend getting ready for your new assignment.  

You can choose "three (3) professional leave days for the purpose of packing, unpacking, and preparing academically for the new teaching assignment. In lieu of professional leave the teacher may choose monetary remuneration of $124 per day. Any combination of leave days and remuneration can be used upon mutual agreement by the teacher and building administrator."

Note that the article applies to administrative transfers. "A transfer is defined as the movement of a teacher to a teaching assignment, subject area, grade level or building assignment that differs from the assignment issued to him or her on or by the third Friday in May."

If this applies to you and remuneration has not been mentioned, gently refer your administrator to Article 12 of the negotiated agreement.  If you have questions, contact us at lneanews@gmail.com.

Negotiations at Impasse

LNEA's negotiations with the district have hit a wall since the district continues to insist it cannot afford raises to reward returning teachers for their year of service (otherwise known as step movement on the salary schedule).

In the negotiations meeting Monday evening, the district offered lateral movement without this vertical step movement.  As a result of KNEA’s budget analysis, however, we continue to believe that the BOE will find a way to pay teachers raises based on the salary schedule.  Their representatives say that this year raises will depend entirely on the superintendents of the other districts in the special education co-operative. Leavenworth, as the sponsoring district, has always held the purse strings for the co-op. 

Being "at impasse" means notice will be filed with the Kansas Department of Labor. This means we will be meeting with a mediator from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. We are hopeful that this process will begin without any further delay. We have one team member who has been through this process before. Assuming things work similarly now, the mediator will hold one marathon session behind closed doors during which the mediator tries to bring the two parties together. If mediation fails, we then go to fact-finding, a process where a third party examines all the facts, including budget, and then makes a recommendation. The recommendation will be made public, however, the district is not legally obligated to follow it. 

LNEA is certainly willing to continue discussions with the Board's representatives. In fact, we scheduled another meeting for December 17; however, the Board's lead negotiator, attorney Robert Hingula, stated that he doubted the need for meetings between his team and LNEA once impasse papers have been filed. 

However, Kansas statute says explicitly that nothing in the law should be construed so as to prevent the parties from voluntarily engaging in professional negotiation during impasse.

In the meantime, we will continue working under the current contract until this is settled, and we cannot guarantee that any pay raises we do negotiate will be retroactive to the beginning of the year.

We will be compiling some information to help you understand this process and communicate about it effectively, and will share that with you as soon as it is available. In the meantime, if you are interested in hearing more about the budget and the co-op, the last board meeting is at http://vimeo.com/80271505. At the 2:13 mark, the district’s chief financial officer begins to address the board about the co-op budget and later about the future of the co-op itself.  At least one statement here is incorrect.  The agreement of all districts in the co-op is not required in order to dissolve the cooperative.  

For your information, the board has scheduled two special meetings this Wednesday evening, one at 6 p.m. and one at 8 p.m. The agenda for the first meeting is at http://www.boarddocs.com/ks/usd453/Board.nsf/Public. The agenda for the second should appear there soon. It lists only two executive sessions, one for consultation with their attorney and one for discussing negotiations.  They have also scheduled a meeting of a board finance committee and invited three teachers to participate. That meeting is on Thursday afternoon. Its primary goal is to identify ways the district can trim its budget to meet the demands of the Affordable Care Act in 2014-15, and therefore will affect future negotiations.  If you have questions you think our representatives on that committee should ask, or if you have suggestions about where the district and/or the co-op could save money while maintaining quality education for its students, please send them to lneanews@gmail.com.

Your negotiations team,

Ginger Riddle, Dennis Dickson, Michelle Smalls, Kay Smith, Bryan Walker, Robin Crim and Ruth Striggow

Negotiations update

To say we were disappointed with the district's offer at the meeting would be an understatement.  It rewarded teachers neither for continued education nor for experience.  We believe it is very important that the district offer salaries that encourage great teachers to remain in USD453 and the LCSEC.  We will keep working to get an agreement that meets your interests!

To that end, we would love to hear from you, either by email or by your support at the next meeting, Tuesday, November 19, from 4 to 6 p.m. at the district office, 200 North 4th Street.  The meeting is open to the public.  

Negotiations Status

The LNEA bargaining team wants to update you on the situation with negotiations. You have probably noticed (unless you’re brand new to the district) that you have not been asked to ratify a new agreement or sign a new contract, nor did you receive a raise in your September 20 paycheck. That is because we have yet to settle with the district for this year’s negotiated agreement. 

Why is that? Well, any raise, even movement down and/or over on the salary schedule has to be agreed upon through the bargaining process.  LNEA feels strongly that teachers should be paid for their years of service to this district as indicated in the salary schedule.  So far the district claims it does not have the funds to pay for movement down on the salary schedule (i.e. step movement, or pay for your years of service) for all teachers.  If you read our August 12 blog post (lneanews.blogspot.com) then you know that their special education cooperative budget is the reason they cite for their reluctance. 

They asked us to wait until after the enrollment numbers were in for all the co-op districts. Now we’ve been asked to wait until after they ask the co-op superintendents for the additional money needed to pay for step movement. They will meet with the administrators of the other districts in the co-op on October 21. We should have more information then.

In the meantime, LNEA will be meeting with budget experts from KNEA to discuss the situation. 

We feel it’s important to remind you that you will pay an extra 1% into KPERS beginning in January. 

As part of the settlement, we will advocate for back pay for any increases, but that is another negotiable item; it is not automatic.

The negotiations team,

Dennis Dickson, Bryan Walker, Ginger Riddle, Michelle Smalls, Kay Smith, Ruth Striggow, Robin Crim

This was originally sent by email to the members of the bargaining unit on October 8, 2013. If you are a teacher (not previously retired) in USD 453 or Leavenworth County Special Ed Cooperative and did not receive this message, please email lneanews@gmail.com.  We highly recommend that Co-op teachers working in districts outside USD 453 set up their district email to forward automatically to an email address they use regularly.

Tree Planting Ceremony in Honor of KNEA's 150th Anniversary. You are invited!

Education has always been the pillar of our community and state.  In 1863 there were 564 teachers in the state of Kansas, and 34 of them gathered in Leavenworth in the fall to establish the Kansas State Teachers Association.  On October 1, 2013, the Kansas National Education Association will celebrate its 150^th anniversary by planting a Legacy Tree in Tenth Avenue Park  (located at the Leavenworth Tree Legacy which is in the city area by Warren Middle School).   An invitational flyer is attached.  The tree planting ceremony will be led by KNEA President Karen Godfrey, Vice President Mark Farr and Secretary Sherri Schwanz.

KNEA will also appear on the City Commission agenda for a proclamation on September 24th at 7 pm. 

More History

KNEA’s rich history began in Leavenworth with the organization of its first local teachers association.  The leaders of the Leavenworth organization put out the call to all teachers in the state to join together in one organized group.  A series of resolutions explained that the purpose of the new organization included  “securing in Kansas the best system of public schools;” and recommending appropriate “provision for the school buildings, personal attention of parents to the progress of their children at school, the employment of teachers of good mental and moral qualification and daily reading of the Bible…” (100 Years in Kansas Education by C.O. Wright).  The minutes from the first meeting celebrated the new organization by reporting, “Teachers and friends of education return to their respective fields of labor with the consciousness of having discharged their full duty in a noble cause.”   

Today, the Kansas National Education continues its mission to advocate for education professionals and to unite KNEA members, Kansans, and the nation to fulfill the promise of public education to prepare every student to succeed in a diverse and interdependent world.  KNEA members have adopted a set of core values that guide their work as an organization and define their mission.  These core values are: Equal Opportunity for All, a Just Society, Democracy, Professionalism, Partnership and Collective Action.  

Superintendent Isaac Goodnow served as the first president of KSTA.  Superintendent Goodnow earlier established Bluemont Central College which later became Kansas State University. 

Congratulations to Member Jeff Baxter!

Our LNEA colleague Jeff Baxter  was chosen as the Northeast Kansas Teacher of the Year this week in Topeka.   Mr. Baxter was awarded a financial prize and qualifies as a finalist for Kansas Teacher of the Year. LNEA would like to add its congratulations to those of LHS principal Dr. Tom Barry, who says "We wish Mr. Baxter the best of luck as he competes with other State Finalists for that honor.  Go Pioneers and please know how proud we are of Jeff as he represents himself and our school.   Hurrah!"

Certain members eligible for Extended Educator Employment Liability

Any members who are occupational therapists, physical therapists, or athletic trainers are eligible for Extended Educator Employment Liability (EEL) Coverage at no extra cost through KNEA.  Email lneanews@gmail.com for an application form to take advantage of that coverage.

This policy is intended for professionals whose activities as an OT/PT involve teaching and supervising those activities; professionals who are rendering physical therapy or occupational therapy are covered by the Basic EEL policy. Also covered by the Basic EEL policy are all members administering medication when advance written authorization from guardian is provided, all members administering emergency first aid when a nurse is unavailable, nurses rendering first aid, psychologists rendering psychological therapy, etc. Most of us have no need of this extended coverage, but if you do teach or supervise PT or OT activities, please let us know.

Teachers will start the year at last year's salary level

It's hard to believe it's time to start a new year again already! Like most of you, I spent a big chunk of the summer learning new things. Unfortunately, not even six days of KNEA Negotiations Academy can prepare you for the moment when your hopes of an easy, straightforward bargaining season are dashed.

You may recall that last year we established a two-year agreement with the district, with only a few articles to be revisited this summer. Those involve teacher compensation and the holidays for 2014-15.  The agreement called for us to begin deliberations in July.

The district's business manager asked us to wait until after the new board had been seated and given some direction, which seemed reasonable. In the meantime, the district republished its budget because enrollment had been higher than expected, and we  believed teachers would share in that largesse.

However, it is not so simple.  As you know, our bargaining unit includes all teachers of USD 453 and the Leavenworth County Special Education Cooperative.  Our organization bargains for all teachers together, but the budgets for the two entities are separate.  They are intertwined in many ways, but separate.  The costs of educating our special needs students have risen, the state's funding has decreased, and the business manager naturally feels the need to be conservative in planning for the next year. The state's contributions toward special ed were decreased this year and he has to assume they could be decreased again (while costs continue to increase).  Making that assumption, there doesn't appear to be money in the budget to raise salaries.  The co-op cannot ask the other participating districts for additional funding until after enrollment counts. So we will wait a little longer to begin bargaining.

If you watch the Board of Education's budget meeting on television, you will hear the business manager say that they have talked with the teachers about the fact that the budget he presented does not include raises.  We need to make it clear that the fact that we have discussed this and understand the position he is in does not mean we agree! We feel strongly that if the districts in the special education cooperative like the additional responsiveness of their new structure, then they will have to shoulder the additional cost of tripling their special education administrative staff. That increase in supervisory staff should not happen at the expense of teachers who accept employment assuming that they will receive a step raise for each year of experience, according to the salary schedule.

Election time

It's that time again. Members should have received a ballot for electronic voting by email. This was sent to the home email we have on file for you (or school email if we have no home email address). If you did not receive a ballot, please email us right away at lneanews@gmail.com.  Give us your full name in your email, please.  Candidate position statements are available here:  Position Statements
We are entitled to have two delegates attend the NEA Representative Assembly in Atlanta, Georgia, this summer, and we have two candidates: Robin Crim and Michelle Smalls.  We encourage other members who are interested in representing us in the future to let us know.  Email us at lneanews@gmail.com.

http://www.kansascity.com/2013/01/11/4006491/court-orders-kansas-to-increase.html
The district court finally rendered a verdict in the school finance case that was argued last summer.  Of course, it is not over yet, as the state will appeal...