I want to thank everyone who came to the rally! We had 2 new stations there, channel 4 and 5.
Mary Lindquist (President of WEA) came by to support us and say some encouraging words.
We have a video on www.Washingtonea.org go to the site and watch it. You may see yoursel on it!
The school board speakers were great and right on topic! Thank you!!
I will repeat again that SESPA has no job action planned at this time, but our members are getting upset that our contract is not settled and we do not know what they will do in the future.
Thanks for all of your support and make sure your building rep has your home e-mail and home phone numbers.
Stand Strong!!!
Rose Ann and Chris
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
SESPA UPDATE
Dear SESPA Members,
Please take a moment and check your home email. In addition to this email, we have sent a bargaining update to your home email address, and from now on, we will communicate via home email regarding bargaining.
As of now, nothing is planned during the school day for the 29th, but we have heard from many SESPA members who are rightfully indignant about how the District has treated them. Anything is possible at this point. Please check your home email for more information.
If we don’t have your home email address, please get it to Chris Hofmeister as soon as possible, so we can add you to our home email list. We promise not to SPAM you, and you can ask to be removed at any time, but we will not be able to communicate regarding sensitive matters to your school email.
Thank you for your support,
Rose Ann and Chris
Please take a moment and check your home email. In addition to this email, we have sent a bargaining update to your home email address, and from now on, we will communicate via home email regarding bargaining.
As of now, nothing is planned during the school day for the 29th, but we have heard from many SESPA members who are rightfully indignant about how the District has treated them. Anything is possible at this point. Please check your home email for more information.
If we don’t have your home email address, please get it to Chris Hofmeister as soon as possible, so we can add you to our home email list. We promise not to SPAM you, and you can ask to be removed at any time, but we will not be able to communicate regarding sensitive matters to your school email.
Thank you for your support,
Rose Ann and Chris
Letter sent from nurse
Sue Walker, Marsha Harris and apparently the School Board state the Shoreline nursing model is:
There is a nurse in every building when students are present.
That is NOT the Shoreline model for nursing – it is a PART of the Shoreline model for nursing.
The current Shoreline nursing model is:
· A nurse in each building at least as long as student’s are present.
· Provide direct nursing care to students, staff and are available to speak with parents every day
· Nurses attend SST’s
· IEP meetings for at least the students with medical concerns
· Review, enter and file the confidential Sport Physical’s students must provide every 2 years in order to participate in sports. Many families provide these every year.
· Give needed information to coaches and trainer
· Review new student records for possible medical concerns that may include Life Threatening Conditions, determine if new students are properly immunized – I usually have 75+ to review in August and then many throughout the school year.
· Create and update as needed the care plans for students with life threatening conditions and other students with unusual medical concerns. Provide those plans to each student’s teacher each year, semester or trimester.
· Training staff re diabetics, seizures, allergic reactions, - the district provides online trainings for these and other subjects but staff often have questions and need the 1:1 training in addition to the online trainings.
· Are available to building staff as well as students – I gather information about all staff at the beginning of the school year – medical history, medications and contact numbers so I can provide the best possible care quickly if there is an emergency and provide EMS with that valuable information.
· Work very closely with the psychologist and special education teachers and staff for the needs of those students
· Ongoing trainings and information emails for staff re current illnesses in the building, how to prevent illness, child abuse indicators, bullying – what to look for and how to help prevent, emergency plans for specific students and staff
· Provide the board mandated Suicide prevention training every year to staff. I provide staff with information at least 3 times a year.
· Nurses are a part of building Emergency Planning Teams as well as the district Safety Committee
· Give daily student medications - manage and administer all of the as needed medications – last year I had 64
· Secondary nurses do drug and alcohol assessments
· Work with families for Home Hospital services when their students are out sick for extended periods of time
· And more important services our "extra" days allow us to provide to our students for them to be successful in school
Nurses break our “extra” non student days down into hours. Those hours allow us to provide all of the services currently in the Shoreline nursing model.
Your bargaining team told us they were thinking about no longer having nurses process sport physicals. I believe you heard from many Dr.’s about how those are confidential medical documents and need to be treated as such.
Your bargaining team told us nurses are not “required” to attend SST’s or IEP meetings so cutting our days would not be a problem. You have a nurse in every building but are not willing to have them attend these critical meetings where students often have medical concerns that affect their learning abilities. Do you think not having us there will help the student be more successful towards graduation? Is it a prudent use of services to now exclude nurses from these important meetings?
You saw at the last school board meeting how cutting student services greatly impacts student learning. You allowed Marcia to change the Shoreline model for overload for teachers a few years ago. In order to save money, you took para educators – who make very much less than teachers – out of the overload process and put an extra teacher in the classroom for maybe 1.5 hours a WEEK. The para educators pulled out those students who needed extra help and were able to work directly with small groups to meet their individual needs. It is clear that changing that model hurt students.
Are you now going to change the nursing model and hurt students further?
Are you going to change the library tech model and hurt students further?
Are you going to change the behavior tech model and hurt students further?
We have had many cuts that have caused drastic increases in workload for every person working in Shoreline in order to become fiscally sound. We have reached critical mass where no one is able to take on anything else. We ALL have too many duties and tasks on our plates. I am talking about administrators and every other person working in Shoreline.
For me personally, it is about maintaining the current Shoreline model for nurses, library techs and behavior techs. The loss in money is very devastating but for me, the loss of services to our students is just unbelievably sad, appalling, unnecessary and just plain wrong.
Marcia has told us in bargaining that the cuts are not about saving money – she just wants the cuts.
If it is not about the money, then isn’t it your duty to preserve services to our students that make them successful towards graduation? What are we here for if it is not to serve our students?
Why did you run for school board? Wasn’t it to preserve our excellence in education in Shoreline? It is time to act on that, tell your bargaining team NO CUTS. We all want to get back to having our total focus on our students, not bargaining. Please bring this to an end on the 30th. We want to just work at the jobs we love, we want bargaining to be over. Let us take a proposal to our membership that does not have any cuts in days or hours guaranteed for the duration of the contract. We are the lowest paid group in Shoreline. We may be at midline, but the cost of living rises our compensation does not. Please do the right thing for your staff that works closest to our students and put more money in their pockets for each of the years of the new contract.
Thanks Nancy Dalan, Shorecrest Nurse
There is a nurse in every building when students are present.
That is NOT the Shoreline model for nursing – it is a PART of the Shoreline model for nursing.
The current Shoreline nursing model is:
· A nurse in each building at least as long as student’s are present.
· Provide direct nursing care to students, staff and are available to speak with parents every day
· Nurses attend SST’s
· IEP meetings for at least the students with medical concerns
· Review, enter and file the confidential Sport Physical’s students must provide every 2 years in order to participate in sports. Many families provide these every year.
· Give needed information to coaches and trainer
· Review new student records for possible medical concerns that may include Life Threatening Conditions, determine if new students are properly immunized – I usually have 75+ to review in August and then many throughout the school year.
· Create and update as needed the care plans for students with life threatening conditions and other students with unusual medical concerns. Provide those plans to each student’s teacher each year, semester or trimester.
· Training staff re diabetics, seizures, allergic reactions, - the district provides online trainings for these and other subjects but staff often have questions and need the 1:1 training in addition to the online trainings.
· Are available to building staff as well as students – I gather information about all staff at the beginning of the school year – medical history, medications and contact numbers so I can provide the best possible care quickly if there is an emergency and provide EMS with that valuable information.
· Work very closely with the psychologist and special education teachers and staff for the needs of those students
· Ongoing trainings and information emails for staff re current illnesses in the building, how to prevent illness, child abuse indicators, bullying – what to look for and how to help prevent, emergency plans for specific students and staff
· Provide the board mandated Suicide prevention training every year to staff. I provide staff with information at least 3 times a year.
· Nurses are a part of building Emergency Planning Teams as well as the district Safety Committee
· Give daily student medications - manage and administer all of the as needed medications – last year I had 64
· Secondary nurses do drug and alcohol assessments
· Work with families for Home Hospital services when their students are out sick for extended periods of time
· And more important services our "extra" days allow us to provide to our students for them to be successful in school
Nurses break our “extra” non student days down into hours. Those hours allow us to provide all of the services currently in the Shoreline nursing model.
Your bargaining team told us they were thinking about no longer having nurses process sport physicals. I believe you heard from many Dr.’s about how those are confidential medical documents and need to be treated as such.
Your bargaining team told us nurses are not “required” to attend SST’s or IEP meetings so cutting our days would not be a problem. You have a nurse in every building but are not willing to have them attend these critical meetings where students often have medical concerns that affect their learning abilities. Do you think not having us there will help the student be more successful towards graduation? Is it a prudent use of services to now exclude nurses from these important meetings?
You saw at the last school board meeting how cutting student services greatly impacts student learning. You allowed Marcia to change the Shoreline model for overload for teachers a few years ago. In order to save money, you took para educators – who make very much less than teachers – out of the overload process and put an extra teacher in the classroom for maybe 1.5 hours a WEEK. The para educators pulled out those students who needed extra help and were able to work directly with small groups to meet their individual needs. It is clear that changing that model hurt students.
Are you now going to change the nursing model and hurt students further?
Are you going to change the library tech model and hurt students further?
Are you going to change the behavior tech model and hurt students further?
We have had many cuts that have caused drastic increases in workload for every person working in Shoreline in order to become fiscally sound. We have reached critical mass where no one is able to take on anything else. We ALL have too many duties and tasks on our plates. I am talking about administrators and every other person working in Shoreline.
For me personally, it is about maintaining the current Shoreline model for nurses, library techs and behavior techs. The loss in money is very devastating but for me, the loss of services to our students is just unbelievably sad, appalling, unnecessary and just plain wrong.
Marcia has told us in bargaining that the cuts are not about saving money – she just wants the cuts.
If it is not about the money, then isn’t it your duty to preserve services to our students that make them successful towards graduation? What are we here for if it is not to serve our students?
Why did you run for school board? Wasn’t it to preserve our excellence in education in Shoreline? It is time to act on that, tell your bargaining team NO CUTS. We all want to get back to having our total focus on our students, not bargaining. Please bring this to an end on the 30th. We want to just work at the jobs we love, we want bargaining to be over. Let us take a proposal to our membership that does not have any cuts in days or hours guaranteed for the duration of the contract. We are the lowest paid group in Shoreline. We may be at midline, but the cost of living rises our compensation does not. Please do the right thing for your staff that works closest to our students and put more money in their pockets for each of the years of the new contract.
Thanks Nancy Dalan, Shorecrest Nurse
Letter from parent to School Board
It would seem to me that the district can clearly see the value of these dedicated hard workers. What does not seem clear is why the district cannot see the value in keeping it's word to give what has been promised to these folks. Their job is extremely difficult and often thankless. Then to be told year after year we just can't afford to give you what you deserve but next year we will, then again same message the year after that.
I have a son with special needs. Most of his good friends are medically fragile. I personally know the value of these hard workers and they have had to compromise so much for the purpose of helping the district fix their budget problems. Much of the problems were caused by mishandling. This is pretty hard to take as a tax payer, and as a citizen of Shoreline, and a single mother! I'm also a bookkeeper and I realize what it takes to balance a budget. I disagree it can always be a cost to the support staff of shoreline schools.
We are willing to pay the greatest property tax around because we want our schools to be successful. Shoreline has a huge percentage of special needs kids and without SESPA staff, we can't serve the community!
On a personal note. Most of the support staff that have worked with my son have gone above and beyond for our family. They aren't just doing time at a job. They are lovingly helping our children learn life skills to allow them to be a contributing part of society in the future.
I sure hope the district will find a way to make a more fair contract before it comes to closing schools!
Thank you
I have a son with special needs. Most of his good friends are medically fragile. I personally know the value of these hard workers and they have had to compromise so much for the purpose of helping the district fix their budget problems. Much of the problems were caused by mishandling. This is pretty hard to take as a tax payer, and as a citizen of Shoreline, and a single mother! I'm also a bookkeeper and I realize what it takes to balance a budget. I disagree it can always be a cost to the support staff of shoreline schools.
We are willing to pay the greatest property tax around because we want our schools to be successful. Shoreline has a huge percentage of special needs kids and without SESPA staff, we can't serve the community!
On a personal note. Most of the support staff that have worked with my son have gone above and beyond for our family. They aren't just doing time at a job. They are lovingly helping our children learn life skills to allow them to be a contributing part of society in the future.
I sure hope the district will find a way to make a more fair contract before it comes to closing schools!
Thank you
Friday, September 3, 2010
Did you lose a jacket?
Hi all, A jacket was left behind at the last General membersip meeting. It was found around the middle of the theatre. If you lost it call Rose Ann McLaughlin 206 546 8263
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
SESPA Action postponed
It was decided that we would postpone our action for Thursday. We want everyone to concentrate on all of the students so they can have a smooth start to school. Stay tuned for more information.
Thanks for your cooperation.
Thanks for your cooperation.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
