Rep Council met on 10/03/06 (The first Tue. of the month)
AVTA President, Gene Smith, called the meeting to order at 3:30
PM and introduced our guest speaker, Mr. Myroid, representing the CTA endorsed
disability insurance plan. He gave a presentation that is of the upmost
importance to all of our membership: PLEASE NOTE, Teachers are not
covered by CA. State Disability Insurance If you are injured or become
disabled, you are on your own! Newly hired teachers are given an opportunity to
enroll in a private disability insurance plan, but, very often they do not. If
one later wishes to enroll in the CTA D.I. a physical exam and detailed health
history will be required. Mr. Myroid is offering to waive that requirement if
we, as a district, can enroll 65 or more new people into the CTA plan. THIS IS A
VERY IMPORTANT OPPORTUNITY! This "open enrollment" offer is only available to us
until Nov. 30, 2006. This means that we can get insured, at bargain rates, and
no health history, pre-existing condition or physical examination will exclude
anyone from coverage. This offer will most likely not be available for several
years. ACT NOW, we need 65 teachers to make this happen. I will be one of them.
Contact HHS Rep, Neil Small, for more information.
Gene plans on making a presentation the school board on the
issue of the lack of textbooks available as class sets for our students. This
issue affects over 50 teachers district wide. Gene also took us through the
steps needed as we try to move forward this bargaining for a new contract
agreement and clarify the language regarding the Cat. Leave Bank
Vice President, Gerald Fairman (me): I made a pitch to recruit
people to assist with our AVTA phone bank scheduled for Oct. 4 and 10 from 5:00
to 8:00 PM. We are contacting potential voters to survey for the upcoming Nov.
election. CTA is recommending that we unseat the current Governor and that we
support State Prop. 1D, the school bond for repairing school buildings and
playground facilities. I also recommended that concerned members write the
Governor in support of AB2937 which would seek to eliminating repetitive testing
for high school students by giving them credit, by proxy, on the CAHSEE for
attaining equitable scores on SAT, Star or CST, to be determined by the State
Board of Ed. See me for more information on these issues.
Vice President, Julie Agnew, reported on the success of our
recent AVTA pizza and beverage social. It was the best turn out so far for this
type of event and we extended our menu to include more side dishes and
appetizers. Everyone had a great time. Plans are already underway to plan for
our next social. Contact Julie for more information.
Secretary, Christine Parker, was appointed to the CTA Retirement
Committee and will be attending the State Conference soon.
Treasure, Beatriz Sztain, reported that we will need to get an
AVTA credit card to be used for future business purchases as recommended by the
CTA. She announced that the executive board recommended that AVTA hire Jim
Trumps, from HHS, to be webmaster of our soon to be new and improved AVTA Web
Site. The vote was unanimous to approve these recommendation.
Negotiations Chair, Dan Shy, reported that the meeting that took
place between the district and our bargaining team, on Sept. 29th. was
non-productive. Dan explained that we were prepared and made and a detailed
report supporting our position was presented to the mediator. The district team
was not prepared to support their position. The next meetings are scheduled for
Oct. 16 and 20 as per the district's request.
Grievance Chair, Gary Roberts, updated us on the status of
grievance # 20506 (AVHS) and # 20607 (HHS). The voting was unanimous to support
Gary's recommendations concerning these grievances. Contact Gary for details.
Gary will also be attending the upcoming CTA Conference.
Meeting adjourned at 4:55 PM.
Thanks for your time and support of our association.
Gerald.
HHS Site Rep (Captain)
AVTA VP.
