RGNEA Blog- Where you can interact with your Local.

Get involved!

2008-02-22T11:34:00.001-06:00

RGNEA Members,

I've been asked to forward this information below to the membership from the superintendents office. They are looking for members to serve on various district level committees. I encourage the membership to be involved in these committees as it gives the members a voice in the way the district is running. The original email came from Dr. White's office. Please respond to Dr. White and I as I want to keep make sure we have involvement of the association in each committee.

Thanks for your help.

Richard Thies
RGNEA President

2008-01-16T18:37:00.000-06:00

RGNEA Members,

At tonight's board meeting, there was a bit of "lobbying" in the patron participation session that created enough awareness of the extended year issue that the board voted tonight not to act upon the proposal until they have heard the facts from all sides. It has been tabled until the next board meeting. The board will meet in special session next Tuesday to vote on the issue. That has bought us some time to deal with the issue in discussions.

Certainly, your executive team will be talking about this issue with them. Now is the time FOR YOU to lobby your board members with emails. Let your opinions know to these board members. Hollis and Irby went to bat for us tonight with inquiring questions. The four board members present (Pierson, Oswald, Irby and Hollis) ALL voted to table the matter until further discussion. Now we need your help to further the effort.

Thanks to ALL that came to the meeting tonight in a show of support. We DO have an impact on the board when we show up in mass for the benefit of all of our members. It is making those board members accountable as well.

We'll talk in more detail at the RGNEA Building Representative Meeting tomorrow (Wednesday) at the Corner Coffee House at 4:15. We will have in attendance at this meeting the Vice President of the MNEA, Charles Smith and we will share our thoughts on this subject as well as other items with him. Every RGNEA member is invited to come.

Remember, we together are the RGNEA. Tonight shows we DO make a difference.

Richard Thies
RGNEA President
518-4305

Building Rep. Meeting

2007-12-08T16:58:00.001-06:00

RGNEA Members,
This is a reminder that our RGNEA Monthly Meeting will take place this Wednesday, December 12, 2007 at the Corner Coffee House, 100 S. Florissant Road in Ferguson, Missouri with the business meeting starting at or shortly after 4:15p.m.It is extremely important that every building bring multiple people to this meeting. Why? Because RG's co-superintendents will be the honored guests and they believe the issues that we bring to them are just coming from a few of us. Our administration has been telling everyone that this district is running smoothly and there are no major issues among the staff. Do you AGREE with that? We've been telling them these are the entire membership's issues. Your executive officers and negotiation team continue fighting for our membership every week over the issues that you have brought to us. Now is the time for the membership to step forward and show this administration this is not just a "small group of rebellious members" trying to create some conflict in the district. These issues are real. These issues include planning time, pay freezes, administrative/C.O. staff raises, discipline, communication, morale, substitutes, increased work load, class size, curriculum, professionalism, reduction in teaching staff, excess of C.O. staff, consultants, DESE mandates and many more issues, but unless the membership steps forward this Wednesday, it sends a message to this administration that we DO NOT CARE about these issues. The message to the administration is THEY can dictate the direction they take us. It will also send a clear message to your hard working RGNEA board that the time they spend is not worth the trouble. Your team will not step up and continue spending hours each week to this fight these issues we continually face without the membership standing behind us. The RGNEA team already is fighting an uphill battle because the financial meeting last week had less than a dozen teaching staff in attendance. The message sent was "teachers don't care about a freeze in salary or what the financial situation is in the district. The teachers are content with the way things are." I don't believe that is the message the membership wants to send, but that was the perception the administration received. The freedom to speak openly is one thing that is much improved. The superintendents WILL listen to us. We need to insist they start acting upon these issues. Let me remind you that the RGNEA leaders are a group of your peers that stick their neck out and fight these issues for the sake of all of us. These RGNEA leaders that serve you do not get a single cent for the time they spend. They negotiate, they are there to fight for your rights, and attend all of the important meetings to make sure our point of view is heard loud and clear. The NEA is an organization of locals with members that govern and run themselves. Certainly we pay our dues to the MNEA and NEA and expect to be supported when things are beyond our means of handling situations ourselves. Gilbert, our UniServ Director, spends an excessive amount of time in Riverview even though he has several other districts he serves. He always makes sure our needs are met. Our local spends many hours to get small gains. Believe me when I say that many of our the smaller problems are fought and resolved without the membership even knowing. Let me remind of the past couple of years when the MNEA stepped forward to back us in a lawsuit over contract issues. I'll also remind you of the hours of time your local RGNEA officers and members gave voluntarily to create an awareness to the community and leaders in the state of Missouri that ultimately led to elimination of the personnel and corruption of the last administration and remind you of the hours we spent to seat RGNEA supported board candidates to the positions they hold today. That is not all by accident. Many devoted hours by many devoted people through all levels of the NEA made that happen. So now we need your support again. The direction of the district is different than what we desire. Please make it a point to put this event on your schedule to attend the Wednesday meeting. Let's get the word out to all of the membership in your building about the importance of this meeting. A minimum of 60 minutes on Wednesday is all the time we ask so you can listen and discuss these issues with the superintendents and share why these issues are important to us. We need to tell them we insist on changes in the way things are done and change the way the staff is treated. Let's share with them how these issues do affect student achievement.Let's be there in force at 4:15 and make our position known as a group. The freedom to speak openly is one thing that is much improved. The superintendents WILL listen to us. No more retaliation. We just need them to start acting upon these issues. We are in this together. Let's let our voice be heard.Thanks for your support. See you on Wednesday. Any last minute updates or cancellation due to superintendent cancellation or by weather will be posted on the RGNEA homepage and/or in your email by Wednesday afternoon.
Richard Thies
RGNEA President
314-518-4305

Negotiations Update

2007-11-15T19:21:00.000-06:00

Negotiation Update
Negotiations have resumed, this time with the assistance of federal mediators at no additional cost to the district. Ground rules were established & it was agreed to meet on Mondays from 5:00-9:00ish. To preserve the integrity of the process, it was strongly suggested by the mediators that observers not be present at the actual sessions. This was agreed upon, though it was also determined that general information would be shared with membership without imposed restrictions. Also, there will be no video taping of sessions.

Next Monday, the issue will be planning time. Please email your issues on this topic to jfogerson@k12.mo.us

Meeting minutes

2007-10-25T19:46:00.000-05:00

In the important dates section of the site you are now able to click on the dates of meetings to be taken to the minutes of that meeting. It is available for Building rep. and board meetings.

Building Rep. Meeting rescheduled

2007-10-19T19:19:00.000-05:00

The building rep. meeting has been rescheduled for Wednesday, October 24. Same time and place as usual. Please pass the word.

Important Info

2007-10-16T21:21:00.000-05:00

The building rep. meeting scheduled for 10/17/07 has been canceled. We are trying to reschedule it for next Wednesday, 10/24/07. More information will follow.

Update

2007-10-03T18:53:00.001-05:00

RGNEA Members,
(this update is also available on the "President's Page" on the main site)

As we strive to get the administration to come back to the table to
continue the negotiations with us, it will be very important to the
negotiation team for you to show us the documentation for how much
time has been already used in your "Monday (now anyday) Meetings".
Building Representatives, please send me a list of the dates and the
length of time of the meeting as we need the time totals up to now.
Have someone you trust in the building keep track of the date of all
meetings and the length of time for all of the past and future
meetings and then let me know when we hit the 15-16 hour mark.

Negotiations still remain stalled although Gilbert, Theresa and I had
a two hour meeting last week with the superintendents in an attempt to
push them toward returning to the table and resolving some of the
issues. They still insist on training for the administration team. A
bit of forward progress was made in the PD portion of the package on
the table. My concern is that we, in good faith, allowed the
administration to move forward on the PD plan with the agreement that
the time spent would be a part of the agreement in the end. Some
buildings have used up to 15-25% of the 18 hours and now I hear the
administration is telling teachers that the time put in this year on
PD may not be applied to the 18 hours. If that information verifies,
that move would put a big dent in the negotiations as again we would
have been told one thing and had the administration do something else.
So basically, we still are not close enough on terms to settle the PD
or any other issue. Your negotiation team still is fighting the
battle.

Richard Thies
RGNEA President

Payroll Deductions

2007-10-01T17:55:00.000-05:00

RGNEA dues will begin the deduction period with the October 5th paycheck. If there are any discrepancies, then contact Lisa Vitale at x4893 or Theresa Beck at x4466. All payroll deduction forms submitted after September 24, will not begin their deduction period until the October 20th paycheck.

Professional Development Proposal

2007-09-10T20:12:00.000-05:00

RGNEA Membership,
The RGNEA negotiation team has been made an offer on the Monday Professional Development Issue. We are bringing it back for the approval or denial of our membership. The proposed agreement is as follows:
------------------
The number of Professional Development meetings during non-contractual time will be 18. (That number is down from 23 meetings that was last approved by the Board of Education)
The length of time of each meeting can be a maximum of 60 minutes.(The amount of time is down from 90 minutes)
The meeting time begins no later than 30 minutes after the school dismissal time.
The Professional Development does not need to necessarily be on Monday, but could be on other days.
The Building Level Professional Development Committee will approve all PD activities for the building and monitor each activity.
As per the PD agreement already in place from past years, all mandatory meetings shall be advertised 3 days prior to the event.
There will be evaluation forms distributed by the building PDC and turned back into the PDC after the completion of the form.
In addition, the administration will decrease the contracted time required for the teacher by 15 minutes each day from the acceptance of this agreement to the end of the year. This means that a schedule will need to be made at the building level to allow every teacher to shorten the required work time by 15 minutes allowing every teacher to come to work later or leave work earlier. This time would be during the current required 30 minutes before the school start time or the required 30 minutes after school dismissal time. The 15 minutes could be given at the beginning of the day (arrive 15 minutes before the school start time instead of 30 minutes) or at the end of the day(allowing teachers to leave 15 minutes after dismissal time) or workout a combination of minutes before and after school which add up to 15 minutes. These 15 minutes will not effect student educational time, just potentially the teacher duty schedule. For those teachers that are currently required to serve duty during these times, the liability of scheduling and covering those duties falls on the administration in the building to cover any time that goes beyond the new, adjusted, time requirements in place for the teacher. Certainly, adjusting times should be a collaborative effort between the teacher and administrator, but the principal has the ability to place the teacher's 15 minutes leave time before or after school where it will least affect student coverage needs.
-----------------------------
Your negotiation team has worked extremely hard to work out a compromise. In previous negotiation sessions, we have asked for a reduction to 10 Professional Development meetings per year. We have not budged on that number until this new proposal has been offered.We know even 10 would be more than any other district requiring teachers to work on non-contracted time. Are we satisfied? We think this may be all we can get on this issue for this school year. I know this is not what we wanted, but it is a slight movement in the issue which we have not had in previous years. This plan has its flaws. Many teachers respect their principals and don't want to put the building principal in a spot to decrease the coverage of building duties while the students are there. Remember, this is an administrative proposal that we are bringing back. This proposal is setting a framework for the few administrators that abuse the teacher's rights when it comes to duties and the PD piece. What you currently have in place in your building may not even be affected by this.So, your approval of this proposal would mean a cut of 15 minutes per day from your schedule over an estimated 140-160 work days. That adds up to 2100 minutes or more over the rest of the school year. We would now be involved in professional development for 18 meetings at 60 minutes and that adds up to a maximum of 1080 minutes. So the compromise does give us back more non-contractual time to the teachers in return for the Quality Professional Development at the 18 scheduled meetings. If this is approved, the Professional Development activities WILL now go through the Professional Development Committee in the building. The principal is a member of that committee, but does not hold a voting chair on the committee. All future PD activities must be approved by this committee. Hopefully your building has elected members to the building level Professional Development Committee that will represent the entire staff and the PD needs when building PD is suggested. The building level PDC will have the ability to turn down PD activities that are not quality activities for the entire staff or for selected groups of staff members. It should be your peers voting on the PD activities instead of the administrator dictating what PD should take place. A principal dictating what PD takes place will now be at an end. Teachers will no longer be expected to sit through Professional Development that does not pertain to their subject or needs. If the subject is reading, the P.E. teacher will not be required to sit through it just so the administration can say they had PD training. The secretary of the PDC committee is charged with recording the number of meeting days and the time of the meeting. There should also be a PDC group grievance for every PD meeting held that was not approved by this committee or does not conform to the rules set up by this agreement. As usual, if there are any problems in regard to the administration in following the agreement, we will be there for you. Contact Gilbert or I to initiate any grievance for your building. We'll keep you informed and ask you to stand behind what your negotiation team is accomplishing for the membership. We, as your negotiation team, are recommending the acceptance of this agreement on the Professional Development portion of the contract. We GUARANTEE when we go back to the negotiation table in January for the next contract year, our goal is to get most of the Professional Development placed on Professional Development Days on contractual days and less of the after school, non-contractual meeting times. I hope I have cleared up every question you may have in regard to the proposal and the effects of the proposal on our job for now and in the future. If there are any further questions, feel free to call me or talk to any of the negotiation committee. Their names are included below.
Your current negotiation team is:
David Jennerjohn - Negotiation Chair (Meadows)
Theresa Beck - Lead Facilitator (Meadows)
Jennifer Joachimstaler - Secretary (Glasgow)
Matt Williams (Highland)
Joda Fogerson (Lemasters)
Alice Webb (High School)
Richard Thies (Highland, Lewis & Clark, Gibson)
Gilbert Balderrama (MNEA UniServ Director)

Thanks again for your continued support.
Richard Thies
RGNEA President

Membership Info

2007-09-04T23:12:00.000-05:00

Attention Members and Building Reps.

Lisa Vitale needs your membership information as soon as possible. If you haven't gotten your membership information signed and turned into your building representative, please do so immediately. If you haven't received your membership information yet, check with
your building rep. today. Building Reps. as soon as you have all of your info please get it to Lisa. It is all due to the MNEA office for processing by the end of the week. Lisa is working under that MNEA office deadline and she needs time to compile that information before delivering.

Hope everyone had a relaxing holiday.
>

Negotiations Update

2007-08-25T23:45:00.000-05:00

Negotiation Update

RGNEA Members,
We met again last Monday, August 20th and discussed making changes to the ground rules. The number of copies of the video taped recording of the sessions was the primary focus Monday and after 90 minutes of discussion, the issue remained unresolved. This was a surprise to us, as we were expecting to continue negotiating the Monday Meeting/ Professional Development issue. The administration team indicated at this session on Monday that they would no longer be interested in negotiations due to the teacher's team not moving enough to meet the administration's one option proposal. After conferring with the administration on Friday, August 24th, the administration team has agreed to return to the table this Monday to continue working toward an agreement on the Monday Meeting/ PD situation. It has been agreed that after this meeting, whether we find compromise or not, negotiations will be postponed until the administration team attends bargaining training on the Meet and Confer format. Hopefully, this will resolve the administration's stone-walling tactics that have been used thus far. The invitation for training has also been extended to the teachers' team. Some of our team has already agreed to attend these training sessions.

The next negotiation session is this Monday August 27. I want to extend the invitation to all of the membership to attend. Your attendance shows the unity of our association. Remember, our association is only as strong as our members. Your negotiation team is representing you
and your views. Please come and hear what is being fought for.

After 4 negotiation sessions, at 90 minutes each, no agreements have been reached. The administration team has taken a, seemingly, unmovable stand on both the Monday Meeting issue and clarifications of the ground rules. Hopefully, the training will open the lines of communication to help the administrative and teacher teams come together and reach a resolution to the issues. I am TRYING to keep a positive attitude.

If you have any questions, feel free to call.

Richard Thies
RGNEA President
314-518-4305

Negotiations Update

2007-08-21T21:31:00.000-05:00

Thank you to those who came to Monday's negotiation session! Hopefully something positive will come out of it. To those of you who were unable to attend, we were unable to discuss the "Monday Meeting" issue due to the administration raising a groundrule issue that had to be resolved, involving the videorecording of the session. You may say, "That certainly couldn't have taken 90 minutes!", but you would be incorrect. We are confident that both of these issues will be resolved to our satisfaction, but only time will tell. We will again be asking our membership to make its presence felt at some of the upcoming sessions. The turnout was decent, but we must do better. We know that we are asking a lot by requesting your attendance, but it is necessary to show the solidarity of our membership so that we cannot be accused of representing our own individual desires.
We will be posting more specific information about the last session once the 72 hour "gag" on written distribution of the meeting contents has expired. In the mean time try to talk to a member who did attend if you are interested.

Problems with the poll

2007-08-19T15:05:00.000-05:00

I have heard that several people are having problems voting, or seeing the new poll question. So I am going to put the question here. If you can't vote please email Rich: rthies@rgsd.k12.mo.us, and let him know. Hope everyone is having a relaxing weekend, good luck on your first day tomorrow.

A Call to the Membership

2007-08-18T09:10:00.000-05:00

We need a huge showing at our negotiation session on Monday, August 20th as we struggle again with the issue of Monday Meetings. We need to show this administration we want change on this issue. Without the member support Monday, your negotiation team will give up the fight for this issue. A lack of attendance sends a message to the administration, and us, that the membership doesn't care about this issue. We can not fight a battle like this without member support. Pass along this message after you read it and get as many teachers as you can to come support us at the negotiation session on Monday. Administration says this is an issue that only a few members care about. I'd like 100+ members in the board room on Monday that feel the past practice of large amounts of PD on Mondays is too much. We need a large member showing to drive the point home. You don't need to stay the entire time. Just show up for a short time. 10 members showing up won't do it. If you want change, be there. Here is the information for the Negotiation Session on Monday:

August 20, 2007
Central Office Board Room
5:00 - 6:30p.m.
Subject: Monday Meetings and maybe Money Issues

The administration's minimum at this point is 18 Building Business / Professional Development meetings per year at 60 minutes each. That totals to 1080 minutes (18 hours) of non-contractual time.

Your RGNEA negotiation team has set the maximum at 8 Building Business meetings per year at 45 minutes each and 4 Professional Development meetings per year at 60 minutes each. We've also allowed flexibility to give the principal the option of using the allotted minutes in whatever way they chose. Shorter meetings, more days or longer meetings, less days. This option is not to exceed the maximum time of 600 minutes (10 hours) per year of non-contractual time.

At this point, I am aware of Gibson and Danforth having their Open House on this day. Unfortunately, this puts more pressure on the other buildings to cover for the negotiations. Keep informed by checking this web page for any changes made by the adminitration the last minute. There could be a cancellation due to unknown school factors like the air conditioning or the excuse of just being the first day of school. Otherwise, we'll see you there Monday.

Richard Thies
RGNEA President

Two announcements

2007-08-15T15:39:00.000-05:00

RGSD Closed:
The Riverview Gardens School District will be closed to students on Thursday and Friday, August 16 and 17, 2007. This decision was made due to hot temperatures and several building air conditioning systems not functioning, or running at less than 100%.

Dr. Williams' Hearing:
Dr. Williams' hearing takes place at the County Courthouse in Clayton, MO. at 9:00am on Thursday, August 16, 2007. Because of RG classes being canceled, this could allow teachers to attend this hearing. Any interest?

Negotiations

2007-08-12T20:25:00.000-05:00

Attention RGNEA members, tomorrow, August 13, 2007 your negotiation team will again be meeting with the district to discuss our issues. You are encouraged to attend and listen to the discussion. The more active our membership becomes, the stronger we are as an organization. We hope to see you there, and remember to email Joda about your thoughts on planning time.

Planning Time

2007-08-09T20:01:00.000-05:00

In an effort to fully represent our membership's concern in the contract negotiations, I am asking for your input concerning planning time. Specifically, what are your concerns & the reasons behind them, as well as reasonable suggestions. Please email me with your responses so that we will be better prepared to represent all members. My email is "jfogerson@rgsd.k12.mo.us." Thanks!
Joda FogersonRGNEA Secretary

2007-08-07T19:51:00.000-05:00

Ok, a slight change from last night's post. I will not be posting a new poll yet, but I am going to post the options that we are considering concerning "Monday Meetings." Your building rep. should be talking to you about this in the next day or so, but I wanted those of you keeping up with the blog to be aware of what is coming.

Option A
There will be no more than . . .
-2 building needs/staff meetings per MONTH maximum
-each lasting no longer than 45 minutes
-held on Mondays only
-beginning no later than 15 minutes after the official student dismissal time
-to address building concerns
AND
-1 meeting per QUARTER for professional development
-lasting no more than 60 minutes
-chosen w/ teacher input in conjunction with the building level PDC

Option A - Summary of the Time (non-contractual hours)
16 staff meetings per year x 45 minutes = 720
4 quarterly PD meetings per year x 60 minutes = 240
TOTAL 960 min/60 min. = 16 non-contractual hours
16 x $25/hour = $400.00/teacher compensation that is not paid.
___________________________

Option B There will be no more than . . .
-2 building needs/staff meetings per QUARTER maximum.
-each lasting no longer than 45 minutes
-held on Mondays only
-beginning no later than 15 minutes after the official studentdismissal time
-to address building concerns
And
-1 meeting per QUARTER for professional development
-lasting no more than 60 minutes
-chosen w/ teacher input in conjunction with the building level PDC

Option B - Summary of the Time (non-contractual hours)
8 staff meetings x 45 minutes = 360
4 quarterly PD meetings x 60 minutes = 240
TOTAL 600 min/60 min. = 10 non-contractual hours
10 x $25/hour = $250.00/teacher compensation that is not paid.

Negotiations Update

2007-08-06T20:11:00.000-05:00

Hopefully everyone had a pleasant first day back! On this first day back from summer break, your RGNEA Negotiation Team met again with the District Negotiation Team. There was a lengthy discussion concerning "Monday Meetings." After this meeting, two options for a resolution were devised. We want your input as to which one we will propose. Your building rep. will have these proposals soon. They will also be posted on the website, replacing the original poll, within the next 24 hours.

Welcome

2007-08-03T07:58:00.000-05:00

Thanks for checking out the new RGNEA Blog! We are very excited to be up and running. We will be posting a lot of information here, so make sure to check it out regularly. Also, please let us know what you think. We want to make this site and the homepage as functional for you as we can, so we need to know what you want to see. Post it as a comment to this post or send me an email mawilliams@rgsd.k12.mo.us

Negotiations Update

2007-07-30T20:26:00.000-05:00

Your RGNEA Negotiation team met with the district's negotiating team on Monday, July 30. Items discussed at the first session included setting of the ground rules that will be used during negotiations, sharing of names for the teacher and administration negotiating teams and the presentation of teacher issues. These issues were generated from you, the members voicing your concerns. There were no administration issues shared. Things are moving forward. A schedule of the negotiation sessions is availabe in the Important Dates section of the website. All members are encouraged to attend the negotiation sessions. You won't be able to participate, but your presence sends the message that we are standing together and intend to take this district where it needs to go. We will be posting information here to keep you informed of our progress.