From OSPI:

April 29 — The Joint Select Committee on Article IX Litigation today released its plan to meet McCleary v. Washington, the 2012 state Supreme Court decision holding that the state isn’t adequately funding basic education. Below is State Superintendent Randy Dorn’s response to the plan.

In January, the Supreme Court bluntly wrote that the state “cannot realistically claim to have made significant progress” in addressing basic education funding. It ordered the Legislature to produce a complete plan by April 30.

The 58-page document released today says very little, and is far from complete. It isn’t even a plan. It reads like a small history lesson. It includes a list of bills that “are meaningful because they show significant work is occurring.”

The problem is that “none of these bills passed the Legislature.”

The document concludes with the plea that the Court “recognize that 2015 is the next and most critical year for the Legislature to reach the grand agreement needed to meet the state's Article IX duty by the statutorily scheduled full implementation date of 2018.”

In other words, Wait until tomorrow.

But I have to ask: Will tomorrow ever come?

The Legislature isn’t going to take its responsibility seriously unless the Court forces it to do so.

The 2018 deadline was created and passed by the Legislature. The required education funding levels were adopted by the Legislature.

I urge the Court to do what it can to keep the Legislature’s feet to the fire, and keep the promises they’ve made to our students.

Find the complete report here.

Class Size Counts-

When this initiative passes in the fall, the legislature has to fund it for the first two years before they can set it aside.   That will give the Supreme Court ruling time also.  We need to get it on the ballot first.  The last time we did this, the community supported it whole-heartedly.  Remember I-728?   This initiative also demands more staff in the way of counselors, librarians, nurses, classroom aides etc.  I collected 260 signatures from SVEA members last Thursday.   Congratulations to SES who turned in 103.  This is a great job for our first week.  The goal for SVEA is 1619 signatures. That is about 5 per member.    Please make sure to ask your friends and family to sign.   Remember to sign the back of your petition before giving it to your building reps. on Wednesday or Thursday morning.   Remember that this has to be done before and after your work day or during your lunch.  

WEA/NEA PAC-

If you are not a member of WEA/PAC or NEA/PAC, please sign up.  Without donations of 2.25 per month for WEAPAC and1.00 per month for NEAPAC, these entities have a really difficult time advocating for teachers and students with political powers that be.   Contact your building rep. during non-work time, if you are not sure of your membership.   Don’t use email to do this.

SVEA Survey

Look for a SVEA survey in your home email in the next week.  WEA is helping us collect information about topics such as workload, stress levels, district expectations, building administration, hours spent out of school that you work on school work, and TPEP.    Please be open, honest , answer the demographic questions and fill in any further comments, if there is something else we need to know.   The goal of the SVEA leadership and the district is to open communication and deal with issues as they arise – not waiting until the next bargaining cycle.  You are a crucial voice in that conversation.

District Bond Survey

The district will soon be giving parents, staff, and community a chance to voice their opinions on what will be needed on this next bond.   They need to know if there is support for a new elementary school and a remodeled high school, or what specific part of the plan you would support.   Here is another opportunityto have your voice heard.  Please take the time to express your opinion.

General Membership Meeting  

Mark your calendars for our next Gen. Membership meeting, May 29th at 4:30 at the High School Auditorium.   We will voting on a dues increase, an updated Constitution and By-laws, hearing about the survey results and what the SVEA has accomplished this school year.

We have just received word, that as expected, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is rescinding Washington state's waiver to the ESEA (No Child Left Behind) requirements because our state refused to mandate the use of state standardized tests as part of our teacher evaluation program. I remain proud of WEA and the efforts many of our members put into this issue during the legislative session.

I believe the Washington Legislature did the right thing in rejecting Duncan's inflexible demands that would have done nothing to help Washington's students or their teachers. Instead of fixing a broken federal law, Duncan tried to impose bad policy on our schools. Washington legislators, with your help, stopped him.

We have a nationally recognized teacher evaluation system that is driven by the needs of our students. I commend and thank you for your continuing hard work to implement this rigorous new system which increases accountability and uses student growth data to strengthen your teaching and your students' learning. Isn't that what matters?

Contrary to what has been reported, Washington will not lose federal funding for students in low-income schools. In reality, school districts will temporarily lose some flexibility on how they spend that money. The letter from Duncan to Randy Dorn, OSPI chief, makes this clear: local districts in "Washington must once again set aside 20 percent of their Title 1 funds for public school choice and supplemental educational serves rather than having the flexibility to use those funds for other activities."

Our teachers, students and public schools in Washington are strong, as recognized by Duncan and Dorn:

• In November, Duncan praised Washington students for their performance and progress on national tests, saying he was "extraordinarily proud" of our students' "remarkable progress" and their "improvement in every category."
• Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn said, "Our students' high performance … caught the attention of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. He called me, personally, to congratulate our hardworking teachers and principals on a job well done," and, "We also beat the national average in SAT scores. And ACT scores. We must celebrate this success and acknowledge the good work being done in our schools."
• On April 16, Dorn recognized more than 410 schools for their academic success as determined by the ESEA waiver Duncan just rescinded. "These awards represent some of the best," Dorn said. "It's an honor to recognize them and celebrate their success."
• Washington's most needy schools (recipients of federal School Improvement Grants, or SIG) collectively outperformed the 1,400 SIG schools across the nation.

As I consider Secretary Duncan's decision, I can only conclude rescinding the waiver is a failure of federal policy, not of our public schools, students or teachers. If we really want to do what is right by our students, we need to meet our constitutional responsibility to fund K-12 public education in Washington state.  

Thank your for your continued dedication on behalf of our students.

Kim Mead, WEA president

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

[email protected]

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.