If you have an event of interest to the QEA community, please email details to quincyteachers@gmail.com
Calendar of Events
Individual Professional Development Plans
**Have you updated your IPDP lately? Do you need a signature? This is a reminder that during every 5-year licensure cycle, you will need to get 4 signatures: initial, first review, second review, and final endorsement.**Recertification help is just a click away! Please visit DESE at: http://www.doe.mass.edu/recert/ or MTA at http://www.massteacher.org/career/certification/recert.aspx
Latest News from:
MA DESE Releases Educator Evaluation Model Language - January 2012
MTA files suit against Stand for Children ballot initiative - January 23, 2012 ~ Read why here
Bargaining Updates 5/14/12
Unit A ~ Thanks to all of you who participated in the work we did to develop bargaining priorities (the $100 activity). In each of the categories the bargaining team tallied ‘votes’ and identified the top 3 issues:
Money: Salary raise (no surprise!), Improve sick leave buy back, 403B match by School Committee.
Benefits: Improve Personal days policy (including number of Personal days), Paid family leave, Improved professional development.
Working Conditions: End the five, 2-hour long PD Days, Work load limits - case load and class size, for example, guaranteed and improved Prep time, especially for elementary teachers.
Language: Streamline paperwork fo rthe PDF money, Technology training, Increased protection in case of involuntary transfer also came in as one of the top 3, but after research, we found that we have in our contract some of the most comprehensive and realistically attainable language already in teacher contracts.
In addition, the Unit A bargaining team is mindful of the specific concerns of certain constituencies in our membership, e.g., nurses and caseload teachers and therapists and will be presenting proposals to the School Committee to address those concerns.
Your Unit A team members include: Allison Cox, Michael Ellis (chair), Debby Madden, Sean Greene, Peg McDonough, Nicole Prevost, Noreen O’Connell, Dan Caruso, and Pat Barry.
Unit D ~ The contract expired Aug. 27, 2011; the QEA and the college have mutually agreed to an extension. Bargaining began in January and is continuing. The next bargaining session will be tomorrow morning. Your Unit D team includes Allison Cox, Debby Stockbridge, Ryan Keene, and Susan Cahill.
Unit C ~ Current contract expires Aug. 31, 2012. A request to bargain has been sent from QEA to Superintendent DeCristofaro. It is anticipated that Unit C bargaining will commence at the conclusion of Unit A bargaining.
Unit E ~ The current contract expires June 30, 2012. A demand to bargain letter has been sent from QEA to President Tsaffaras. Our bargaining team is not yet fully formed.
by Diane Ravitch in New York Review of Books 3/12/12
Summer Professional Development!
Primary Source Summer Institutes ~
Boston University ~ Science K-8
May 15 & 16 -- QEA Elections
May 15 -- Unit D bargaining
May 16 -- School Committee, 7 p.m., City Hall
May 21 -- Unit A bargaining
May 22 -- Unit D bargaining
May 23 -- QEA ANNUAL MEETING, 3 p.m., BMMS -- ALL QEA members WELCOME!
May 29 -- QPS Retirees Luncheon, 11:30 a.m., QHS
June 5 -- NCTA Awards Banquet - Reservations to QEA office by this Friday, May11!
June 13 -- School Committee, 7 p.m., City Hall
Sheltered English Immersion licensure endorsements may soon be required for all core academic teachers and their supervisors as part of the RETELL (Rethinking Equity and Teaching for English Language Learners) initiative.
The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education is expected to approve these changes in the next two weeks.
Because Quincy is considered a high-incident district, QEA members will be among the first in the state to be required to obtain this new Sheltered English Immersion training.
Questions remain about how the so-called Category trainings may be credited toward the new requirements. Its website states that DESE intends to acknowledge and honor the effort, commitment, and accomplishments of educators who completed Category trainings 1, 2, and 4. Educators who have completed two or more of these trainings will not be required to complete the full course of study approved by DESE to qualify for an SEI Endorsement. Instead, they will be able to qualify for the endorsement by completing a subset of the course that covers only the proposed new knowledge and practice standards.
Please check the DESE website at www.mass.edu for more information and updates.
This just in:
The IN Box: From Massachusetts
I can’t find a way to contact you directly anymore, Fred; but here’s an update on Stand for Children in Massachusetts. They filed an initiative petition to utterly change evaluations, disembowel the union, punish teachers….the usual…last July. Since then the MTA, despite talk of fighting, has polled the public and members (they do this all the time) and has decided the cause is hopeless, and has been “negotiating” with Stand to “create a legislative solution.” 5/14/12
