Monday, August 03, 2009

OCEA Summer Update

You may have already heard the School Board voted Monday evening against the negotiated contract presented on behalf of the Superintendent. Weeks ago, our Negotiation Team sat down with the District 's Team and agreed there would not be money for a raise this year. With that in mind, both sides further agreed that according to contract language, we were entitled to the step increase. In good faith, we accepted language that would pay us for our years of service and countered with very little working condition language.

Needless to say, we were caught completely off guard by Chairman Chuck Kelly's lengthy explanation for voting against the contract. He stated that we were currently the 4th highest paid district in the state, and he couldn't justify using taxpayer dollars to give us a "raise". Mr. Hill and Mrs. Frakes voted accordingly. Mr. Walker spoke on our behalf and along with Mrs. Thigpen, voted to support us, and thus, the step increase. I encourage you to thank Mr. Walker and Mrs. Thigpen by email or card. You can find their addresses on our website.

The local newspapers and Channel 3 picked up the story and have contacted us for our comments. Most have done a pretty job of representing the issue correctly. You can click on the following link to read or see each. Click here for the Channel 3 and here for the Daily News story.

The Executive Board and Negotiation Team met yesterday to begin looking at our next move. Since we have made a good-faith effort to settle the contract quickly and move on, we will wait until the school district and school board settle their obvious issues amongst themselves.

In other news, we still have about 25 annual teachers waiting to be placed. We continue to monitor job openings and placements on a weekly basis. There are no guarantees for our annual teachers, but we are still working to see that all possible positions are filled with current employees.

The Building Representatives back-to-school training is scheduled for August 13th. BRs please be sure to save this date, we need you there.

Sorry for a gloomy bit of news. The road's a bit bumpy, but your Association is still going in the right direction!

Karen
kpeek7335@cox.net

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