Dear Parents,

As you may already know, Cupertino teachers have been working without a contract this year.  Unfortunately, negotiations are at an impasse.  The school board believes that teachers are content with the way things have been and that there is no need for changes or improvement, despite concerns having been brought up at bargaining meetings.  In addition, the school board is unwilling to negotiate a reasonable compensation package despite the willingness on our part to recognize the state budget problems and offer many possible solutions.

Consequently, CUSD teachers have voted to "Work to Rule."  This means that teachers will work the hours set forth in our expired contract.  For example, at Blue Hills this means a 7:45 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. duty day. After subtracting our instructional time, that leaves about an hour a day for our other responsibilities.  These include grading, planning, collaborating, mentoring, preparing materials, and meetings.

The teachers in Cupertino are committed to the education of your children.  Our top priority will be the direct instruction time we spend with our classes.  To that end we will continue to do our best to meet the needs of each student.  Whatever time we have each day will be spent assessing the most vital student work and preparing for meaningful lessons.  That will not change.  However, that does mean that not all work will receive the same level of attention.   

In addition, we have reached the end of the second trimester.  The district does not provide any extra time to prepare our report cards, which are very time consuming.    Consequently, we will in the immediate future be concentrating our time on completing the report cards.  The teachers will provide the most accurate accounting of your child's progress through the rubric scores; however, we will not be including the lengthy and most time consuming aspect - the narrative comment.

We hope that you, the parent community, will understand our need to collectively make a point to the school board.  We also hope that you may want to know how you can support us and help us resolve this as quickly as possible.  Contact your child's teacher and ask what you can do to help.  We have informational fliers to hand out.  When our duty day begins we must be on campus to work, if you have time to help pass out fliers before or after school to parents that pick up their children, we would be grateful.  In addition, you can help by attending school board meetings at the district office (the next one is Tuesday, March 25^th at 6:30), contacting Superintendent Quon and school board members.  Your voices carry more weight than ours, so we would also appreciate that help.

All the teachers in the Cupertino Union School District are thankful for all the support we receive and have received over the years from you, the parent community.  Together we have made CUSD an exceptional school district.  We know that you respect and appreciate our time and effort.  Unfortunately, we do not feel that same respect and understanding from the school board.

Sincerely,

The Teachers of Cupertino Union School District