Welcome back to school and the most hectic 3.5 weeks of the year! I hope that everybody had a fantastic Thanksgiving and is ready to face the upcoming holidays head on. The next few weeks will be very busy for the LEA. Here is a highlight ……
Retirement Workshops Reminder: Wednesday, December 9 at 3:30 in the LES teachers room a workshop for all Unit C, cafeteria, custodial and clerical staff concerning retirement by the Berkshire County Retirement Board will be held and on the same day at 3:45 in Matt Fillio’s room at LMHS, there will be the Unit A retirement workshop. I need to provide a head count for both events, so please let me know ASAP if you would like to attend and have not already let me know.
Negotiations: Our next negotiations meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, December 9 at 4:30 in the LMHS Library. As I have previously mentioned, if Unit A members would like to stay in the caucus room during that time, you can participate in any discussions which take place during the caucus. The meetings are capped at two hours.
The negotiations platform is almost complete. The committee hopes to present the plan to the Executive Board at the December 7th meeting. Once the platform has been approved by the e-board, I will post it on this site for the entire membership to view. As the negotiations team presents the platform to the school committee, it is important that we are able to back up our discussions with evidence. One area which we would like discuss involves the continued diminishment of the teaching staff and the growing practice of asking teachers to take on students as independent studies or advanced level students during already scheduled class time. This is a delicate situation since as teachers we are willing to go the extra mile to give students access to what they need, but this practice can be viewed as a contract violation and in some instances has been used to avoid hiring a full-time teacher. Both sides of the negotiations teams need to have an open conversation about these types of practices. I am asking teachers in this situation to please email me with a description of your scenario. All information will be pooled and presented without identification since we will be addressing this issue as a system-wide issue. Thanks in advance for your assistance with this and please know that I may be sending out emails asking for additional information in other areas as we move through negotiations.
Health Insurance: I will be attending a town meeting on Tuesday, December 8th in regards to the upcoming contractual health insurance policies. The last time this committee met was during the last contract negotiation cycle. At that time, the HMO and PPO plans were altered to address the town’s concern of providing quality health insurance and controlling skyrocketing costs. Once the plans were accepted by the various town units (police, DPW, water, school, etc ) the plans were locked in place for the length of the contracts. As those three years are rapidly ending, it is time to look at the health insurance program once again. I strongly suspect that this news will be painful and it will certainly absorb a huge chunk of any increase we may receive in our pay. This has become a pattern pretty much everywhere and while we will do our best to minimize the impact, we should all be prepared for an increase which will pinch the pocketbook.
Column Movement: Any Unit A member who will be moving a column during the 2016-2017 school year must notify the superintendent's office by December 15. Any paraprofessional who will be eligible for the educational stipend must notify the central office by January 15, 2016. Please refer to the respective contract for additional information.
As we move into the holidays and the negotiation process picks up speed, it is really important that we reflect on the sentiment of the season and support each other and function as team. We are well equipped to meet the challenges of the negotiations and by sticking together and thinking creatively, we will be able to craft an agreement that we feel is fair and represents the interests of us all.
Have a great few weeks and go ahead and eat dessert - it’s the holidays!
