Dear Members,

You all should have received your WE 2.0 newsletter in the mail today or yesterday.  Inside the newsletter is a petition signature sheet for I-1351, the class size initiative that WEA voted to support and work to get on the ballot at our Representative Assembly earlier this month.  If each of us gets only five signatures and every member across the state does as well, then we will reach the adequate number of signatures to get the initiative on the November ballot.  It’s that easy.

We are setting up a system of getting each of our members a signature sheet, but we have not gotten to everyone yet, so the petition in your WE 2.0 comes at a very opportune time.  This is a valid signature sheet and we ask that you use it to get five or more signatures from family, friends, or neighbors over this weekend.  We didn’t want you to miss this chance when many of you will be celebrating Easter on Sunday and have a very easy opportunity to get five signatures.  If you have any trouble getting them to sign (which you probably won’t) just let them know how crowded your school, your busses, your cafeterias and your classrooms are and how difficult it is to achieve all the goals the state and district require to get kids over the achievement bar with so many kids and so few staff.  Make sure you sign on first.  If you can get 10—all the better.  But with five signatures, you have completed our minimum ask of your time.

The signature form asks you to return this to the Federal Way office.  But we would rather that these forms come back to our local building so that you can get credit for reaching our local goal of signatures. 

So, when you have your five signatures, just hang on to it, keep it safe in your home or car, and bring it with you to your school building on Thursday sometime before or after school or during duty-free lunch at the staff lounge, library or wherever.  It is important that you get the signature sheets back to a building lead so that you can sign yourself into the tracking sheet that will confirm that you have completed the ask for five signatures or if you have not completed the five, whatever number you have.  You will get more sheets soon to continue gathering your full five or more if you like.

Please attach a sticky note to the petition form with your name and building on it so that we can get credit towards the total number of signatures that our local is gathering. Do not write this information directly on the petition sheet.

We cannot talk about this signature gathering campaign on our school e-mail and cannot leave copies of the petition on our desks or where others would see it.  Our signature gathering, like all other political work, must be entirely voluntary and no school resources or time may be used to do it.

We hope you take this great opportunity to get signatures this weekend!  We will have more petitions available when you are finished with this one (or have your five signatures) and look forward to being able to say that our local had 100% participation in moving this to the November ballot and assuring that our students have appropriate class sizes and enough adults in their buildings to have the optimum opportunity for success.

Keep checking your home e-mail regularly for more announcements about this campaign.

Thanks and have a great weekend. 

Lisa Radmer

SVEA President

WEA's National Board Renewal Jump Start is a 1-day training that provides key information to NBCTs who are engaged in the National Board Certification renewal process. This training helps candidates consider their growth and experiences since becoming an NBCT and how to relate this to the renewal process. This training is sponsored by the Lake Washington Education Association.

 
Who can attend: All National Board Certified Teachers within 3 years of renewal
 
Where: Lake Washington EA Office Meeting Room, 10604 NE 38th Pl, #212, Kirkland
 
When: 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Saturday, May 3 (Lunch will be provided)
 

Save your spot and send this form and your check payable to WEA to Sheila Hagerman, c/o LWEA, 10604 NE 38th Pl, #212, Kirkland, WA 98033. Course fee is $50 for WEA members. If space is available, non-members may attend for a fee of $75. Clock hours will  be offered at no additional charge.

Hello SVEA Members,

I hope you will all enjoy a relaxing week next week. Take time to relax and decompress!  As we enter Spring break, I have exciting news to share -

At the WEA Representative Assembly in Spokane today, elected WEA delegates, including Snoqualmie Valley members, deliberated and voted to support a Statewide class-size Initiative championed by Class Size Counts, a broad-based, Statewide coalition of community members, educators and business people who know we need to reduce class size in Washington State. The Initiative is based on a prototypical school staffing model created by education experts. (http://classsizecountswa.com)

With the WEA Representative Assembly vote, we are part of a movement to make smaller class sizes happen.  We know this is best for kids, and, polling shows us that voters support smaller classes and devoting revenue to make that a reality. 

A class size Initiative filed with the State will need voters' signatures to get on the ballot in November. 

The good news is, this is VERY doable.  If every one of us gathers just 8-10 voter signatures before school is out, Snoqualmie Valley educators will have done our part.  Your signature counts, of course, and talking to family, friends and neighbors will get us to 8-10 signatures pretty quickly. And once the word is out, I fully believe that our parent community will be shoulder to shoulder with us on this issue.

You'll hear more from me and SVEA building leaders on how to gather your signatures and when, where and how you should turn them in.

I'm confident SVEA members will do our part in this important effort to get the class size Initiative on the ballot.  In the meantime, if you want to help head up our efforts in your school, please send me an email (on your home computer with your home email address only).  If you'd like to learn more, go to the Class Size Counts or WEA website. 

Imagine not having the 47th worst class sizes in the Nation!

Lisa Radmer

President, Snoqualmie Valley Education Association

lradmer@washingtonea.org

The 2014 WEA Representative Assembly in Spokane is underway. SVEA has 5 members there representing our interests. Follow #WEA14 for updates.

From OurVoice WEA...

Friday morning at WEA’s annual Representative Assembly, nearly 1,000 educators from across Washington voted to support Initiative 1351, the ballot measure that will dramatically reduce class sizes for students in every grade and subject.

Click here to make your commitment to passing I-1351.

The Legislature has failed to make adequate progress toward reducing class sizes, and Washington’s students are packed into classrooms ranked 47th out of 50 states. "That is unacceptable,” said Kim Mead, WEA president. “To give our kids the quality education they deserve, we must invest in smaller class sizes.” Mead said reducing class sizes and caseloads is the most effective way to improve learning and student performance.

Getting I-1351 on the ballot will take work. Supporters — that’s us – need to collect 350,000 voter signatures by July 3. Click here to make your personal commitment to passing I-1351.

Once it qualifies, I-1351 will be on the Nov. 4 ballot. Class Size Counts, a community organization, is the initiative sponsor. The initiative reduces class sizes for all grades. For example, I-1351 would fund class sizes of 17 students per class in K-3, and 15 per class in high-poverty schools. The initiative would also will reduce caseloads by funding additional education staff associates such as counselors and nurses, plus additional classified educators such as office assistants, custodians and paraprofessionals.

I-1351 petitions will be available at WEA regional UniServ offices beginning next week, and they will be mailed in the April issue of we 2.0.

Whatever your feelings about the Common Core State Standards, our state representative's Facebook comment on the topic definitely reveals his feelings about teachers and SVEA. Take a look...

Rep. Magendanz also asked 5th District constituents to email him about what to fund in our schools.

However, materials, class size, and teacher salaries are all basic needs. Pitting one necessity against another is no way for our Legislature to function. Our Supreme Court ruled that the Legislature must follow through with its constitutional duty to fully fund education - including teacher salaries.

Please email Rep. Magendanz and tell him not to pick and choose which elements of our public schools to fund. Our kids deserve sufficient materials, small class sizes, and fairly compensated teachers.

Our class size, planning time, and compensation issues go beyond SVSD. WA schools are underfunded. For real changes to the issues that impact teachers and students, we need to work with our state representatives to improve school funding.

Find out more. Read a guest column by Bill Keim, executive director of the Washington Association of School Administrators, in The Seattle Times here.

Secretaries are still working to get a fair contract that provides students with a trained adult in the health room when the school nurse is away. Meanwhile, the District is putting out updates that are less than the whole truth. Sound familiar?

Check out the whole story at Living Snoqualmie.