Good morning. We hope you had a good week last week and that this week will be even better.
There will be a Boston rally to give one final push for the No On 2 campaign this upcoming Tuesday, November 1 at 6:30 PM at Prince Hall, 24 Washington Street in Dorchester. This promises to be a great event as we rally our Boston supporters to spread the word to Vote No on 2.
Please help our public schools. Wear a button, place a sign, send a postcard, make a phone call. Tell 10 friends and relatives to vote No on 2. Join us for a get out the vote event on November 5.
We have tabling activities, canvassing, visibility opportunities and more. See a list of all activities. You will find an activity you’ll like to do here.
The MA AFL-CIO needs your help to make Save Our Public Schools phone calls to other union households as part of their state-wide labor-to-labor campaign for No on 2! Can you give two hours of your time? Sign up and get plugged in! If there’s a date and time you can help that is not listed, we will make it work for you! See all dates for the Labor-to-Labor Walks.
Last week the School Department alerted some principals that their schools would be among the 50 or so that will be newly participating in what is known as Schedule A for the next school year. Workshops will be scheduled to help people understand Schedule A, which essentially extends the school day for students and teachers for 40 minutes per day. Teachers also receive an additional 35 minutes per week in Planning & Development time, as well as a new block of teacher-directed time that is neither P&D nor PD, but more of a hybrid. School Site Councils also have a new role in a few different aspects of Schedule A.
All of this information will be transmitted to BTU Building Reps at these schools. The Schedule A agreement came about in December of 2014 and has been gradually implemented in each of the last two years, though the schools slated to begin this year were quite minimal as the department couldn’t afford it. Schedule A will include all traditional non-high schools next year. The compensation is $4,460 and is subject to the yearly COLA.
Thank you to all of the Building Reps and members who came out to the conference this weekend! We are proud to say that this year we have a representative in every school building at the start of the school year and that the number of active representatives is growing each year. Early voting of Building Reps in June has certainly made a difference.
If you missed the keynote presentation from dynamic Chicago principal Troy LaRaviere, be sure to watch it online. We were glad to be able to livestream it on the BTU Facebook page this year.
Finally, please see the section below about the perils of investing your hard-earned dollars in a 403b plan (tax-sheltered annuity) with many of those who pitch their products to Boston teachers. You may note a few similarities with your own experiences (e.g., VALIC, AXA) in the report mentioned below in the recent New York Times article.