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video update
Hello VTA Membership, Today the district and VTA met and there was some positive movement. The district gave us a take it or leave it package and we had to leave it. Bargaining is a process and there is give-and-take so we need to know what you would be willing to give. Here is the district's current offer: The district came up to a 4% salary increase by eliminating their proposal for benefits and moving that into salary. They changed their offer from eliminating student contacts for middle school/high school to increasing student contacts to 200 in both middle school/high school. They maintained their proposal for a seven period day for high school. They maintained their proposal to compact the salary schedule to 22 years, to accept up to 15 years of service credit, and to move registered nurses to the psychologist/SLP salary schedule. We mutually agreed to eliminate Monday collaboration time due to the district wanting admin to have control over that time. They did change their proposal for subbing in which we would retain the right to decline, but if you say yes you would receive 1.25x’s long-term daily sub pay. The district is no longer asking to increase mild/mod caseloads without a waiver. Ed Specialists would retain the right to say no to signing a waiver to increase their caseload. Here’s why we had to leave it: VTA has always stood for preserving or decreasing class size, no increase to student contacts, that’s where we stand firm. Middle school and high school have always stood up for elementary and elementary will stand with them now as well. We have a waiver process that exists to create a 7 period day and this is the process we think the district should be using. Individual school sites should and can make the decision to move to a 7 period day if the educators and admin at that site want it. The budget is looking positive and with revenues in the state of CA increasing it is looking like there may be even more money heading into our schools in the fall. We will continue bargaining in the fall with the district. We aren’t at the end of the road yet, but we need your input. We’d like to know what you think of the district’s current proposal and what you would be willing to agree to. We will be sending out a survey in the near future so please take the time to fill it out as it does directly impact the movement that your bargaining team is able to make. Your input was what enabled us to close the last two contracts. Thank you and we wish you a great last 5 days of school! Click this link to watch the video update. In Solidarity, Your VTA Bargaining Team
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Greetings Members,
VTA and VUSD are Bargaining tomorrow; Tuesday, June 1st. Please wear VTA or black shirts to demonstrate solidarity as a collective bargaining unit. Remember we are working to rule on Bargaining days, so take pics of you and our union family walking in and out of the school site at our contracted hours. Remember, social media is how we get the word out to the community about what is going on in VUSD. Use the hashtags: #wearevta #wearecta #strongertogether #local1088 You can also tag on Facebook: My VTA Facebook page (Keri Avila Vista Teachers Association) Support VUSD Teachers Vista Teachers Association You can always send pictures to me as well and VTA will post them. Respectfully and In Solidarity, Keri Avila President Dear VTA Membership,
This is a quick message from your VTA bargaining team. CLICK here for video We met today with the district and they made a proposal which included a salary increase, salary schedule compression and extended years of service credit. However in order to get anything, we had to agree to a package proposal for articles 12, 13, 18 and 20. This was a take it or leave it proposal with no room for movement. In order to get this, we would have to agree to no student contact caps in middle and high school, increase high school from 5 to 7 periods and give up the right to say no to subbing. We have heard your voices, loud and clear and know that we cannot settle for less, especially when the state budget is still in influx and looks very positive. We will be meeting again on June 1st, to respond to the district's package proposal by unpackaging their proposal and bargaining article by article. We will also be responding to article 30, which is not included in the package. Please wear your VTA shirts on Wednesday June 1st in support of your Bargaining team. In Solidarity, Your Bargaining Team The May 18th Negotiations session was postponed.
Still wear your shirts! VTA and VUSD return to the Bargaining table on May 24th. Wear your VTA shirts and Work to Rule on Bargaining Days. Dear Members, I’m sure you’re as flabbergasted as I am to hear the announcement of Dr. Doyle’s contract being extended to 2024 with a salary of $300,000. His salary package also includes a $25,000 restoration from a voluntary pay reduction he took three years ago, and a 5.2% percent salary increase. This district expense is shocking and hypocritical, considering the Board of Education agreed with the district’s 0% pay raise offer to VTA in order to supposedly prepare for future financial obligations. Meanwhile, School Services projects a 6.56% Cost of Living Adjustment. The 0% offer truly shows District Leadership doesn’t value or respect who we are: a highly trained workforce that’s dedicated to students and the entire community. However, this isn’t the only reason we, Certificated staff, are disappointed in the decision to approve a 5.2% percent salary increase for the Superintendent. In the 15 years I’ve worked for Vista Unified, this is the lowest moral I’ve ever witnessed. Our members feel disrespected and undervalued, and it’s not just because of the money. It is because many of management's decisions that claim to put students first, ultimately do not. How does taking away student contact caps put students first? How does forcing our SPED and Ed Specialists to go over caseload put students first? What about all the campus safety issues we’re having? The message is clear: Management and managers are first priority, certificated staff fall somewhere down the line. Many members are asking me what the next steps are and whether wearing shirts is enough to show the district that we don’t feel respected by their decisions. Wearing shirts is not enough, we also need members to show up at board meetings, work to rule on bargaining days, and post on social media. Let our community know what’s going on. I want to remind you that VTA is a democratic organization. Our next plan of action comes from you, the members! Make sure you go to your next 10 minute meeting and let your site reps know what you think we as a membership should do to show district leadership we’ve lost confidence in them. In Unity, Keri Avila Connecting Members with Members Are you interested in a second grade job share (50%) at Maryland? If you are, contact VTA. VTA membership,
The district holds these core values; Trust, Respect, Collaboration, and Equity. However we simply don’t see these values being reflected by the current proposals we have seen at the bargaining table. Respect: While we are all bearing the weight of astronomical inflation to gas prices, increased cost of food and rent, the district’s answer is that they’ve met their fiscal goal with last year’s 3.5% increase while continuing to pocket 2 years of super COLAs (over 10%). While our SPED educators face unfilled aide positions and caseload overages, our district is asking them to give up the right to say no to signing a waiver to go over caseload. Essentially forcing caseload overages across the district WITHOUT compensation. Is this how our district shows their RESPECT for our membership? Collaboration: We hold our Monday meeting time for Common Core Collaboration in high regard as sacred time to meet and have discussions and yes, collaborate with our colleagues. The district’s proposal does not honor peer collaboration, it dismantles it. The current proposal seeks to implement district and administrative control over 3 Monday collaboration meetings a month, essentially hijacking our planning and collaboration time. It becomes district PD, it’s no longer a collaboration. We aren't being treated or respected as professionals. Is this how our district values COLLABORATION, by reducing collaboration time? We are a highly trained workforce that are not being valued as professionals. Speak out and show a sign of solidarity by wearing your VTA shirts on Wednesday, April 20th (please wear black if you don’t have a shirt yet). When our district leadership makes their rounds to each PD and takes photos they will see a WAVE of VTA strength! Let’s see how many photos they post, see how many we can post! Post pictures of yourself with your coworkers on our PD day wearing our shirts. Flood social media before the day starts, during lunch, and at the end of the day with pictures of our members wearing our VTA shirts in support of #WEAREVTA #VUSD. Please continue wearing your VTA shirts once a week including next Wednesday April 27th, our next Bargaining meeting with the district. Please keep posting your photos on social media every week! Respectfully and with Solidarity, VTA Leadership Teams _____________________________ Here are the District’s Vision Mission and Values Vision: Our vision in Vista Unified School District is to be the model of educational excellence and innovation. Mission: The purpose of Vista Unified School District is to inspire each and every student to persevere as critical-thinking individuals who collaborate to solve real-world problems. Values: Trust, respect, collaboration, equity And here is how they are showing it… VUSD -teacher sub shortage, our educators need to help us fix this -Monday meetings, the district has so much they need to get out to us so they would like to have control over three meetings each month -teacher shortage especially in SPED causing caseload overages, educators need to help solve this by going over caseload -We need more classes available to students in high school, more periods per day, educators can fix this by taking on more students and more periods VUSD’s proposal -take away the right to decline taking extra students or subbing during your prep time, forcing educators to accept extra students into their classroom or teach during the prep -district/admin control over 3 Monday meetings per month, leaving 1 per month that educators have control over -take away the right to decline signing waivers for special ed to go over caseload -take away maximum student contact caps for middle and HS -no salary increase and no benefit proposal If Vista truly wants to honor their mission, vision and values and show that Vista values its educators, they may want to start by taking notes… VTA proposal: -6% salary increase -benefit increase -increased prep time for TK through 3rd and Adult Ed -continued protection of prep time for all members -contact caps for counselors and psychologist Members,
It has been wonderful visiting sites and meeting members. If I have not yet been to your site, please contact your site representative to set up a site visit. Bargaining Update: Your VTA Bargaining team met with the district April 12th to begin bargaining the 2022/2023 contract. The district made proposals for articles 12: Salaries, 18: Teachers’ Duty Hours, 20: Class Size, and 30: Special Education. VTA shared their proposals for articles 12, 13: Unit Member Benefits, 18, and 20. We will make our proposal on article 30 at the next bargaining meeting with the district. We will respond to the district’s proposals following collaboration and direction from our VTA Executive Board. We will meet with our executive board on Monday April 18, 2022. The district offered a 0% salary increase and rejected the 6% increase your bargaining team proposed. 6% is a reasonable starting point given the current projections for COLA. It is unfortunate that the district is feel’s that they have met their goal regarding salary at this time and has not addressed inflation or cost of living increases that directly affect their staff. Please keep a look out for future bargaining updates. What can you do now? Let the board members know how you feel about a 0% salary increase and what that does to your ability to help you provide a quality education for your students. Here are some talking points:
Continue to wear your VTA shirts on Thursdays (or your site's VTA Shirt Day). and on all bargaining days. We return to Bargaining on April 27th. Wear your shirts on that day and post a pic on social media of you and your VTA Family wearing your shirts. #strongertogether, #wearevta, #vistaTA, #local1088, #westandbehindVTAbargaining Be ready to come out to the May 5th Board Meeting. More information will be coming. Make sure you keep an eye out for future emails these next few weeks. The One-Time and Retro Pay What we know is that the one-time is anticipated to be in the April pay warrant and the Retro pay will hopefully be on our May or June warrants. Human Relations will have more accurate information. We encourage you to email HR to ask when we will receive these payments. VTA and VUSD continue to meet on Fridays to bargain the full contract. Both teams are actively working on negotiating the terms of the eventual return to classrooms with safety and health at the center of our work. Joint updates will continue every 2 weeks.
As stated in our last update, the 12.19.1 Salary Schedule Raise formula from the previously negotiated contract has been delayed due to the COVID 19 pandemic. A concrete percentage of the salary increase will be released by the end of the school year. This increase should appear on employee’s August or September paycheck with retro pay following as soon as possible. VUSD will continue to keep you updated. Both VUSD and VTA met on May 15th to continue contract negotiations. The following Articles have been introduced and are currently being worked on by both parties: Article 1: Recognition Article 9: Employee Rights/Bargaining Unit Rights Article 12: Salaries Article 13: Unit Member Benefits Article 16: Leave Policies Article 17: Work Year Article Article 19: Teacher’s Safety Conditions of Employment Article 21: Transfers/Reassignments and Filling of Vacancies Article 23: Curriculum and Leadership Positions Article 24: PAR and Induction Article 25: Teacher Intern Program Article 26: Evaluation Procedures Article 30: Special Education Tentative Agreements have been reached on the following articles: Article 8: Term Article 11: Professional Dues or Fees and Payroll Deductions Article 19: Teacher’s Safety Conditions of Employment Article 28: Grievance Procedures -Rachel D’Ambroso VUSD Bargaining chair and Reagan Duncan VTA Bargaining chair In our first joint bargaining message we first wanted to say, Happy Educators’ Appreciation week! Thank you for all the amazing work you have been doing to support all students throughout this school year and in particular, through distance learning. Your dedication to students has been phenomenal! Thank you!
Bargaining has in fact continued over this time of distance learning. Thank you to both teams for their flexibility in this new virtual world of negotiation. VTA and VUSD have been and will continue to meet each Friday, bargaining the full contract. We will be sending out bargaining updates every 2 weeks. We want to address the governor's announcement in which he indicated that schools may open over the summer. We know this has caused many to worry about the upcoming school year. Rest assured, all changes to the calendar are bargained and both VUSD and VTA have agreed that opening schools early is not a feasible option due to both the current budget constraints and simply needing that time off before beginning the next school year. We will be bargaining the return to work conditions, keeping student and employee health and safety concerns/guidelines at the forefront of our discussions. In addition, the Superintendent’s Council for Innovative Learning will be working to determine any changes to the teaching and learning structure for the Fall of 2020. This council will be composed of teachers, students, parents, and administrators. We will continue to negotiate and keep you updated as we receive more information from both the state and county office of education as to what the beginning of this next school year will look like. Updates regarding the 12.19.1 Salary Schedule Raise formula from the previously negotiated contract have been delayed due to the COVID 19 pandemic. We expect to have the concrete percentage of the salary increase by the end of the school year. This increase should appear on employee’s August or September paycheck with retro pay following as soon as possible. VUSD will continue to keep you updated. Both VUSD and VTA met on April 24th and May 1st to continue contract negotiations. The following Articles have been introduced and are currently being worked on by both parties: Article 1: Recognition Article 9: Employee Rights/Bargaining Unit Rights Article 11: Professional Dues or Fees and Payroll Deductions Article 12: Salaries Article 13: Unit Member Benefits Article 16: Leave Policies Article 17: Work Year Article Article 19: Teacher’s Safety Conditions of Employment Article 21: Transfers/Reassignments and Filling of Vacancies Article 23: Curriculum and Leadership Positions Article 24: PAR and Induction Article 25: Teacher Intern Program Article 26: Evaluation Procedures Tentative Agreements have been reached on the following articles: Article 8: Term Article 19: Teacher’s Safety Conditions of Employment Article 28: Grievance Procedures -Reagan Duncan VTA Bargaining chair The Vista Unified School District (VUSD) and the Vista Teachers Association (VTA) met at the District office on Wednesday, March 11, 2020 to begin bargaining for the 2020-2023 VUSD & VTA Contract.
VTA presented Articles 1: Recognition, 8: Term, 18: Teachers' Safety Conditions of Employment, and 28: Grievance Procedures. VUSD presented Articles 17: Work year, and 24: Peer Assistance and Review (PAR) and Induction. The next meeting will be March 24th. Please click below to get the full Article of each Tentative Agreement:
Article 16 Tentative Agreement Article 17 Tentative Agreement Article 20 Tentative Agreement Article 26 Tentative Agreement Article 30 Tentative Agreement Appendix A-5 Tentative Agreement Voting will take place among our membership from January 20-27, 2020 at each individual school site. |
AuthorsVTA President and Bargaining Team: Archives
June 2022
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