Brief Review of the Green Dot Meeting.

For this, I am a secondary source.  I have consulted primary sources, i.e., adults and students who attended yesterday’s meeting.  This was the first time since the beginning of PSC 2.0 that representatives of Team Kuppersmith haven’t been present for a major event related to the school.

The fact is, our time is over.  It is time for Green Dot to be allowed to step in, without obstacle or even observation, and express their plan fully.

Apparently, the principals for each of the proposed “small schools” on campus have been selected.  I was unaware of that fact, and find it promising.  Furthermore, most of the meeting was informational, explaining how to enroll, and the structure of a Green Dot School.  The students and parents that came to speak to me said it seemed positive, and that also, the plan seemed sound.

Apparently, there was not drama at the meeting, for which I give serious thanks.  Henry Clay, and the community it is situated in, are often filled with conflict that distracts everyone form the real goal present…providing the students with the best of all educational outcomes, in a safe environment.

Can Green Dot do so?  I’m not sure, but I sincerely hope so.

Apparently there will be three more Green Dot meetings during June…so they are at least reaching out to the community, and trying to form a positive initial relationship.  Good plan.

Analysis: Clarification by UTLA is not so clear.

So…interesting facts. I’m going to quote from the posting that I made earlier, in red ink, so that there is a distinction of changing voices here. When I analyzed the Secondary VP’s statements, I found some hazy contradictions to what was previously understood about RIFs, in prior years. Perhaps the rules have changed, however, it does not seem so.

The first wave of 3400 repealed RIFs is clear, and well defined.

The “second wave” as it is called, predicted to save 1700 jobs, is less clear. Muddy in fact.

The quote from UTLA is:

“The second “wave” of rescissions will follow once School Site Councils reallocate monies they had intended to use to buy back those teacher and health and human services positions covered by the TA. It is anticipated that PSA counselors, Psychiatric Social Workers, Counselors and additional teaching positions will be “bought back” before the end of the school year through wise use by SSCs of reallocated monies, as well as QEIA and EIA monies. This will result in the purchase of approximately 1,700 positions, of which over 1,000 are secondary positions.”

Here is my problem:  In prior years, we were told that QEIA and School Site Councils could only “purchase positions, not people.  So if you have a RIF, there’s not a way to save you, only your position, to be filled by someone else, who was not RIF’d.”  It is this procedure, in fact, that produced many of the staff changes at our school site, and produced the unwanted Exodus of a fabulous English Teacher.

So…have the rules changed?  Otherwise, new positions will be created, but the RIF status of various teachers seems to preclude them being hired back for what is potentially their own position.

A second quote, that is problematic:

“However, two factors make it unlikely that ALL RIF’d positions will be restored: declining District enrollment (a loss of 178 positions in elementary, 392 secondary), and Public School Choice school giveaways (149) for a total of 719 positions.”

This is problematic on two levels.  One…the use of “giveaways” is just sadly confrontational over a process that UTLA agreed to.  Secondly…if those positions, 149 of them, are outside the District that Reduced Force in the first place, they actually represent jobs that RIF’d teachers can apply to, as a new marketplace.  Granted, they might not be LAUSD teachers anymore…but it is deceptive to count those as standing RIFs.  Intentionally so, with a political agenda behind it.

Is the deal a good one?  On the face of it, yes, with an ideal of compromise I thought UTLA was incapable of.  However…it explicitly doesn’t rescind all RIFs, which UTLA pledged, and further, accepts furlough days that they said they would not.

Will I vote for it?  Probably so.  Do I criticise the sloganism and hard talk that went before it, as hypocritical in the face of this deal?  Yes, I do.  Simply put…UTLA hasn’t done what it said to the member it would do.  Since the majority profit, this deal will most probably pass the member vote.  In rational self interest, I can’t see how it wouldn’t.

So…some Clarification on UTLA’s Tentative Agreement

Which, yesterday, both myself and other District employees were crying out for.

I still have questions, to be addressed later today…as time is short, but before class, I felt it would be useful to everyone who has been RIF’d, to post this release from the Secondary Vice President. It speaks specifically to the RIFs at the Secondary School level.

With no further ado, and absolutely no reformatting, the full text is below the horizontal rule. Commentary, analysis and questions later, during lunch.

_________________________________________

Impact of the Tentative Agreement on Secondary RIFs Restoration

(From UTLA Secondary Vice President)

The Tentative Agreement (TA) agreed to late last week between UTLA and the LAUSD will result in at least 4.900 jobs being saved. This will happen in two “waves.” The first “wave” will be the rescission of some 3,400 RIFs, the result of the initial restoration of norms to 2010-11 levels (affecting grades K-8) AND restoration of positions such as secondary counselors, arts teachers, magnet coordinators, nurses, and teacher librarians. (NOTE: there were no norm increases in grades 9-12, so there were also no reductions in the norms for those grades).

The second “wave” of rescissions will follow once School Site Councils reallocate monies they had intended to use to buy back those teacher and health and human services positions covered by the TA. It is anticipated that PSA counselors, Psychiatric Social Workers, Counselors and additional teaching positions will be “bought back” before the end of the school year through wise use by SSCs of reallocated monies, as well as QEIA and EIA monies. This will result in the purchase of approximately 1,700 positions, of which over 1,000 are secondary positions.

As arts teachers go back to teaching art, and as teacher librarians and counselors return to librarian and counseling positions, this will open up more teaching positions to be filled by RIF’d teachers.

However, two factors make it unlikely that ALL RIF’d positions will be restored: declining District enrollment (a loss of 178 positions in elementary, 392 secondary), and Public School Choice school giveaways (149) for a total of 719 positions.

But the district is also anticipating some 800 to 1,000 retirements, as is the case every year, leading to more rescissions.

One other factoid: going into this TA, elementary RIFs made up 62% of the initial RIFs (excluding counselors). Secondary positions made up 27% of the initial RIFs (excluding counselors). If the TA goes into effect, elementary positions make up 43% of the remaining RIFs, with secondary positions making up 38% of the outstanding RIFs before SSCs use their monies to further eliminate RIFs.

Estimates are that of the 1,700 QEIA/EIA positions available, 1,096 are secondary and 332 are elementary.

This TA brings back: 71 Secondary Counselors; 77 teacher librarians; 57 nurses; and all Magnet Coordinators. We need to, as leaders of UTLA, make sure to get SSCs to hold emergency meetings and use the monies they were going to use for the positions listed in the previous sentence to bring back other positions.