Napa Valley Educators Association
Executive Board Meeting
Monday, May 5, 2017
3:30-5:00
In attendance: Gayle Young, President, Debbie Kmiec, Secretary, Ginger Dunne, Treasurer & Chief Negotiator, Erin Reilly, Director - High School, Courtney Garcia - Director - Human Rights, Karen Fleming, Director - Middle School, Mike Willmarth, Director - Communications. Guests: Ted Ward, Michael Alger, and Keith Sedgley.
Absent: Mary Duenow, Vice President, Kristin Pruitt, Director - Elementary School, Steve Savage, CTA
At the school board meeting on 5/4/17, next steps were taken by members of the community for a recall of the school board with a petition being filled with the city. This came about because of the situation involving changing Napa High Schools Mascot from the Indian and the situation with the football program at Napa High School. Gayle called CTA because Patrick wants NVEA to take a stand.
Gayle talked with Jerry Eaton and Steve Savage at CTA. Jerry said it is not beneficial for kids and actually detrimental to recall the school board over the Indian mascot. The impact on students and staff will not be beneficial. We don’t say yes or no on the Indian. If the recall petition goes forward, the county will have to hold a special election which will cost the district money that they don’t have.
Gayle believes the district came forward with “faith” by granting the 3 meetings n regards the financial situation of the district.. Mike feels we should see the district holding the meetings as an expectation. Gqayle watched Julie put the three meetings throughout the school year on the calendar for the 2017-18 school year. Gayle tried to put out information because if she doens’t know what is happening she can’t address it. Ted shared that members at his sight wonder if we/they are suppose to know deeper things about the budget? Gayle knows information about the budget because if she doesn’t know she can’t fight against it or answer questions that are being asked. Gayle spends a lot of time with the numbers as does Mike since they spent a lot of time building the formula. They don’t know everything, however having new eyes and asking questions is good.
NVEA shouldn’t be sitting on the same level as Napa Learns, etc. Gayle is concerned about Napa Learns is that the money they give to the district is the same amount that the district gets from the federal government. Napa Learns likes to fund partially. The message that is being shared fromthe road shows is to start investing in programs that are sustainable. Before a commitment is made make sure you have the resources to manage them.
When the district put in the 7.5% reserve for the budget it was put in because the 7.5% is about a month and a half worth of salaries. When there was deficit spending it was ok to keep it at 3%. Gayle has all of the presentations regarding budget. The reserve started to drop right away because NVEA pushed for people not savings accounts. CTA tells exec board that school boards and districts want huge reserves and CTA advises them not to listen to the numbers that the districts are saying. It was a deficit in that the income that we are getting isn’t covering what we need to run the district. The district isn’t having to go out and borrow money to fund programs. Gayle doesn’t feel there was bad intent.
Vintage represents a really good focus group in regards to having members sitting down and talking about what is goign on with the district. We have to go in with a constructive plan. We see where we are now, what needs to be done and what we need moving forward. Firing Wade and others isn’t necessarily in the districts best interest. We currently have some leverage with district administrators and we need to have conversations and align the meeting. It was suggested that when information is provided at the close of the books and the october meeting with what has happened and where things are the teachers be able to provide input, then in February after the governor has made his first proposal make suggestions and provide input on what to do and respond back on what it is that teachers want.
Three big things at Vintage is 1) teachers feel that teachers aren’t heard, 2) seems like a pattern of mistakes over the last three or four years (ie; sped, napa high issue, etc.) and 3) how can we increase our total compensation. Gayle had a conversation with Wade this morning and Mike shared that we as an Association need to take more of a watchdog role. After all meetings there was a debriefing meeting with Patrick and Wade. Teachers felt that Patrick was lying to them and that in trying to save face he made the situation worse.
It is important that we as members speak up. We have negotiation rights with contracts, money, etc. Teachers are wanting to feel heard. Moving forward communication through district leaders and NVEA needs to increase so we can hold the district administration accountable. We are consultants in the decision making process, however a lot of the decisions that are being made affect kids and we should have a bigger say. Our member don’t understand that even though we express our interests we as a district has shown more interest in solving problems versus taking more of an antagonistic role. It is a case of building bridges to get things done. As far as communication and accountability, what role can we take or have to ensure everyone is involved? Few people see the big picture. Who needs to know this really well and to have the conversation with the district are the people that are always at the table. Patrick is tone deaf and how quickly district administration forget what it is like to be in the classroom. There needs to be an expectation to have the administrators pop into all classes, not just the chosen ones and be more visible. Tosas are paid out of supplemental funds and need to be working with kids not admin as a way to make administrators jobs easier. An interest would be that we provide district adminstrators our input so district personnel hear the why. We as teachers want the rationale and give us the why as to why we aren’t being listened to.
Next Steps for us as
Meeting adjourned 5:15pm
Absent: Mary Duenow, Vice President, Kristin Pruitt, Director - Elementary School, Steve Savage, CTA
At the school board meeting on 5/4/17, next steps were taken by members of the community for a recall of the school board with a petition being filled with the city. This came about because of the situation involving changing Napa High Schools Mascot from the Indian and the situation with the football program at Napa High School. Gayle called CTA because Patrick wants NVEA to take a stand.
Gayle talked with Jerry Eaton and Steve Savage at CTA. Jerry said it is not beneficial for kids and actually detrimental to recall the school board over the Indian mascot. The impact on students and staff will not be beneficial. We don’t say yes or no on the Indian. If the recall petition goes forward, the county will have to hold a special election which will cost the district money that they don’t have.
Gayle believes the district came forward with “faith” by granting the 3 meetings n regards the financial situation of the district.. Mike feels we should see the district holding the meetings as an expectation. Gqayle watched Julie put the three meetings throughout the school year on the calendar for the 2017-18 school year. Gayle tried to put out information because if she doens’t know what is happening she can’t address it. Ted shared that members at his sight wonder if we/they are suppose to know deeper things about the budget? Gayle knows information about the budget because if she doesn’t know she can’t fight against it or answer questions that are being asked. Gayle spends a lot of time with the numbers as does Mike since they spent a lot of time building the formula. They don’t know everything, however having new eyes and asking questions is good.
NVEA shouldn’t be sitting on the same level as Napa Learns, etc. Gayle is concerned about Napa Learns is that the money they give to the district is the same amount that the district gets from the federal government. Napa Learns likes to fund partially. The message that is being shared fromthe road shows is to start investing in programs that are sustainable. Before a commitment is made make sure you have the resources to manage them.
When the district put in the 7.5% reserve for the budget it was put in because the 7.5% is about a month and a half worth of salaries. When there was deficit spending it was ok to keep it at 3%. Gayle has all of the presentations regarding budget. The reserve started to drop right away because NVEA pushed for people not savings accounts. CTA tells exec board that school boards and districts want huge reserves and CTA advises them not to listen to the numbers that the districts are saying. It was a deficit in that the income that we are getting isn’t covering what we need to run the district. The district isn’t having to go out and borrow money to fund programs. Gayle doesn’t feel there was bad intent.
Vintage represents a really good focus group in regards to having members sitting down and talking about what is goign on with the district. We have to go in with a constructive plan. We see where we are now, what needs to be done and what we need moving forward. Firing Wade and others isn’t necessarily in the districts best interest. We currently have some leverage with district administrators and we need to have conversations and align the meeting. It was suggested that when information is provided at the close of the books and the october meeting with what has happened and where things are the teachers be able to provide input, then in February after the governor has made his first proposal make suggestions and provide input on what to do and respond back on what it is that teachers want.
Three big things at Vintage is 1) teachers feel that teachers aren’t heard, 2) seems like a pattern of mistakes over the last three or four years (ie; sped, napa high issue, etc.) and 3) how can we increase our total compensation. Gayle had a conversation with Wade this morning and Mike shared that we as an Association need to take more of a watchdog role. After all meetings there was a debriefing meeting with Patrick and Wade. Teachers felt that Patrick was lying to them and that in trying to save face he made the situation worse.
It is important that we as members speak up. We have negotiation rights with contracts, money, etc. Teachers are wanting to feel heard. Moving forward communication through district leaders and NVEA needs to increase so we can hold the district administration accountable. We are consultants in the decision making process, however a lot of the decisions that are being made affect kids and we should have a bigger say. Our member don’t understand that even though we express our interests we as a district has shown more interest in solving problems versus taking more of an antagonistic role. It is a case of building bridges to get things done. As far as communication and accountability, what role can we take or have to ensure everyone is involved? Few people see the big picture. Who needs to know this really well and to have the conversation with the district are the people that are always at the table. Patrick is tone deaf and how quickly district administration forget what it is like to be in the classroom. There needs to be an expectation to have the administrators pop into all classes, not just the chosen ones and be more visible. Tosas are paid out of supplemental funds and need to be working with kids not admin as a way to make administrators jobs easier. An interest would be that we provide district adminstrators our input so district personnel hear the why. We as teachers want the rationale and give us the why as to why we aren’t being listened to.
Next Steps for us as
- Request a seat at the table for budget talks
- More bottom up communications about decisions on what teachers want
- Getting admin back to classroom visits to see what teachers are dealing with
- Getting tosa’s to do more classroom stuff that directly helps kids
- More transperancy in the use of site discretionary funds.
- Uniformity of what administrators do and share that information with staff
Meeting adjourned 5:15pm
