The Advocate
January 2016
NDU President Visits
Nick Archuleta, president of North Dakota United, visited our rep assembly last week. He spent about 20 minutes discussing concerns and initiatives from the state perspective. Highlights included:
· NDU has gained 125 K-12 members in the state and continues to work on membership growth and increasing the number of active members.
· NDU is especially interested in doing more with governmental relations in order to help move the education agenda forward in our state. To help with that, NDU will be sponsoring a candidate school in Jamestown. People who are interested in running for elected office can receive training at this event as long as they promise to support NDU’s education agenda when elected.
· NDU is active on a task force which is addressing teacher shortages. After NDU made it clear that teachers need to be paid as professionals, the task force is now talking about compensation.
· A “Listening Tour” from NDU will be coming to West Fargo in the near future. Stay tuned for more information about that.
Calendar Update
The 2016-2017 School Calendar has been set. Next year’s calendar has an additional day of PD. This was put in during negotiations. The school board and administration asked for an additional day due to new mandatory trainings (mental health, suicide awareness, etc…) required by the state. They didn’t feel we could get everything done with PD in the current set up of days. The WFEA Team agreed to this as it will be a full day’s pay added to each teacher’s contract. A change has also been made to the middle and secondary PLC schedule. In order to maintain consistency, there will be weekly late starts. The PD day/no school schedules for elementary and secondary are now the same.
This ‘n That
Negotiations Issues: We won’t negotiate until the spring of 2017, but the executive board is keeping a running record of concerns to help us determine items to bring up at the next round. Please pass any of your concerns along to your building reps or executive board members. We will add them to the list and use that information to help determine our most pressing issues.
Warm Up West Fargo: Thanks to everyone who contributed blankets for “Warm Up West Fargo.” We received additional help from the West Fargo National Honor Society, whose members tied fleece blankets for the drive. Thanks one and all!
Advocacy and Bargaining Conference: You are invited to attend this event on Feb. 5-6 in Jamestown. You will hear former U.S. Congressman Earl Pomeroy on Friday evening. On Feb. 6 there will be a variety of sessions which deal with topics such as Bargaining, Rights and Ethics in Education, and Grievance Procedures. Let our president, Lisa K. Dullum, know if you are interested.
NEA Member Benefits: Don’t forget to register for the complimentary life insurance you receive as a member of WFEA. The web address for NEA Member Benefits is http://www.neamb.com/home.htm