(This letter was sent to the District on March 18^th)

March 18, 2008

Phil Quon, Superintendent

Cupertino Union School District

10301 Vista Drive

Cupertino, Ca 95014

Re: Letter received March 12, 2008

Dear Superintendent Quon:

On behalf of the Cupertino Education Association, we would like to formally respond to your "cease and desist" letter delivered on March 12, 2008. Our members who "work to rule" are within their legal rights to do so and are well informed of their obligations. We found your assertion that CEA is informing their teachers to put their students in jeopardy, not respond to parents, and refuse to teach the standards based curriculum, personally offensive and insulting to our profession. Your legal base for this letter is sketchy at best and was written with the primary intent to intimidate and harass your employees. Furthermore, your letter states CEA has "five (5) work days" to respond. However, principals had already received copies of the letter and were distributing it to teachers and staff before the letter was delivered to the CEA offices.  We can only deduce that you never intended this letter to be used by CEA to guide their membership and its only purpose was to break member's rights to "work to rule."

As to your claims that Board Policy states teachers are required to assign homework and write comments on their report cards, I would highly recommend that you read your own policies. At no point, do either board policy BP5121/AR 5121.1, or BP6154/AR6154 state that these tasks are mandatory. If you choose to make these amendments to your policies, CEA formally requests the right to bargain both issues.

If Cupertino Union School District chooses to take disciplinary action against any unit member who is legally working their duty day, we will file a formal grievance and allow CTA lawyers to defend their case.  The Cupertino Education Association, along with California Teachers Association, openly condemn the practices you are using to dissuade members from exercising their legal rights. Your accusations show the low esteem CUSD has for its employees. 

Sincerely,

Charise Walker

CEA President

Ps. The lawyer that Cupertino Union School District employs (Greg Dannis) sent a similar letter to Alum Rock during their negotiations. Clearly Mr. Dannis is repeating himself in our negotiations. CTA responded to this previous letter, stating that Mr. Dannis had no legal grounds for his claims and recommended that he no longer use such vague legal tactics (letter from CTA lawyer Joe Cochran to Greg Dannis, February 1, 2008).

cc:           Pearl Cheng, Board Member

                Ben Liao, Board Member

                Josephine Lucey, Board Member

                Gary McCue, Board Member

                Phyllis Vogel, Board Member

                Rick Hausman, Chief Business Officer

                Linda Denman, Assistant Superintendent

                Nancy Johnson, Assistant Superintendent

                Karen Barrett, Director

                Michael Gallagher, Director

                Mary Jew, Director

                Rene Jones, Director

                Patti Vidmar, Director

                Debbie Textor, Director

                Principals

                CEA members