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Please note: The next membership meeting will be held on Wednesday, November 18 because of the Veteran’s Day holiday. There will be a meeting for all SPCs this Thursday at 4:30 at the BTU. There will be a meeting about high school redesign in Boston on Thursday, November 19 from 6-8 PM, at the BTU. At this event, hosted by the BTU and facilitated by BPS Superintendent Dr. Tommy Chang and City Chief of Education Turahn Dorsey, BTU members will participate in design-thinking workshops to contribute their professional perspective on high schools of the future.
In last week’s ebulletin, we mentioned that if and when a school administrator “breaks up” a class and distributes students to cover for a missing substitute, the teachers who cover may be owed compensation. In the explanation, we used the calculation cited from the 1980 arbitration, which was $36.56. The updated calculation is $141.52. So what does this mean? First of all, many administrators routinely break up classes instead of calling for substitutes because it saves them money. Certainly, schools need more resources, and it’s always good to save where one can, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of loading up “receiving” classes, which helps no one. The arbitration cited, which can compensate individuals up to $141.52 in the aggregate, is meant to be a deterrent to this practice. Eligible teachers who lose a Planning and Development period because they have to cover for a missing substitute are also entitled to collect compensation. Read more. If an administrator calls for a substitute teacher and none is available, the teachers are still, if eligible, entitled to collect compensation. Last week we also mentioned that the Boston Collegiate Charter School was using school funds — school stationery, email, and transportation — to garner support for the pro-charter rally upcoming.See here. The use of public resources to promote a political or legislative issue is prohibited under Massachusetts law. We have now received word (see here) that the Renaissance Charter School is doing the same. It seems that each Commonwealth Charter has been assigned a goal of providing 125 parents, students, and supporters to attend the rally. Why are the charters working so hard to garner support? At issue is a potential change in the charter law, which currently calls for a cap on charter growth. The “cap” issue is before the Legislature and may soon be the subject of a citizens’ initiative petition. Commonwealth charters currently drain more than $121 million from the Boston Public Schools budget — that’s more than $2,100 lost for each BPS student this year. |