Minutes Rep Sept 2022

September 27, 2022

 

Call to Order 4:19

 

Reading and Approval of Minutes (was there a motion?) 

 

New appointments

 

  1. Appointed Jen Garwood and Mark Newman as Rep. Council members 
  2. Appointed Deb Phillips as Grievance Chair
  3. Grievance Committee members: Beth Cori, Michelle Drewnowski, Matt Engle, Amy Holmes, Colleen Naselli, and Grace Traa. Grievance Committee meeting on 10/5/22.

 

Reports of Officers

** thank you notes from scholarship recipients

 

  • Treasurer (Michelle Inserra) – N/A

 

  • Pride Chairs (Amanda Pannone and Jen Phifer)  – first email was sent, open for business

 

  • Membership Chair (Ashley Butterick) – Lindsey Hampf shared membership report, including new members, terminated members, and submission of WDEA. Sharing confidential UTEA information with administration is grounds for termination from the union. 

 

  • Grievance Chair (Deb Phillips) – N/A

 

Reports of Rep. Council Members

 

  • Aides (Christine Perro and Donna Scherer) – coverage an issue; pay is an issue and positions 

 

  • Secretaries (Kerry Dietz and Gina Johnson) – sub coverage is an issue, secretaries working beyond contractual hours

 

Reports of VPs and Teacher Rep. Council Members

 

  • Primary School – faculty council an issue; reduction in prep and lunch time and slides and plans are very time consuming – still have questions and there are also sub issues

 

  • Elementary School – issues: slides and the time they are taking; ELA rewriting curriculum over the summer so we are being trained for next year so to do these slides just to redo them again next year seems silly; 5th and 4th grade math are doing lesson plans as math book already digital and can be projected (ThinkCentral). Discussed with Sam – Generation Genius and ThinkCentral are district purchased materials; lesson plans and slides seem busy work. Tough because no PLC in Sept and Oct (Safe School, conferences, SGOs, PGPs. Math met with Sam; there are more standards and objectives than any other grade as they are foundational for 5th grade. The makeup of the slides is not one size fits all. Computers and math do not jive. Science and social studies make sense for slides more so than math. 

 

  • Middle School  – putting together Faculty Council and slides are an issue. WIN homebase teachers – some have up to 39 kids at the end  of the day in one room; Teachers are not pulling kids for WIN. Becoming unmanageable. There is also no time to make a list of kids to bring to WIN and write up passes for them. (Electronic passes. )

 

  • COURTNEY and ANNMARIE met with Vin/ Sam this past Friday
  • Inequity in time in the 3 schools w/ prep and responsibilities
  • Genesis or Oncourse: can we put lesson plans on this instead of slides? Vin and Sam “looking into this”
  • Need for authentic training / adequate 
  • Opening day was SHOWING not training 
  • Don’t need PEARdeck in Nov as we are not even up to date with slides! 

 

CONCERNS: 

  • Are new administrators trained in our Rhode Island?
    • Where is the list of observers? 
    • Slides should not be evaluative so if people are scored on these, let rep council know

 

  • DATA
    • Kids we have this year are the most affected by covid
    • We need to be doing data decisions vs taking our time to do lesson plans and slides 

 

  • PD/ TIME
    • Should be powered by data and what we need to do to help those kids be the most productive
    • Kindergarten: meet with Samantha regarding active reading PD (2 hours) 
  • They said no 
  • 5th grade and 4th grade have not been pulled for Common Lit
  • Data shows teachers were doing well and Sam’s answer was “you could always do better” 
  • Stop the bleed/cpr
  • PDP
    • We have not received anything 
  • MORALE: 
    • Can a survey be sent?
    • Tell people to be honest in these surveys 
    • Secretaries have not been trained on how to tell subs to get to slides etc
    • No directives on what to do when absent 

 

  • Samantha and responses – 
    • CPR/ Epi Pen (PD day- Newman will do but it is PD time) 
    • What are Sam’s responsibilities in terms of responding/ PD for everyone

 

Old (Unfinished) Business – 

SLIDES

PD

 

New Business – 

  • Rep Council Binders (i you have a binder, turn into VP and updated materials will be put in them)
  • member participant end of year raffle
  • Confidentiality of items discussed 
  • communication map of each building (put rep council members and VP on a building map) 
  • Rep council members can communicate with admin on behalf of members with no repercussions
  • days to wear shirts: board meeting Mondays  (October building meeting –  find out who still needs shirts) 
  • Philanthropic vending machines – Laurie Ryan talked to Courtney and no money from them in 2 years. How else can we raise money for scholarships – need to advertise 

 

Announcements – none 

 

Adjournment – Keenan motion Newman 2nd 5:22 pm