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Hello colleagues,
Your CUTA bargaining team and the District met for negotiations on Thursday, April 8. We discussed a wide range of issues, and we reached agreement on one-time compensation for this year. That is the final piece of a tentative agreement (TA) for 2021-22 that has been shared with E-Board for preliminary approval. Pending approval by E-Board of the final TA, membership will have the opportunity to vote on this TA later this month. Additionally, I have information to share about the reimbursement of sick days used by members for vaccine reactions. We also made progress updating and clarifying the three MOUs we have in place that govern our three potential instructional models: online-only, AM/PM, and traditional learning with safety protocols. Once these MOUs have been fully updated, we will have a separate membership vote on them so that we will be ready for any eventuality in the fall. Compensation CUTA and the District have come to an agreement on one-time compensation this year equivalent to the cost of 2% on the salary schedule. E-Board has directed that this money be divided evenly among all unit members regardless of placement on the salary schedule or FTE. This comes out to roughly $1,750 per unit member before taxes. This is one-time money, not an ongoing raise, in recognition of the fact that the District received no new ongoing dollars this year. When this proposal was brought to the School Board for approval, the sentiment from the Board was that the employees of Chico Unified deserved recognition and reward for the extremely challenging working conditions over the past year. Although the District has received large amounts of one-time money, almost all of it couldn't be used for compensation, so they will be reaching into their pre-Covid reserves for this one-time payment. CUTA thanks the District for negotiating, and the School Board for approving, a bonus during such complicated times. This will allow us to wrap up a TA for this year while we continue to work towards a multi-year wage agreement based on a formula acceptable to CUTA and the District. These negotiations will likely take us into the fall. Tentative Agreement In addition to the one-time bonus described above, there are several additional items in this TA which I will summarize here. You will receive them in much greater detail in advance of a virtual Q&A session still to be scheduled which will take place before the virtual vote later this month.
Our goal is to have a final draft of the TA for E-Board to approve in the next week to 10 days, which would be followed by a membership Q&A and a vote in late April. This would allow members to receive the one-time payment before the end of the school year. We will keep you updated. Sick Leave for Vaccine Reactions California retroactively modified SB95, which now states that employees don’t have to use their own sick leave if they are absent due to a reaction to the vaccine. If you used a sick day or days due to a vaccine reaction, please email a scanned copy of your vaccination card (to confirm the dates) to Jim Hanlon along with the day(s) you were absent due to a vaccine reaction. The District will reimburse your sick leave. Fall MOUs for All Potential Instructional Models To be prepared for anything this fall, we are spending time updating and clarifying the three MOUs we passed this year governing online-only instruction, the AM/PM model, and traditional learning with safety protocols. We will hold a separate membership Q&A and vote to get these MOUs approved before we go on summer vacation. School Board Decision As I’m sure you are all aware, the School Board chose not to revisit whether to reopen with all students this year, which means we will stay in the AM/PM model for the remainder of the school year. I know many of you are feeling frustrated, angry, and sad about the negative perception of teachers being driven by some members of our community. Although I also find that rhetoric hurtful, I believe that most of our students and parents support us and know that we have worked tirelessly and at personal risk to continue educating and caring for the children of Chico Unified. The School Board as a whole and our District partners certainly believe in us and the hard work we do. Most importantly, perhaps, we believe in each other and know that angry words on social media don’t accurately represent our sacrifice this year. Thank you for everything you do for your students every single day. Thank you also for taking the time to stay informed. Here is a link to our contract. Thanks, Charlie Snyder Bargaining Chair Chico Unified Teachers Association
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Hello colleagues,
Your CUTA bargaining team and the District met for negotiations on Wednesday, March 24. We continued to discuss possible models for compensation, we reviewed the MOU governing a full reopening of schools in order to be prepared for any future School Board decisions, and we started to evaluate how our existing MOUs for our Covid-impacted instructional models will have to be modified for the academic year beginning in fall 2021. Compensation We spent the morning clarifying and narrowing our list of possible compensation options. CUTA has an interest in looking at one-time money for compensation for the current school year, since we recognize that the District received no new ongoing dollars. Additionally, we believe a multi-year wage agreement for next year and beyond is the best approach. The projected increases in ongoing dollars to the District budget over the next several years are small, so CUTA also has an interest in several low-cost items related to compensation. Additionally, E-Board has directed the bargaining team to make a final collapse of the salary schedule a compensation priority. This final proposed collapse would make the salary schedule steps between years 20 and 29 uniform two-year steps so there would be no more three-year freezes. The salary schedule would still end at Year 31. The cost to achieve this is equivalent to roughly 0.6% on the salary schedule. The District will begin discussing compensation with the School Board at the meeting scheduled for April 7. In a normal year, these discussions would have started much sooner, but this has been anything but a normal year. CUTA appreciates that the District is making this a priority with the Board. Potential Full Reopening This Year Changes to the California mandated social distancing of four feet in schools were made suddenly towards the end of spring break. After the CDC reduced their guidelines from six feet to three feet, California reduced its mandate of four feet to a simple recommendation of three feet. In other words, schools could legally open even if they couldn’t meet the three feet recommendation for social distancing. The School Board will meet on April 7 to decide whether to reopen schools for all students, all day, for the remainder of this school year. They have asked the District to prepare a list of pros and cons. CUTA will be surveying its members once again. Sharing your detailed thoughts in the comments section is the most useful way to get your opinion to the School Board members. Kevin Moretti, our president, will give them a printout of all the comments, although your name won’t be attached. If the School Board decides to send all students back to school, we have an MOU in place that would govern scheduling, cleaning, and safety protocols. Enhanced cleaning will still be in place. Facial coverings will still be required. Your school will return to its pre-Covid bell schedule with all waivers intact. In elementary school, the students will leave 30 minutes before the pre-Covid end of the student day to provide 30 minutes of prep each day. Prep time providers will continue to provide virtual lessons supervised by the classroom teacher. If an elementary teacher is assigned to an online-only class, they would follow the schedule from our first online-only MOU, which includes 180 contiguous minutes of synchronous instruction and 60 minutes of asynchronous instruction. The District can direct the teacher when to complete the 180 minutes within the bell schedule. In secondary, teachers with online sections would continue to teach them. Schedule changes are not anticipated at secondary. CUTA is aware that this potential full reopening would lead to some teacher changes for students in elementary school. Until the District finds out how many students will return from site-based online instruction, it is unknown how many students will end up with a different teacher. CUTA sees this as a major con for full reopening in April. Please share the pros and cons, as you see them, in the comments section of the survey Kevin sends out. He is sending out separate surveys to elementary and secondary members. State Testing Waiver California has applied to the federal government for a state testing waiver. If that waiver is approved, K-8 students will not be taking the SBAC test this year in Chico Unified. Instead, students would take an approved replacement test such as the I-Ready diagnostic or the STAR reading test. CUTA is unclear about how this would impact the status of the state science tests. Additionally, the District does not have access to an approved replacement for 11th graders, so even if the waiver is approved, 11th graders will still be taking the SBAC. Until the waiver is approved, school sites need to prepare as if they are going to administer the state tests. Reopening in August Although it is impossible to predict for sure, the current trajectory suggests that we will return to school in August with all of our students on campus with a regular schedule. We are spending time updating, refining, and clarifying our three MOUs so that we can be ready for any situation that arises in the fall. We are focusing primarily on the “Traditional Model with Safety Protocols” MOU. If all students returned to school in April, this MOU would be in use. There are areas that need addressing before a return in August. For example, in August, it is most likely that elementary teachers would return to a regular bell schedule with prep being delivered as it has in the past. We’ll update that in the MOU. We will also have to update some of the cleaning and air filtration protocols to reflect best practices and the changing situation. The current MOU calls for MERV-13 filters in all classroom and work spaces. That is problematic in school-based HVAC systems. Although MERV-13s have greater filtration capacity, they significantly decrease the air flow in classrooms because the HVAC systems were not designed for them. Additionally, they have to be custom ordered and are very prone to supply chain failure. MERV-11 filters also have good filtration capabilities and allow for improved air flow in older HVAC systems. We will be updating the MOU to reflect this change. The District will continue to clean and disinfect classrooms, and they will continue to provide hand sanitizer in all classrooms and other current locations. Although I really hope we don’t have to go back to an AM/PM model or to online-only instruction, we are refining and updating those MOUs as well so that we are ready for any situation during the 2021-22 school year. Thank you for taking the time to stay informed. If you’d like to look at our contract, here is the link. Charlie Snyder Bargaining Chair Chico Unified Teachers Association Hello colleagues,
Your CUTA bargaining team and the District met for negotiations on Thursday, March 11. We spent the morning discussing and clarifying possible options for a compensation agreement. In the afternoon, we covered a range of issues, including a visit from our non-Covid, regular online independent study teachers, who had questions about the MOU governing their caseload. Compensation As we began the interest-based bargaining (IBB) process two weeks ago to negotiate compensation, we brainstormed sixty potential ideas. We added a few more ideas on Thursday, before spending time asking clarifying questions about the options. We then started to narrow the list down by removing ideas that were repetitive, impossible for legal reasons, or simply not great ideas. In this process of winnowing in IBB, only the person who suggested the original option can ask to have it struck from the list. As we worked through the list, CUTA expressed an interest in a multi-year wage agreement. Establishing an expected schedule for wage increases means the energy and focus of the negotiating teams can be on all the other contractual items that help keep the District running smoothly. Additionally, with a known schedule of wage increases, members can focus on their jobs without wondering what may be coming. Realistically, we have to be aware that if we are able to come to a multi-year agreement, it will not be nearly as substantial as the three-year wage agreement we just finished. There simply is much less ongoing money coming into the District. Additionally, the District has a very real and reasonable concern about declining enrollment. Recognizing that a multi-year agreement would likely have much smaller ongoing raises, CUTA has also shared an interest in addressing small areas of compensation, like paying for BTSA in full for new teachers. These smaller, targeted items are issues that have been brought to us by members over the past several years that we would like to address. Our discussions will continue. Since we are limited to agreements with a maximum length of three years, it’s possible that we will settle on a one-year tentative agreement (TA) for this year, 2020-21, since our attempts to negotiate a TA in 2020 were derailed by the pandemic and the need to work extensively on MOUs to govern our working conditions. We would then be free to complete a three-year deal for the academic years 2021-22 through 2023-24. Other Issues Discussed The District is using one-time dollars to staff next year at smaller class sizes as part of the plan to address learning loss, to avoid layoffs, and to meet the requirements for four feet of social distancing, which may or may not still be in place this fall. These smaller class sizes will not be contractual, and there will be variability across sites depending on many factors including the physical size of classrooms and specific student needs for certain classes. CUTA appreciates the District’s use of these one-time dollars in this way. The District is hopeful that there will not be a need for significant numbers of involuntary transfers to staff appropriately, but there will almost certainly have to be some shifting. Until the District has a firmer sense of enrollment numbers for the fall, they can’t be sure. Between vaccinations and dropping case counts, the pandemic seems to be heading in the right direction. Ultimately, it’s impossible to be sure what safety mandates will be in place this fall. CUTA and the District share an interest in updating the three MOUs we currently have in place for online-only learning, the AM/PM schedule, and full in-person instruction with safety protocols so that we are ready for anything. All indications suggest that we will have all of our students back on campus this fall, but we need to be ready if something changes suddenly. We will work on updating those MOUs, and members will vote on them again. Items for the Next TA There are two specific items currently governed by MOUs that we have agreed to put in the next TA to be added to the contract. The first has to do with member rights for voluntary transfer. As in the existing contract language, members have a right to be considered for internal openings in the District before external candidates are considered. This new language describes the required process. Members interested in an internal opening must respond by email to the District email announcing the opening. The applicable administrator must respond in writing to interested members. Concurrently, the District may list the opening on EdJoin, but administrators do not have access to the list of external candidates until all internal candidates have been considered. If the administrator does not contact the interested member on the appropriate timeline, the member is entitled to $250. When there is an internal opening, the District will have to hire an external candidate eventually, though it may be for a different position if there is internal movement first. By allowing the District to begin to gather a private list of external candidates immediately, there is a better chance that they will get a good candidate to join the District. This language would go in Article 11. Our previous contract language governing this process was much weaker. Both sides are getting something they need with this new language. We also cleared up contract language referring to position and assignment in Article 11. For purposes of reassignment and transfer we have agreed in principle that position is the more general description of your current job and assignment is more specific. For example, your position may be a math teacher at PV or an elementary school teacher at Marigold. On the other hand, your assignment would be the actual sections you are assigned to teach at PV or your actual grade level at Marigold. This is important because it clarifies how your job could change during the school year. You can only be involuntarily reassigned within the school year because of declining enrollment that necessitates the collapsing of classes. Changing grade levels or teaching an entirely different prep at the secondary level would constitute a reassignment. Additionally, we added language that a member reassigned within two weeks prior to the start of the school year, resulting in a different grade level assignment (elementary) or a new prep (secondary), shall receive two days’ pay for the added work. We also defined return rights for members in Chico Unified School District grant funded positions. Return rights last for 12 months for members in these positions. Previously, members had unlimited return rights. The unlimited return rights are grandfathered in for members currently in Chico Unified School District grant funded positions. Others We have an agreement in place for an MOU to pay junior high cross-country coaches a stipend of $1,000. The District would like to experiment with adding low-cost sports at the junior high schools, and they are starting with cross country. Only one of the cross-country teams at our junior high schools is coached by a member. The others have walk-on coaches currently. Lastly, our regular, non-Covid online independent study teachers joined us because they had questions about the MOU governing their caseload. It’s a good thing they were paying attention, because we are 90% sure that we made a mistake when we signed updated MOUs for this school year and accidentally signed a previous version of their MOU. Using MOUs to try out new ideas has been a terrific part of the IBB process. Both sides can see if they are comfortable with contract language before officially enshrining it in the contract. However, in this case, the large numbers of MOUs may have led to confusion. We are working to rectify the situation and will also be looking at ways to further ensure that we keep all of our MOUs up to date and accurate. The online teachers also shared why they feel that their caseload is too high. Under the correct MOU, they have a caseload of 50. They made the argument that they are doing the same job as Oak Bridge teachers and using the same curriculum, yet Oak Bridge teachers have a caseload of 40. It was a good argument, and we will continue to discuss it with the District. In a spectacularly trying year, I hope you all get a chance to relax and decompress over spring break. Thank you for taking the time to stay informed. If you’d like to look at our contract, you can find it here. The link also has most of our existing MOUs and waivers if you are interested. Thanks, Charlie Snyder Bargaining Chair Chico Unified Teachers Association Hello colleagues,
Your CUTA bargaining team and the District met for negotiations on Wednesday, February 24. We spent the morning beginning the discussion on compensation. We used the formal interest-based bargaining (IBB) process. In the afternoon, we worked on topics including all-day K, stipends for junior high coaches, and the potential for teachers volunteering to have all students return to their classrooms. Compensation We chose to use the formal IBB process to begin our compensation discussion, and it was very productive. In IBB, you begin by identifying the issue--compensation, in this case--and then you list interests related to the issue held by each negotiating party. The goal is to identify interests shared by both parties. I think it is illustrative of our collaborative relationship that all interests were shared this year. In addition, I think it interesting to see which party suggested each interest. In the list that follows, the suggesting party follows the item in parentheses. For instance, the District identified the first item--financial solvency--and CUTA shared that interest. The shared interests related to compensation were as follows:
We then began to brainstorm options for compensation. In IBB, the brainstorming process is critical, and the goal is to generate as many options as possible to spur further options. We brainstormed 60 options in this session. They range from traditional compensation to smaller more targeted items. Over time and with further discussion, this exhaustive list is refined and clarified. The eventual goal is to develop a compensation package that meets the interests of both parties and would likely be a combination of multiple options from the brainstorming session. In addition to traditional suggestions like increasing the salary schedule or using one-time money as compensations, options included items like completing a collapse of the salary schedule so that it has uniform two-year steps from years 20-29 and tops at year 30, paying for BTSA fully, reducing the FTE required for part-timer movement up the salary schedule, performing arts stipends for hiring support staff, longevity stipends for those already at the top of the salary schedule, targeted stipends for certain oversight duties in special education programs, and many, many more. This is the beginning of a discussion which will continue for the rest of the year. All-day Kindergarten In my last update, I made an error. I believed that we had come to an agreement on the delayed start language in the all-day K MOU to be placed in contract. Actually, the District wanted to take the issue back to their principals for further input. Our kindergarten teachers were essentially unanimous in wanting to keep delayed start as the default start to the kindergarten schedule; the principals were unanimous in wanting to eliminate it. Instead of allowing this one issue to bring us to a standstill, we agreed to place the delayed start language in the MOU that will govern the remaining temporary all-day K items and return to the discussion next year for a final decision. From CUTA’s perspective, it is critical that schools intending to utilize the delayed start next year communicate this to incoming families now. This communication should include a clear rationale for a delayed start. The District will continue to offer childcare for incoming families that want it. For delayed start to have the effect desired by kindergarten teachers, it will require establishing a culture of understanding its importance at each site. Stipends for Junior High Coaches There is a countywide movement to add more sports at the junior high level, and the District has an interest in being able to pay members for working as coaches. The goal is to start with cross-country running, which is an inexpensive sport that many students can participate in. The stipends for high school coaches are not a perfect fit, because a high school coach has many more responsibilities and many more meets, matches or games. We are working to develop a list of expectations for a junior high coach, and then we will create an MOU describing the position with an associated stipend. If successful, the District will look to expand the sports offerings in upcoming years. Teachers Volunteering to Bring All Their Students Back at Once After deciding to remain in AM/PM for the remainder of the school year, the School Board directed the District to examine the possibility of allowing teachers to voluntarily bring back all of their students in person. The District is mindful that this sounds a lot like the “voluntary third option” which caused significant issues last semester. CUTA’s shared with the District that we can’t bargain or negotiate what teachers do voluntarily. The District understood and agreed. For instance, we can’t bargain that a teacher can’t help kids at lunch if they so choose. CUTA protects teachers’ contractual rights, but we can’t prevent a member from giving up those rights. Still, CUTA feels that having teachers voluntarily bring back all of their students creates a host of major problems. In our session, we generated a list of concerns with the idea of allowing teachers to voluntarily bring back all students. The District shared many of these concerns. The list below contains the concerns raised.
There are almost certainly other problems we have not anticipated. The District will return to the Board with these, largely shared, concerns. If the Board chooses to move forward with the plan, then the District will write up what is expected of volunteering teachers. It’s possible that some teachers are already doing this in some form. If so, these volunteering teachers would have to follow whatever the District designs. CUTA is unable to negotiate in this situation. More information will be shared as it becomes available. As always, thank you for taking the time to stay informed. If you want to look at our contract, the link is here. Charlie Snyder Bargaining Chair Chico Unified Teachers Association Hello colleagues,
Your CUTA bargaining team and the District met for negotiations on Thursday, February 11. We focused on writing contract language for all-day kindergarten, and we reviewed the basic principles of interest based bargaining in preparation for discussing compensation over the next several bargaining sessions. In addition, the District was able to share good news in regards to potential layoffs for next year. Potential Layoffs Even before all of the disruption associated with the pandemic, there was a very real possibility that Chico Unified would be facing declining student enrollment. Since the Camp Fire, long-term enrollment numbers have been very hard to predict. The formula the District previously used to anticipate future changes in enrollment (3-year rolling averages) does not work currently because of the large swings in enrollment we have faced. Overall, California is seeing a measurable decrease in population. Although it’s hard to predict what Chico Unified enrollment will be in the fall, we have lost a substantial number of students this year. Whether or not they will return when things “go back to normal” is not a question we can answer. Because of this, the District is being necessarily cautious with its predicted enrollment for the fall. Since state funding is tied so closely to enrollment and attendance, it is possible that we will be significantly overstaffed this fall. Additionally, despite the declining enrollment this year, the District had to hire more teachers to staff newly needed positions at Oak Bridge and in online site-based classes. Normally, this would require layoffs of permanent teachers, in addition to laying off temporary teachers. The District recognizes the devastating impact layoffs have on employees and their families. To protect its employees, the District crafted a plan to use some of the one-time revenue flowing into Chico Unified to maintain its current permanent staff with the lower class sizes many of us are experiencing. By utilizing these one-time dollars and allowing for natural attrition through retirement this year and next, the District believes they can avoid layoffs of permanent teachers. They presented this plan to the School Board, who voted unanimously to follow this approach. CUTA thanks the District for this employee-focused approach. Unfortunately, temporary teachers will face layoffs, but the District may still reach out to rehire temporary teachers who are laid off. The enrollment figures for fall are such a mystery that it is hard to predict how many teachers will be needed to staff appropriately. Article 11: Assignment, Reassignment & Transfer We spent some time working on clearing up the language in Article 11, which governs the circumstances for when and how teachers can be reassigned or transferred. There was confusion in interpreting some of the contract language because the words position and assignment were not clearly defined. For purposes of reassignment and transfer we have agreed in principle that position is the more general description of your current job and assignment is more specific. For example, your position may be a math teacher at PV or an elementary school teacher at Marigold. On the other hand, your assignment would be the actual sections you are assigned to teach at PV or your actual grade level at Marigold. This is important, because it clarifies how your job could change during the school year. You can only be involuntarily reassigned within the school year because of declining enrollment that necessitates the collapsing of classes. Changing grade levels or teaching an entirely different prep at the secondary level would constitute a reassignment. All-day Kindergarten As we reach the final year for the implementation of all-day kindergarten, we met with a large group of kindergarten teachers during last week’s district wide staff development day to get input on the current all-day K practices based on our existing MOU. Prior to this meeting, our discussions in bargaining indicated that the District was fine with much of the existing MOU language. One issue for the District was the delayed start language, which states, in essence, that the default all-day K schedule will be two weeks of student half-days to start the school year unless a site administrator and site K teachers mutually agree to something different. The District has fielded many parent complaints about delayed start because it can put families in a difficult childcare position. In response to parent complaints, the District offered child care in the afternoons at sites with a delayed start last year. At times, this childcare was provided in the K teachers’ rooms. Some K teachers felt this did not honor the spirit of the MOU, because they felt the delayed start was developmentally appropriate. Members from other sites where delayed start has been a long time practice said that parents simply know to expect that schedule since it is part of the “culture” of the school. In any event, the District agreed to include the delayed start language in our proposed contract language. This is an example of the District listening to its teachers. No matter the good intent behind delayed start, it generates parent complaints. The District is hyper aware that parents have choices these days and to retain students we need to treat our parents like consumers to some degree. They are uncomfortable with delayed start, but they agreed to honor the kindergarten teachers’ wishes. They will also continue to offer childcare to parents who need or request it during delayed start, The proposed contract language for all-day K will go in two places in the contract: there will be some language in Article 6: Hours, and there will be some language in a brief, new article for kindergarten. Remote SBAC Testing We have received questions from several members teaching online sections about the SBAC testing document we have to sign annually that states, in effect, that we will maintain a secure testing environment. Online teachers rightfully pointed out that there is no way to guarantee a secure environment if the child is taking the test at home. The District agrees that the situation is far from ideal, and CUTA will be generating a list of frequently asked questions for the District to respond to in order to alleviate teacher concerns about liability in the unique testing circumstances this year. Conducting state testing this year is a decision made by the state, not the District. Compensation We have agreed to spend half of our upcoming February 24 bargaining session to begin a longer compensation discussion. We are in a peculiar spot. The District has experienced serious declining enrollment this year, and they have conservatively projected more lost students for next year. Nobody really knows what enrollment will look like in the fall. Will missing students return? The District has tracked a number of students who have left, and many have left the area or even state. On the other hand, the governor’s proposed budget has an increase of 3.84% for districts, and there is a lot of one-time money flowing into the District. We’ll spend time on February 24 using interest based bargaining to develop compensation ideas. Interest Based Bargaining If you’ll permit me a short history lesson on the relationship between CUTA and the District, I want to recall why we began to use interest based bargaining in Chico Unified. Six or seven years ago, the relationship between CUTA and the District was at a low point. We had engaged in traditional bargaining for many years, and the results were often unproductive. The relationship was combative and not transparent. In a bruising bargaining year, we came very close to going on strike before settling on a deal in the eleventh hour that left neither side particularly happy. The School Board at the time suggested that we try interest based bargaining (IBB) as a way to improve our working relationship, and although both sides were dubious, we agreed to try it out. We were trained by experienced negotiators who taught us the principles of IBB. It made an immediate difference. IBB emphasizes several key concepts: finding shared interests on negotiable topics, developing trust between the teams, being able to discuss any negotiable topics instead of being limited only to articles officially “opened” for negotiations each year, and being able to freely offer options and possibilities without the fear of being accused of regressive bargaining. Although we have fairly stable negotiating teams, there has been some turnover. We had one refresher training course two years ago, and we reviewed the basic principles again during this most recent session. We have made the process our own in many ways, but we want to use the more formal process for beginning the compensation discussion. In short, the process involves identifying an issue--compensation, in this case--establishing shared interests--for example, attracting and retaining high quality teachers, maintaining a fiscally sound school district, etc.--brainstorming as many options as possible, and then engaging in an open, honest, and frank discussion towards an option or combination of options that works for both parties. CUTA and the District have been willing and collaborative partners over the last six or seven years. Despite the fact that the last eleven months have been grueling in many ways, we look forward to continuing our work together to keep Chico Unified a great place for educators, students, and families. Thank you for taking the time to stay informed. If you’d like to look at the contract, the link is here. Charlie Snyder Bargaining Chair Chico Unified Teachers Association Hello colleagues,
Your CUTA bargaining team and the District met for negotiations on Thursday, January 14. We continued discussing issues related to Covid-19 and the schools, and we also managed to discuss other upcoming issues for Chico Unified. State Budget Governor Newsom released his proposed budget for 2021-2022, and it reflects a state in a much more comfortable than expected financial situation. Despite the toll Covid-19 has taken on the state economy and on everyday workers, the stock market soared during 2020. California’s tax revenue is highly dependent on wealthy Californians, many of whom did extremely well despite the pandemic. The proposed budget appears to fully fund schools, while also adding in the lost COLA from this year onto next year’s budget. There are also pots of money for dealing with the learning loss aftermath from school closures. Details will continue to come out, and the California Legislature now takes its turn to make changes to the proposed budget, but the financial news is far better for schools than many of us may have expected. School Board Decisions and Vaccinations The School Board is scheduled to meet on January 20. They will continue to gather community input as they discuss how Chico Unified will move forward during this school year. They have also scheduled a special meeting on February 3 to stay on top of what seems to be an ever-changing situation. The two new Board members have shown very different views on the best path forward, so it is hard to predict what decisions the Board may make. The availability of vaccinations for teachers and staff will certainly be considered. Since the Butte County Health Department had remaining vaccine doses from the initial tier of people to vaccinate, they opened up vaccination “by invite” to Chico Unified. They approached Chico Unified first, because our District had stayed in close contact with them and showed a preparedness to begin immediately. The response from Chico Unified teachers and staff was strong and the initial appointments filled immediately. Because of high demand, the health department was able to create more appointments, offering the opportunity for all teachers and staff to be vaccinated. Because the strongest protection from these vaccines comes 10-21 days after the second dose, we would be nearing spring break by the time all teachers and staff have had the opportunity to achieve that highest level of protection. The School Board will certainly be considering this as well. I cannot pretend to know what decisions they will make going forward. All-day Kindergarten We are currently nearing the end of a multi-year process of transitioning to all-day kindergarten across the District. Before the pandemic occurred, Shasta and Parkview had been scheduled to implement all-day K this year, and Marigold and Neal Dow would have been the final two schools to implement all-day K next year. Because the disruptions to the schedule this year would have made it difficult for Shasta and Parkview to evaluate all-day K, CUTA and the District agreed to move the Shasta and Parkview implementation date to next year. That means that in 2021-2022, the four final schools will all implement all-day K. We have been operating all-day K under an MOU, and we are currently working on developing contract language to add to our next TA. This contract language will be partly in a new kindergarten article and partly in Article 6: Hours, for items like prep time, length of day, etc. On the next district wide staff development day (February 9), one of the choices on the “menu” will be an all-day K meeting. CUTA encourages kindergarten teachers to attend this (virtual) meeting so we can get final feedback and discuss any possible changes to the MOU as it moves into the contract. Compensation With an improved outlook for the state budget, CUTA shared some ideas for future compensation. Increasing wages on the salary schedule is always a CUTA interest when it is fiscally responsible. We also discussed other possibilities as well. CUTA has a long term plan to finish a collapse of the salary schedule so that it tops out at 30 years (currently 31) and has uniform two-year steps at the top of the salary schedule (currently irregular). The current contract is linked here. On a smaller scale, CUTA has an interest in changing how part time members advance on the salary schedule. Currently, part time members who are less than .8 FTE only advance upwards every other year. CUTA would like to see that changed to part-time members at .5 FTE or higher advance every year like everyone else. The District has agreed to run numbers to see the cost of both of these possible compensation items. Faculty/Staff Meetings Some of you may recall the absence reporting sheets we were required to fill out some years ago. During that time, we were in regular conflict with the District, and we argued that the absence reporting sheets were added work so the District needed to eliminate some other required tasks. We came to an agreement, using an MOU, that the District would not call staff meetings during the weeks grades were due. The absence reporting sheet has been gone for a long time, and that MOU is no longer in effect, but the District believes that it is good policy to not call staff meetings when grades are due. They had one concern about putting this restriction in the contract, and it is a fair one: They need the ability to call staff meetings in emergency situations. Think of events like the Camp Fire or even the end of last month where the decision of how the second semester would begin was up in the air until the final week. Defining an emergency for the purpose of the contract is extremely difficult. We have agreed in principle to language that states: “The District shall encourage site administrators not to hold staff meetings during weeks when grades are due.” In secondary, this is straightforward. In elementary school, it will require a conversation between site administrators and members as to which week is best to refrain from holding a staff meeting in the fall. Some sites might prefer the week with parent teacher conferences; others might prefer the actual week report cards are due. In any event, it is recognition by the District that teachers need time to work on grades. ERMHS Clinicians The District is in the process of taking over the ERMHS (Educationally Related Mental Health Services) program from the county. The ERMHS clinicians will be CUTA members. The District presented their proposed job description and gave us an idea of how the clinicians would practice in Chico Unified. Although the same (or many of the same) clinicians who are currently providing services to Chico Unified as county employees will move over in this program takeover, the District plans to make changes to how services will be delivered. The District also proposed a maximum caseload of 25. CUTA will be talking with the clinicians that may be joining our District. As always, thank you for taking the time to stay informed. If you would like to look at our contract, the link is here. Charlie Snyder Bargaining Chair Chico Unified Teachers Association Hello colleagues,
Your CUTA bargaining team and the District met for negotiations on Thursday, December 10. We completed the refining and development process for the three MOUs that will apply for the remainder of the school year depending on which instructional model the School Board places us in: online-only learning, AM/PM, or traditional learning with safety protocols. It is possible that we will move from one model to another model during the second half of the school year. Until the Board meets with its new members tonight, Friday, December 11, we won’t know for sure which model we will start with in January, but the general prediction has been that we will remain in the AM/PM model for the foreseeable future. Our current MOUs expire on December 31. E-Board is meeting this afternoon at 3:30 p.m. to go over the three MOUs. If they approve the MOUs, we will wait to see if the School Board approves them tonight. If approved by E-Board and the School Board, CUTA will send out copies of the MOUs on Monday, December 14, for members to review. CUTA will hold a virtual Q&A session on Tuesday or Wednesday, before a general membership vote. We will use the same online voting system as we have previously used this year. Voting will open on Wednesday and close on Friday (exact times and procedures will be shared next week). Voting is restricted to union members. Much of the information in this update is repeated from my previous update, and I will indicate that repeated information. Extended Leave Protection for Covid-19 (repeated from previous update) CUTA’s top concern during the pandemic has been member safety. Since we have been required to resume our duties in various ways, we have tried to negotiate any and all safety protocols possible. We have not been helped in that by the non-prescriptive “recommendations” from the state. After direct safety, CUTA’s greatest concern has been protecting members’ sick leave in the event that they can’t work normally because they have been directed to quarantine, are experiencing symptoms and are waiting for test results, or have been diagnosed with Covid-19. Working with the District, we negotiated expanded leave protections by building off of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), which was passed by the federal government back on April 1. Unfortunately, the FFCRA is set to expire on December 31, and there is no indication that Washington is going to extend it. We have developed language designed to protect members as best we can manage without the FFCRA and the loss of funding associated with it. The District has been a willing partner in crafting this replacement language and agreed to more generous protections than they initially proposed. In short, they listened to CUTA’s concern and responded. For most situations, members may perform their duties from home, be that classroom teachers Zooming into the classroom and directing the sub during the school day or non-classroom teachers performing other associated duties virtually. If a member’s duties are impossible to perform from home, the District will assign other duties. In this way, if a member must be home for quarantine, to wait for test results, or because they are positive, they can telework and not be docked sick leave. A member may choose not to telework in these situations, but they would have to use their sick leave in that case. The bigger concern is if a member tests positive and is unable to work because they are too sick. CUTA and the District have agreed that in the event that a member has a positive diagnosis and has medical documentation from their healthcare provider that they are unable to work or telework, the District will cover 6+ weeks (30 workdays total) of leave for that member. Previously, we had negotiated unlimited leave protection for members in this situation but that was by using the FFCRA as a base. We have agreed to reopen and add back the previous protection level if the FFCRA is extended or passed again in the new year after the change in leadership at the federal level. CUTA asked the District to assume the financial risk of six weeks of leave to protect our members, and they listened and agreed. This version of leave protection will be in all three of the MOUs we are designing and revising for use starting in January if approved in a membership vote. Edgenuity Access (repeated from previous update) At the secondary level, if you plan to continue using Edgenuity during the second semester, be aware that your continued usage, no matter which instructional model we are in, is dependent on administrator approval. CUTA recommends that you contact your administrator if you plan to continue with Edgenuity. If your administrator does not give you approval, please ask what you could do differently to receive approval. The District has the right to approve or deny the use of a specific curriculum. “Third Option” (virtual student attendance in an in-person class)(repeated from previous update) The School Board reviewed the extensive feedback provided by members in the CUTA survey that asked about the “third option”. In response, the Board said that the third option will no longer be available to families starting in January, whether we are in AM/PM or when all students return to campus full time. Although some members have expressed interest in volunteering to continue to use the third option, your bargaining team will be recommending that E-Board does not approve any waivers to use the third option. There is one exception to this rule. Special education teachers may be required to continue using the third option because of the legal mandate to provide services in the IEP. In fact and unfortunately, it seems likely that this requirement may continue onwards past the pandemic. As we see how this develops, we will need input from special education teachers about how to mitigate the challenges this presents. It is another example of our special education colleagues being forced to shoulder a greater burden because of the threat of lawsuits. It was very disappointing to hear this, and we will try to negotiate appropriate support or help if we can get ideas about how to help. We have asked the District to share clear expectations for how this will work. CUTA wants special education teachers to understand what will be expected of them in the second half of the year and beyond. Once clear expectations are in place, CUTA can try to figure out ways to negotiate support. Distance Learning MOU: Online Only If we return to distance learning, we will use basically the same MOU which we started the year with. There are minor changes, but the basic concept will remain the same. We will use the same schedule that we used to start the year. Teachers will have synchronous time in the morning with online students and asynchronous/office hours in the afternoon. Leave protection will be as described above. Modified Traditional MOU: AM/PM (largely repeated from previous update) This is the model we are currently operating in under the existing MOU. In the 2021 version, there are slight changes to reflect the actual practice and intent of our previous negotiations, but it will be largely the same as the current MOU. We had to work so fast that we didn’t get all the language exactly right. For example, the current MOU says that the filter in a classroom HVAC unit will be replaced if there is a positive case in that classroom. We have been advised that there is no scientific reason to do this. Instead, we changed the language to reflect that the District will use the highest rated filters compatible with our systems (MERV 13s) and will replace the filters at the recommended end of their lifespan. MERV 13 filters are in intense demand currently, and the language reflects that this will be the practice as long as the global supply chain allows it. If MERV 13s are unavailable, the District has said they will use MERV 11s, the next best option. We also added language requiring teachers to maintain seating charts, adhere to them, and provide them to the site administrator. This is critical for contact tracing. We have also added language that states that, although all meetings may be attended virtually by member choice with the exception of IEPs (IEPs do not have to be in person, but a member can be required to go to an in-person IEP if so scheduled), members will be expected to be available for informal, unscheduled interactions with administrators or as directed by administrators as needed, so long as the interactions do not surpass 15 minutes cumulatively with the same contact within 24 hours. The member may request to interact outside. With the third option being eliminated, it’s important to remind you that the District has the right in this MOU to reassign teachers to online-only sections to provide instruction for families that choose to remain at home but not go to Oak Bridge. In elementary school in AM/PM, they may give you a morning in-person class and an afternoon online class, or they may assign you all online students who may represent students from school sites other than your own, although you will remain at your site. One mistake we made when originally designing this MOU was not discussing the half-day sub-provided prep days in elementary school. We added in 65 minutes of daily prep for elementary teachers in AM/PM to reflect the loss of fine arts, PE, and music (where appropriate). Although we only discussed the loss of prep from these providers, the District assumed, and we think fairly, that the 65 minutes was also replacing the sub-provided prep days. The District simply cannot provide subs in the numbers needed to cover these days. The District made an assumption and your bargaining team honestly forgot about the sub-provided prep days amidst all the decisions we were making. If it had come up, we would have agreed with the District. We have agreed that the 65 minutes of daily prep in the AM/PM model replaces the prep lost from the providers and the sub-provided prep days. If you already managed to take one of these sub-provided prep days, you won’t be docked leave, but the District will deny further sub-provided prep days. As a former elementary school teacher who utilized those days, I apologize for our oversight. We are doing the best we can in such a rapidly changing situation. Traditional Learning with Safety Protocols MOU: All Students Back (NEW information on elementary prep time) At some point, Butte County will reach the point at which we move to a third MOU governing a model called traditional learning with safety protocols. This would involve all students returning to campus full time, but certain safety protocols would still apply. School schedules would revert to pre-Covid times, and existing waivers would return. In secondary, that largely means collaboration at all sites and the intervention period at the middle schools. Elementary schools who are on minimum day waivers for parent teacher conferences would still have any remaining calendared half-days identified in the waivers. Facial coverings and some enhanced cleaning protocols will still be in place. The extended leave protections will still be in place. The District will still have the ability to reassign teachers to online-only sections as in the AM/PM model. Additionally, CUTA has an interest in protecting prep time providers from excessive student contacts in this model. Prep time providers could see anywhere from 700-1500 individual students during a complete rotation. The District has accepted CUTA’s proposal to build daily prep time into the elementary schedule by shortening the pre-Covid bell schedule by 30 minutes. Elementary classroom teachers in grades TK-5 will receive 30 minutes of daily prep at the end of the day within the pre-Covid bell schedule. While we recognize that 30 minutes daily may not be as effective or useful as less regular, larger chunks of prep time, we have to balance protecting the safety of our prep time providers, parental concern for loss of daily instructional time, and the reality of an extreme sub shortage. As part of this agreement, the District may utilize elementary prep time providers as substitute teachers in elementary classrooms in a very specific way. Each elementary prep time provider may be involuntarily reassigned/transferred to a substitute teaching assignment no more than twice during the second half of the year. This would be used if a classroom teacher is absent and unable to work. Upon completion of the sub assignment, the prep time provider would resume their normal duties without being expected to make up any missed lessons during the sub assignment. We have suggested to the District that prep time providers being used as subs should be assigned to a site that they already service, so they are familiar with the students and vice versa. We are waiting to hear the District’s response to this idea. Transition Day(s) Tonight, the District will propose to the School Board that teachers receive one or two days of transition time to prepare for the second half of the year. The District would like that day or days to occur on January 4 and/or 5. The transition days would have a work schedule designed by the District that would include some open time for teacher-directed prep and some site-directed time. The Board may not want transition days right at the beginning of January. The MOU states that if the day or days do not occur on January 4 and/or 5, then there will be 1 or 2 days of transition time before moving to a different instructional model at a later point in the school year. E-Board is having a special Friday meeting this afternoon to review the MOUs. If approved by E-Board, the MOUs will be presented to the School Board for approval tonight. If approved by both, we will move forward with the schedule described above for a members’ Q&A and a general membership vote next week. Thank you for continuing to educate our students in the most difficult of times. Thank you for taking the time to stay informed. If you’d like to explore our contract, the link is here. Charlie Snyder Bargaining Chair Chico Unified Teachers Association Hey Folks,
For obvious reasons we will not have Empty Bowls this year. Your Organizing Team thought this would be a perfect opportunity to say thanks to all those businesses (listed below) who have generously supported this event over the years. If you are out and about or ordering take out in the next few weeks/months please consider throwing some business in the direction of our Empty Bowls sponsors. If you do, let them know you are an educator saying thank you for their past and continuing support of our Empty Bowls event. I am going to send each business a letter of thanks and let them know we are encouraging all our members to support them during this tough time. Take Care, Kevin 5TH STREET STEAKHOUSE APPLEBEE’S BACIO CATERING BASQUE NORTE BURBAN KITCHEN CHILI’S CHRISTIAN MICHAELS COLLIER'S HARDWARE DIAMOND STEAKHOUSE EVERYDAY VIETNAMESE ITALIAN COTTAGE JAPANESE BLOSSOM LA COMIDA LA HACIENDA LOGAN’S ROAD HOUSE MIMM’S BAKERY MOM’S MONDO’S COFFEE MORNING THUNDER NASH’S OLD BARN KITCHEN OLIVE GARDEN PELICANS ROOST PHO C&C PRIYA RED LOBSTER RICARDO’S RICE BOWL SCOTTY’S BOAT LANDING TONG FONG LOW TORTILLA FLATS TRES HOMBRE UPPER CRUST Kevin Moretti CUTA Chapter President Hello colleagues,
Your CUTA bargaining team and the District met for negotiations on Thursday, November 19. Our goal was to refine and clean up the MOUs we have for distance learning and for AM/PM modified traditional learning and to complete the MOU we are developing for traditional learning with safety protocols when all of our students eventually return to our classrooms. Our current MOUs are scheduled to expire on December 31. We’d like to have these three MOUs complete and ready to be voted on by membership by the end of our next bargaining session on December 10, so that there is time for a virtual Q&A session for members and an online general membership vote. Because the situation in Butte County keeps changing, we want to have MOUs in place that would govern whichever model of instruction the School Board places us in. Despite the fact that Butte County was moved to the purple tier, the School Board voted to remain in our AM/PM modified traditional model until winter break. Two new Board members have been elected and will join the Board as voting members for the December meeting, which I believe must be rescheduled from December 9, to December 10 or 11, because Butte County won’t have certified its election results until the tenth. How those new members impact the Board is unknown at this point. Extended Leave Protection for Covid-19 CUTA’s top concern during the pandemic has been member safety. Since we have been required to resume our duties in various ways, we have tried to negotiate any and all safety protocols possible. We have not been helped in that by the non-prescriptive “recommendations” from the state. After direct safety, CUTA’s greatest concern has been protecting members’ sick leave in the event that they can’t work normally because they have been directed to quarantine, are experiencing symptoms and are waiting for test results, or have been diagnosed with Covid-19. Working with the District, we negotiated expanded leave protections by building off of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), which was passed by the federal government back on April 1. Unfortunately, the FFCRA is set to expire on December 31, and there is no indication that Washington is going to extend it. We have developed language designed to protect members as best we can manage without the FFCRA and the loss of funding associated with it. The District has been a willing partner in crafting this replacement language and agreed to more generous protections than they initially proposed. In short, they listened to CUTA’s concern and responded. For most situations, members may perform their duties from home, be that classroom teachers Zooming into the classroom and directing the sub during the school day or non-classroom teachers performing other associated duties virtually. If a member’s duties are impossible to perform from home, the District will assign other duties. In this way, if a member must be home for quarantine, to wait for test results, or because they are positive, they can telework and not be docked sick leave. A member may choose not to telework in these situations, but they would have to use their sick leave in that case. The bigger concern is if a member tests positive and is unable to work because they are too sick. CUTA and the District have agreed in principle that in the event that a member has a positive diagnosis and has medical documentation from their healthcare provider that they are unable to work or telework, the District will cover 6+ weeks (30 work days total) of leave for that member. Previously, we had negotiated unlimited leave protection for members in this situation but that was by using the FFCRA as a base. We have agreed to reopen and add back the previous protection level if the FFCRA is extended or passed again in the new year after the change in leadership at the federal level. CUTA asked the District to assume the financial risk of six weeks of leave to protect our members, and they listened and agreed. This version of leave protection will be in all three of the MOUs we are designing and revising for use starting in January if approved in a membership vote. Edgenuity Access At the secondary level, if you plan to continue using Edgenuity during the second semester, be aware that your continued usage, no matter which instructional model we are in, is dependent on administrator approval. CUTA recommends that you contact your administrator if you plan to continue with Edgenuity. If your administrator does not give you approval, please ask what you could do differently to receive approval. The District has the right to approve or deny the use of a specific curriculum. “Third Option” (virtual student attendance in an in-person class) The School Board reviewed the extensive feedback provided by members in the CUTA survey that asked about the “third option”. In response, the Board said that the third option will no longer be available to families starting in January, whether we are in AM/PM or when all students return to campus full time. Although some members have expressed interest in volunteering to continue to use the third option, your bargaining team will be recommending that E-Board does not approve any waivers to use the third option. There is one exception to this rule. Special education teachers may be required to continue using the third option because of the legal mandate to provide services in the IEP. In fact and unfortunately, it seems likely that this requirement may continue onwards past the pandemic. As we see how this develops, we will need input from special education teachers about how to mitigate the challenges this presents. It is another example of our special education colleagues being forced to shoulder a greater burden because of the threat of lawsuits. It was very disappointing to hear this, and we will try to negotiate appropriate support or help if we can get ideas about how to help. Distance Learning MOU (online only) If we return to distance learning, we will use a version of the MOU which we started the year with. There will have to be some minor changes, but the basic concept will remain the same. Teachers will have synchronous time in the morning with online students and asynchronous/office hours in the afternoon. We will be revising the 2021 version of this MOU in our bargaining session on December 10. Leave protection will be as described above. Modified Traditional MOU (AM/PM) This is the model we are currently operating in under the existing MOU. In the 2021 version, there will be slight changes to reflect the actual practice and intent of our previous negotiations, but it will be largely the same as the current MOU. We had to work so fast that we didn’t get all the language exactly right. For example, the current MOU says that the filter in a classroom HVAC unit will be replaced if there is a positive case in that classroom. We have been advised that there is no scientific reason to do this. Instead, we changed the language to reflect that the District will use the highest rated filters compatible with our systems (MERV 13s) and will replace the filters at the recommended end of their lifespan. MERV 13 filters are in intense demand currently, and the language reflects that this will be the practice as long as the global supply chain allows it. If MERV 13s are unavailable, the District has said they will use MERV 11s, the next best option. We also added language requiring teachers to maintain seating charts, adhere to them, and provide them to the site administrator. This is critical for contact tracing. We have also added language that states that, although all meetings may be attended virtually by member choice with the exception of IEPs (IEPs do not have to be in person, but a member can be required to go to an in-person IEP if so scheduled), members will be expected to be available for informal, unscheduled interactions with administrators or as directed by administrators as needed, so long as the interactions do not surpass 15 minutes cumulatively with the same contact within 24 hours. The member may request to interact outside. With the third option being eliminated, it’s important to remind you that the District has the right in this MOU to reassign teachers to online-only sections to provide instruction for families that choose to remain at home but not go to Oak Bridge. In elementary school in AM/PM, they may give you a morning in-person class and an afternoon online class, or they may assign you all online students who may represent students from school sites other than your own, although you will remain at your site. You will be paid for two days at your daily rate to compensate you for preparing to teach an online class. In secondary, you may be reassigned to one or more online-only sections. If you are reassigned to a different subject, you will be paid for two days at your daily rate. One mistake we made when originally designing this MOU was not discussing the half-day sub-provided prep days in elementary school. We added in 65 minutes of daily prep for elementary teachers in AM/PM to reflect the loss of fine arts, PE, and music (where appropriate). Although we only discussed the loss of prep from these providers, the District assumed, and we think fairly, that the 65 minutes was also replacing the sub-provided prep days. The District simply cannot provide subs in the numbers needed to cover these days. The District made an assumption and your bargaining team honestly forgot about the sub-provided prep days amidst all of the decisions we were making. If it had come up, we would have agreed with the District. We have agreed that the 65 minutes of daily prep in the AM/PM model replaces the prep lost from the providers and the sub-provided prep days. If you already managed to take one of these sub-provided prep days, you won’t be docked leave, but the District will deny further sub-provided prep days. As a former elementary school teacher who utilized those days, I apologize for our oversight. We are doing the best we can in such a rapidly changing situation. Lastly, there have been a lot of requests from secondary teachers to find a way to add collaboration time into the AM/PM waiver. CUTA will survey members to see whether this is widely desired, but we won’t survey about the specific schedule change. The likely change would be a shorter lunch period one day of the week with a few minutes banked from the class periods to add in time for a weekly collaboration. This is still under discussion. Traditional Learning with Safety Protocols MOU (all students back) At some point, Butte County will reach the point at which we move to a third MOU governing a model called traditional learning with safety protocols. This would involve all students returning to campus full time, but safety protocols including facial coverings and enhanced cleaning would still apply. School schedules would revert to pre-Covid times, and existing waivers would return. In secondary, that largely means collaboration at all sites and the intervention period at the middle schools. Elementary schools who are on minimum day waivers for parent teacher conferences would still have any remaining calendared half-days identified in the waivers. Facial coverings and some enhanced cleaning protocols will still be in place. The extended leave protections will still be in place. The District will still have the ability to reassign teachers to online-only sections as in the AM/PM model. Additionally, CUTA has an interest in protecting prep time providers from excessive student contacts in this model. Prep time providers could see anywhere from 700-1500 individual students during a complete rotation. CUTA shared an idea of how to offer a regular, daily period of prep time of 30-45 minutes by shortening the student day. In this model, elementary teachers would get significantly more prep time than they would using the traditional prep time providers and 7 half days (or the equivalent for TK and K). The District is considering the proposed idea, but we are still negotiating. In any event, elementary teachers will get their contractually guaranteed prep time, but the model of delivery may shift. This has been, and continues to be, such a trying time for our members, our students and our families. Although we may be seeing the first glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel thanks to news about potential vaccines, we have a long way to go. I know you will continue to support your colleagues and our students like you always do. I feel lucky to work with such talented, kind, dedicated educators. Thank you for taking the time to stay informed. If you’d like to explore our contract, the link is here. Charlie Snyder Bargaining Chair Chico Unified Teachers Association Hello colleagues,
Your CUTA bargaining team and the District met for negotiations last Thursday, November 5. We continued working on an addendum to the current MOU, and we also spent time designing our next MOU, which will be voted on by you before all students return to the classroom in our orange tier model. The School Board decided to remain in our current AM/PM model until at least winter break. They want to continue to watch the case counts in Butte County and in particular how they are impacted by colder weather and holidays. If cases continue to follow the current trend, it is most likely that we will begin school after winter break with all of our students in our classrooms for the entire school day with facial coverings and certain cleaning protocols still in place. There are two new members on the School Board who will take their seats on December 9. They may alter the current dynamic on the Board. The Board also voted to eliminate the so-called “third option” when we return to school in January regardless of which instructional model we are in. Students will not be given the option to attend in-person classes virtually. Instead, the District will create as many sections (secondary) or classes (elementary) as needed to serve the students who wish to remain at home but not attend Oak Bridge. Teachers may be reassigned involuntarily into an online teaching position and may have new students from various sites, but they will remain physically at their home sites. The District has agreed in principle to take volunteers for these online sections/classes from sites that end up overstaffed before involuntarily reassigning teachers. MOU Addendum We began the day by working on an addendum to the current MOU. We had to move so quickly through negotiations that we missed a few details in the actual language. For example, in elementary, desks and chairs are being cleaned by the District twice a day, but in secondary, desks and chairs are only cleaned by the District once a day. The MOU incorrectly says desks and chairs will be cleaned twice a day district-wide. We knew it was twice a day in elementary and once a day in secondary, but we didn’t accurately reflect that in the included cleaning chart. Similarly, there is language in the MOU that states the HVAC filters will be changed in classrooms with a positive case. There is no medical advice that we can find that states filters should be changed after a positive case. Instead, we changed the language to reflect that the District is using the strongest filters available--MERV 13s--and will continue to do so, and replace within the filters’ recommended lifespan, as long as the commercial supply chain allows it. We are adding language that states a member shall be provided an alternative teaching/learning site if CUTA and the District mutually agree that a cleaning task did not occur. The teacher can choose to avail themselves of the alternative site or not while the District completes the cleaning task. The addendum also has language requiring seating charts, which is a shared interest of both CUTA and the District, in order to contact trace effectively in the event of positive cases. We have added language also that gives members five working days’ notice if we are transitioning from one instructional model to another. This is in response to members who felt the last transition was rushed. Another issue that had to be discussed is the District’s inability to find enough subs to cover the elementary prep half days. In the current model, elementary teachers are getting more prep time than they would in a traditional schedule with prep time providers and prep half days. The lack of subs and CUTA’s concern for prep time providers means we are discussing adding language to this addendum to reflect how elementary prep time would be delivered in the next model when all students are back on campus together. CUTA has an interest in protecting prep time providers from excessive student contacts. Prep time providers could see anywhere from 700-1500 individual students during a complete rotation. CUTA shared an idea of how to offer a regular, daily period of prep time of 30-45 minutes by shortening the student day. In this model, elementary teachers would get significantly more prep time than they would using the traditional prep time providers and 7 half days (or the equivalent for TK and K). The District is considering the proposed idea, but we are still negotiating. In any event, elementary teachers will get their contractually guaranteed prep time, but the model of delivery may shift. The District has a shared interest in this, because it is extremely hard to get subs at this time, so the prep half days are a significant problem. MOU for Traditional Learning with Safety Protocols Depending on the status of Covid cases in Butte County, the next instructional model we will move into is called traditional learning with safety protocols. All students would be on campus for a regular school day, so social distancing would no longer be possible as in the current manner. Facial coverings and enhanced cleaning would still be in effect. We have begun negotiating the MOU to cover this model. Much of our current contract will come back into place during this instructional model, including pre-Covid bell schedules and waivers. The District is working on how the cleaning protocols will change, but there will still be a focus on high-touch areas, appropriate HVAC filters, hand sanitizer and facial coverings. Leave Protections A significant concern for CUTA is the sunsetting of the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) on December 31 of this year. This act provided sick leave protection for a variety of situations but was largely limited to 80 hours or roughly two work weeks. CUTA built off of this act to negotiate unlimited sick leave protection (no use of personal sick leave) for members who contracted Covid-19 and were unable to work. Nobody knows if the federal government will act to extend the FFCRA. CUTA is very concerned about full classrooms and no sick leave protection. We do have MOU language that allows members to work--even teach--virtually from home if they have to quarantine or wait for a test result without having to use personal sick leave. Although this would be far from ideal, it is still sick leave protection. CUTA has an interest in extending the unlimited sick leave for members who contract Covid-19 and are unable to work. Negotiations continue. Covid-19 Employee Testing In an example of the constantly shifting state requirements, Covid-19 testing of employees is now not required, but the District must offer free testing to all staff. The District shared information regarding the free testing center on Mangrove Avenue along with a suggested site-based calendar for when employees should go get tested. Please refer to the email from Jim Hanlon on Friday, November 6 for this information. The District strongly encourages members to get tested following this suggested schedule. The goal is for all employees to be tested over a 2-month period, which mirrors the state guidelines. CUTA also strongly encourages members to get tested. To be clear, testing is not mandatory, but it is strongly recommended. Our understanding is that you may also get tested more often if you believe you have been potentially exposed. You will be asked for your insurance card, but you will not be charged. If you are part-time and don’t have our insurance or insurance at all, the testing is still free. Please review Jim’s email. This is not a walk-in testing center. You must schedule in advance. Others
Thank you for taking the time to stay informed. If you’d like to explore our contract, the link is here. Charlie Snyder Bargaining Chair Chico Unified Teachers Association |
AuthorSMary Schoenthaler serves as Vice President and Public Relations Chair for CUTA. Archives
April 2021
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Hours2:30pm-5:00pm Monday-Friday
Summer Hours 1:00-5:00p.m. or by Appointment Tuesday-Thursday |
Telephone(530) 343-0226
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