PLAISTOW, NH— January 10, 2018 —the leadership of the Timberlane Teachers’ Association and Timberlane Support Staff Union released the following statement:

After a prolonged public discussion over drastic cuts proposed to the Timberlane Regional School District 2018-2019 budget, the Timberlane Regional School Board adopted, without deliberation, a default budget that does not adhere to the formula prescribed in RSA-40-14b. 1, according to Timberlane Teachers’ Association President, AFT#4796, Ryan Richman and Timberlane Support Staff Union President, AFT#6530, Laurie Herchenroder. 

Congratulations to eight schools where educators are represented by OFT that received the 2017 All A Award. The eight schools represent five of our  locals. The All A Award is presented by the state board of education recognizing schools that earned straight As on all applicable report card measures. Awards mark the hard work of our members at Cleveland's Clark School, Citizen's Leadership Academy and Glenville High School, Toledo's McTighe Elementary and Whittier Elementary, Cincinnati's Roberts Academy: A Paideia Learning Community, New Lexington Middle School and Triad Middle School.

It's time to start thinking about Classified Employee of the Year!!..  We have some changes to the procedure this year.  We would like each building site to recommend one person, so each site participates and no site is left out.  From all district sites winners will be chosen.  Look for an email in the next few weeks.

The AFT Healthcare-Maryland bargaining team is pleased to present the 2018-2020 Tentative Agreement to the AFT Healthcare-Maryland bargaining unit.  There are four separate documents for review, as follows:

1.  The Tentative Agreement for the 2018-2020 contract

EARLY DISMISSAL FOR TODAY, JANUARY 8, 2018
Liberal Leave for Non-Essential Employees at 1:30 p.m.
(Authorization is required)

Effective at 1:30 p.m., liberal leave is in effect for non-essential employees.  Non-essential employees must follow departmental leave request procedures.  Non-essential employees working afternoon/evening shifts should seek guidance from their immediate supervisors regarding reporting. Employees will be required to use accumulated vacation, personal leave, or compensatory time, or authorized leave without pay.

For the complete bulletin, click here, or on the image below. 

The NH Legislature managed to meet one day this past week, but Thursday’s snowstorm and the bitter cold led to the cancellation of Thursday’s scheduled House session.  Instead, the House will convene this Tuesday, January 9, to continue working through the remaining retained bills from 2017.  Although an additional session day on Thursday, January 11 is possible, most expect the House to finish retained bills on the 9^th and then commence committee hearings on 2018 bills.

SB 193  The big news this past week was House passage of Senate Bill 193 as amended , the bill establishing so-called “education freedom savings accounts.”  In simple terms, the bill takes funds normally distributed by the State to local school districts and places the money into accounts that can be used by parents who home-school or choose to send their children to private (including religious) schools.  The NH Constitution explicitly prohibits expending public funds in support of religious schools, so the “education freedom savings accounts” are an attempt to bypass that prohibition.  As one House member noted in debate, these accounts will act as a pass-through system, or in more direct language, as a “money-laundering” system to render public revenues into non-public money and thereby circumvent the state’s Constitution.  

Colleagues,

1)            Stipend Payment: We’ve gotten a lot of questions about when the district will be paying out the Turnaround/Head Start Stipends.  The date they gave us is January 19^th.

What:  A celebration recognizing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. through K-12 student entries of essays, speeches, poetry and art. The theme for this year’s event is “Let us stand up. Let us be a concerned generation.”

Have questions about the Tentative Agreement?  Come to an information session to get learn more about the new contract!