And ANOTHER school calendar change

On Mon, 17 Nov 2003, Rosalie B. wrote:

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"JennP" wrote:

"dragonlady" wrote in message
...
In article kU4tb.148962$9E1.751296@attbi_s52,

The point is that the change in schedule was the RESULT of negotiations
with the union. Individual teachers might not be happy with the change,
but the union negotiations were just completed and the union (with an
affirmattive vote of its members) approvved the contract with the new
calendar. There would be no wrong doing on the part of the school,
which is merely complying with their (new) union contract, and therefor
no basis upon which to file a grievance.

Two points - a) not all teachers belong to the union - at least IME.
That means that not all of them - maybe even a majority of them did
NOT vote on the contract. For one thing - to belong to the union, you
have to pay dues and some teachers don't feel that they have the extra
money for that or even be anti-union.

b) Also IME, the union does the best it can to negotiate with the
school board which may not (probably does not) have the teacher's
interests at heart. Especially if the teachers have gone without a
contract and negotiations have dragged on so long (since teachers are
not permitted to strike like other unions-the most they can do is work
to rule),

Teachers can't strike in right to work statess but in other states
they can strike. In my previous state, where union dues were mandatory,
we could strike. In my current state where dues are optional, we cannot
strike.

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"JennP" wrote:


"Rosalie B." wrote in message
Two points - a) not all teachers belong to the union - at least IME.
That means that not all of them - maybe even a majority of them did
NOT vote on the contract. For one thing - to belong to the union, you
have to pay dues and some teachers don't feel that they have the extra
money for that or even be anti-union.

Not in my district, and I know my mother's (in a different state) too.You do
have to pay dues and it was very expensive. Several hundered dollars/year,
IIRC. Definitly *not* an option.

I think Maryland (which is where I was) is a 'right to work' state
where it is NOT required to belong to a union. This is one of the
differences that there are from state to state.

grandma Rosalie

In article ,
Rosalie B. wrote:

(since teachers are
not permitted to strike like other unions-the most they can do is work
to rule)

Pardon? They're not PERMITTED to strike??? How on earth did that come about?

Let's just say that the NSW Teachers' Federation is one of our more
high-profile unions, so I am having trouble processing the concept above.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Jeez; if only those Ancient Greek storytellers had known about the astonishing
creature that is the *Usenet hydra*: you cut off one head, and *a stupider one*
grows back..." -- MJ, cam.misc

In article ,
"Donna Metler" wrote:

Actually, that's one of the biggest problems in my inner city school. Our
attendance rate is great, but we have a substantial number of parents who
bring their children in an hour or more late on a daily basis. My first
period class usually is missing at least 2-3 students, who will end up
coming in either part way through the period, or during second or maybe
third.

Similarly, some of the parents start picking students up as much as an hour
early. In some cases, these are the same children.

Any idea why they do it?

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Jeez; if only those Ancient Greek storytellers had known about the astonishing
creature that is the *Usenet hydra*: you cut off one head, and *a stupider one*
grows back..." -- MJ, cam.misc

Chookie wrote:

Pardon? They're not PERMITTED to strike??? How on earth did that come
about?


Here in CT the teachers unions are not permitted to strike. They have a
binding arbitration agreement, and in case of a contract dispute that can't
be settled thru negotiation, a panel of mediators intervenes. The union
puts forth its demands, the board of education puts forth its offers (pay,
time off, benefits, etc) and the mediator decides what the contract will be
and both sides MUST accept whatever the mediators say. No strikes ever.

"Welches" wrote in message
...
Do all of the parents in the district have email connections?
Is this how they normally communicate such things?

Actually, sending out emails to parents like this (in addition to more
traditional means like paper letters) is a great thing. Parents learn
about
these things sooner. And even if they don't have email, other parents
will
tell them about the changes before they can get letters from the school.

In addition, many schools have web pages with schedule changes, etc., on
them.

In addition, many times, there is some reason why the change -- missed
school days because of a power failure or water outage or big snow storm
(though not this early).

And it'd be great to send an email out telling local parents there was a
power cut so the school was cancelled. (surprise-no one got it!) ;-)

The power outage might be because of a because the power line going to the
school got cut and only the school was affected. That actually happened to
my school when I was in kindergarten. One of the kids was in the bathroom
and was there for about 10 minutes until they found him.

And people have backup generators and laptops with batteries.
Debbie

"Bruce and Jeanne" wrote in message
...
Welches wrote:

Do all of the parents in the district have email connections?
Is this how they normally communicate such things?

Actually, sending out emails to parents like this (in addition to more
traditional means like paper letters) is a great thing. Parents learn
about
these things sooner. And even if they don't have email, other parents
will
tell them about the changes before they can get letters from the
school.

In addition, many schools have web pages with schedule changes, etc.,
on
them.

In addition, many times, there is some reason why the change -- missed
school days because of a power failure or water outage or big snow
storm
(though not this early).

And it'd be great to send an email out telling local parents there was a
power cut so the school was cancelled. (surprise-no one got it!) ;-)
Debbie


That *may* be nice for today - no school today - the wind blew down the
power and phone lines to school. But who checks their email at 7:00 in
the morning? (never mind, I suppose everyone here does )

If 1% of the people do, and call two or three other people, there is a fair
number of people who get the message. Certainly worth the effort. However,
no one suggested that email be the only or main method of getting the
message out. And the original message was about a school closing a few days
later. And the email can also be used to notify radio stations that the
school is closed so they can get the message out to more people.

Jeff
Jeanne