District Drags Heels in Negotiations

On the day of mediation, after a two and half week break, the District made the Association wait 3 hours before making any counter proposal.

When the District finally presented its counter proposal, it made no effort to find common ground. The District continues to low-ball its teachers with one-time money offers that do nothing to help offset teachers' growing costs.

The District made a counter offer on the "Other" issues on the table.  The counter proposal was nothing more than a repeat of Status Quo.

The District continues to talk out of both sides of its mouth.  From one side of its mouth, the District says it will not have enough money next year; and from the other side, it wants to eliminate a program called "Willie Brown" which saves the District $100,000 a year!

The District continues to make no effort in mediation to compromise or to find solutions on important issues!!

Fact: '07-'08 COLA = 4.57%(this is what CUSD is receiving)

Fact: District is receiving 1.7% in growth money

Fact: CUSD receiving 6.27% in new money

Fact: Districts offer to teachers = less than 3% and that is only one time!

The Association recognizes that California is facing budgetary uncertainties.  The Association has made significant concessions in its monetary proposals in an effort to create a settlement. 

Here it is:    CEA has made a proposal that would not touch any of the new growth money.  The proposal would not touch the large reserves.  The proposal would not even take all of the COLA the district is receiving. 

So our question is why is the district playing hardball with its teachers?

What about Health and Welfare?  The District waffles between contributing $250,000 and $600,000 determined upon how much of a one-time salary increase is negotiated.

What about other contractual issues? 

The district continues to hold to the line of "Status Quo" on many of its issues:

Prep time: District did not respond.

Report cards:  The District did not respond. 

5 year evaluation:  District makes a counter proposal that would not reduce the number of evaluations an experienced teacher would have to complete. (Status Quo)

# of hours bargaining = 75

Future bargaining dates:  Mediation on May 5th

If you have any questions please contact a bargaining team member.

Jeff Warner- CEA spokesperson: warner_jeff@cupertino.k12.ca.us

Robin Geiman- Nimitz: geiman_robin@cupertino.k12.ca.us

Neal Wooley- Hyde: wooley_neal@cupertino.k12.ca.us

Gracie Hynes- Cupertino MS: hynes_gracie@cupertino.k12.ca.us

Vicki Hawkinson- McAuliffe: hawkinson_vicki@cupertino.k12.ca.us

Charise Walker-President: charisew@ceaweb.org

Matthew Cottrell- Exec. Dir.: matthewc@ceaweb.org

Rising Health Costs! 

Part of COLA is to help employers cover rising health costs.  In CUSD the rising cost of health care is paid for by the employee. 

Since 2006 the district has increased its spending on health care by 2% per employee whereas the employees of CUSD have increased their contribution from their own pocket by 62%. 

So, when teachers do get step and column increases or COLA increases most, if not all, is funneled back into their health benefits.

WHO HAS SETTLED?

Why is CUSD not settling when other Districts in Santa Clara have settled?

            Why indeed!!

                                                   Salary(Cost of Living Increase)

                        Alum Rock        3.00% plus Health and Welfare increases

                        Campbell El.      2.50% plus Health and Welfare increases

                        Evergreen          4.05 plus Health and Welfare increases

                        Fremont H.S.    6.17%

                        Gilroy                2.78% plus Health and Welfare increases

                        Los Gatos          3.00% plus Health and Welfare increases

                        Moreland           7.00% plus Health and Welfare increases

                        Oak Grove         4.00% plus Health and Welfare increases

                        Saratoga             6.00%

                        Sunnyvale          4.53% plus FULL Health and Welfare

                        Union                2.57 % plus Health and Welfare increase

These are just a few school districts in Santa Clara county that have settled contract negotiations for this school year. 

Town Hall Meeting

Open to all parents, community members and teachers in the Cupertino Union School District

To be discussed:          What is happening between CEA and CUSD

                                    What you can do to help

                                    Statewide school budget crisis

When: Thursday, March 27^th 2008

  7pm till 8pm

Where: CEA offices

                   20045 Stevens Creek Blvd. 1-B

                   Cupertino, CA 95014

257-2122

**We will have CEA Executive Board and bargaining team members on hand to answer questions about the state of negotiations between CEA and CUSD.**

Children are welcome.

The OTHER issues

CEA is negotiating with CUSD on Salary and Health and Welfare.  What must not be forgotten is that there are other issues besides money and health that CEA has wanted to talk about. 

I am sure everybody has seen the signs "Status Quo has got to Go".  The reason for that slogan is the district's unwillingness to negotiate anything with the teachers at the bargaining table. 

CEA has brought to the table concerns and ideas that would make CUSD a better place to teach and make CUSD a more attractive place for parents to send their children.

Item #1            5 year evaluation item (No cost to the district)

                                    The 5 year evaluation cycle is way to help overloaded site administrators spend more time in the classroom with teachers that need their help.  Only teachers that have taught for more than 10 years and have at least two consecutive satisfactory evaluations could go on the 5 year cycle.  This new evaluation cycle will help 1st and 2nd year teachers by increasing their supervision and support.  This can only make them better teachers for the children and help retain them in CUSD for the future.  The districts response to this idea was "Status Quo".

Item #2            4^th and 5^th grade substitute planning days ($55,000 cost to the district)

                                    CEA proposed language that would allow 4^th, 5^th and ¾ combo teachers the ability to take a substitute day and work on report cards, plan as a grade level and collaborate with other grade levels.  The substitute days would be taken by all the 4^th and 5^th grade teachers together at one school site and the teachers would work at the school during the day.  The use of these days will hopefully keep experienced 4^th and 5^th grade teachers from moving down to the primary grades where class sizes are at 20 to 1.  This idea would recognize the fact that upper grade teachers face class sizes of 34 to 1 and can only improve the education for the students in CUSD.  The districts response to our proposal was "Status Quo".

Item #3            Designation of the Tuesday after the close of semester/trimester/quarter shall be scheduled for the compilation and completion of report cards and will be credited from the "early Tuesdays" scheduled for staff development. (No cost to the district)

                        CEA proposed language that would give all teachers the ability to complete some of their report cards during the day.  The districts response to this proposal was "Status Quo".

Item #4            SLP and Psychologists shall have control over their own calendars. (No cost to district)

                                    CEA proposed language that would give Speech Language Pathologists the control over their calendar.  This would allow them the ability to block out time to finish some of the massive amount of paperwork that they must finish each month.  The districts response was "Status Quo".

Dear Parents and Community,

Last week Phil Quon sent out a letter to the parents and community of the Cupertino Union School District (CUSD).  In this letter he tries to state why the Cupertino Union School District is at impasse.  The information Superintendent Quon provides, while not false, is, all to often, full of generalizations and partial truths.  We here at CEA want to educate the parents and community members about the WHOLE truth.

THE WHOLE TRUTH

Statement: Teachers receive an average raise of 3% for longevity.

Truth:  Some teachers do, but most of our first year teachers and many of our most experienced teachers do not. 

For Example:   Beginning teachers in CUSD who move from step 1 to step 2 receive $138 increase from the year before.  That is not 3% nor is it 6% it is 0.2%.  In the first 4 years they receive $515 dollars in step increases which equal up to less than 1% in salary increase.

Teachers who have been in the district for more than 11 years will go 3 years without ever seeing any step increase.  That is not 3% nor is it 6% but 0%. 

Step and column increases are payment mechanisms to reward teachers for continuing their education which benefits the students of CUSD and keeps experienced teachers in CUSD, thereby providing experience and knowledge to our students in CUSD.

Statement:  Teachers receive 6% salary increase for continuing education.

Truth:  Many teachers in CUSD go to school and get masters and doctorates.  All classes are paid for by the teacher.  When a teacher gets a masters degree they are eligible to receive a yearly masters stipend from the district.  The stipend to the average salary in CUSD is equal to 2.1%.

Statement:  That step and column increases cost the district $1 million dollars.

Truth:  The cost of step and column is almost always paid for by teachers.  Teacher who retire are almost always on the highest paid step when they retire.  The district then hires newer teachers at the lowest or lower salary step.  The difference in the highest paid teachers and lowest is used to fund the step and salary increases for the rest of the teachers in the district.  For the district to say it cost them money is correct but what is not said is that almost all of the cost is already compensated for by the retiring teachers and the replacement by the newer teachers. 

Statement:  Cost Of Living Adjustments (COLA) are provided to cover the increases in all annual operating expenses for the district, not just salaries.  In addition to employee compensation, these expenses include such things as utilities, fuel, replacement of school buses, and the rising special education costs.

Truth:  Cost of living is the cost of maintaining a certain standard of living.  The district receives this money from the state of California to help employees maintain a standard of living.  The teachers of CUSD also have to deal with rising fuel costs, rising health care costs, rising food costs, rising rent, and rising utilities.  Two years ago in negotiations CUSD came to the teachers and said that they needed money to help pay for new trucks, buses and various electronic equipment to help improve the district.  The teachers gladly helped the district do this by giving back a percentage of COLA money to the district.  You now have to question where did that money go? 

(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

Both sides met with the State mediator and presented proposals.  The day was spent reviewing proposals and counter-proposals.

The Association presented the District with language that would help allay some of the District concerns about next year.  Nothing was resolved and no agreements were reached.

But the Facts remain the same:

Fact: '07-'08 COLA = 4.57%(this is what CUSD is receiving)

Fact: '07-'08 CA budget is set

Fact: Increase in COLA and Increase in student enrollment

Fact: Over 5 million dollars in new money this year

Fact:  CEA made compromise proposals that would leave substantial monies in the Districts reserve and most likely increase the reserves this year.

Fact: CUSD offer to teachers = 0%

Continue to wear buttons!! CEA wants you to keep using your car signs everywhere you go!  Talk to parents and the community about the TRUTH!!  Refer parents to our website or call 257-2122.