KNEA PAC recommended candidates in your Issues magazine

KNEA members should have received the last Issues magazine by email from KNEA on July 11. On page 6 is the list of candidates recommended by KNEA PAC after members like you interviewed them and reviewed their votes and public statements. Please email us at lneanews@gmail.com if you need to have that resent! If you live in Leavenworth County, you can view a sample ballot from the Leavenworth County website.

Settlement Reached

The LNEA bargaining team is very pleased to report that we reached agreement with the BOE for the 2014-15 school year at our meeting Friday, July 18.

Summary of Agreement

• Teachers who lost out on movement last year will move two steps down on the salary schedule.
• Teachers who were new last year will move down one step on the salary schedule.
• Teachers who have earned lateral movement and filed the appropriate paperwork will move over on the salary scheduled.
• Teachers who take the district health insurance will have $400 per month paid in 2014-15 and $450 in 2015-16. (This amount was $305 for a single plan in 2013-14, so this amounts to an increase of $1140 for the year for those taking the single plan.) The premiums for all our insurance plans are going down this year. For example, with this increased contribution by the district, the cost of the Blue Choice 1 plan for an employee with no dependents will be only $26.53 per month in 2014-15. The district contribution will be $400 this year regardless of the plan the teacher selects.
• The salary schedule is posted here. Note: Two years ago we agreed to renumber the steps at the left, 1 through 22. If you are not sure what your current step number is on this schedule, log into Alio and view a recent pay stub. The district has been using the new numbering system for almost a year. The changes to the schedule itself are minimal this year.
• District committee work meeting outside the teacher duty day will be paid at $18 per hour. A stipend will be paid to the sponsor of FCCLA since competition is required to collect State CTE payments, and to the POC Step Team sponsor. The Color Guard stipend was raised to compensate for its increased numbers of cadets and appearances.
• Provisions that could have shortened lunch periods for teachers (but were not being used) were eliminated.
• The grievance procedure is unchanged.
• A teacher's class can be covered by another teacher (with principal approval and with no dock in leave time or pay) no more than 8 times in a school year.
• A written response to a document placed in a teacher's personnel file must be submitted within 30 calendar days of the time the document is presented to the teacher.
• A teacher who does not maintain licensure may be suspended for more than 10 days and can be transferred to another position if not dismissed.
• When a teacher resigns after May 31, a fee(which has not changed) must be paid to the district before the teacher will be released from the contract, unless the teacher remains in the position until a suitable replacement takes his/her place.
• The high school can offer "zero hour" courses which are held before the regular school day begins, under certain circumstances. In this situation the teacher day will begin and end earlier than other teachers but will not be longer than the usual teacher work day.
• Negotiated minimum days off for 2015-16: September 7 (Labor Day), November 11 (Veterans' Day), November 25-27(Thanksgiving), December 23-January 1 (Winter Break), January 18 (MLK Day), February 15 (Presidents' Day), March 14-18 (Spring Break), March 25, May 2 (unless needed as a snow makeup day), May 30 (Memorial Day)

Exact language for the changes will be posted soon. We will send an email with a SurveyMonkey link to vote for or against ratification. Teachers who are part of the bargaining unit (i.e., who are not retired and rehired) can expect to receive that email soon, using the district email system. Questions or remarks can be left within the Comments here or emailed to lneanews@gmail.com.