"Time Has Come Today"
by Camille Zombro, SDEA President,
and Marc Capitelli, SDEA Vice President

We've waited for eight years, ninety-six months, two thousand nine hundred twenty days, and three superintendents... Shared decision-making is not a matter of being heard. It is a matter of sitting at the table as equal partners.
This concept was negotiated into our contract long ago, and it was adopted in its current form in 1998. Now, in 2006, its time has come.

Do some more math. At your school, add up the experience and the schooling of your teachers and your administrators. We know what the
outcome will be, and yet we wait for what is right: a true collaborative partnership.

But shared decision-making is much more than a good idea-it's already
an integral part of our contract and of District policy. We negotiated what is
right, not just for us, but for our students, our parents and administrators, and we wait for what is right.

Read the research about schools that work. They work because stake-holders collaborate. They work because of shared decision-making and shared responsibility. We value inclusion and empowering parents, teachers and students, because we believe in an environment of belief in OUR abilities and OUR judgment. We stand ready, eight years down the road, to bring to fruition a procedure that we helped build to move our schools forward, and we wait for what is right.

We teeter on the brink of the NCLB precipice, where EVERY school in this nation will fail. Shared decision-making will not move us away from that brink of a law designed to define public education as a failing institution. When the dust clears, SDUSD will be standing, if we move forward with shared decision-making. When others are strangling because they followed the path of test scores, SDUSD will breath new life, if we move forward with shared decision-making. When others are scrounging for dried up federal funds, SDUSD will be making the tough choices together with stakeholders, if we move forward with shared decision-making. When other school districts
look for the cure-all of a strong mayoral leader, SDUSD will be a free, strong, vibrant, democratic school district, if we move forward with shared decision-making.

Shared decision-making is not a magic potion. It will require the hardest work that we have ever done! This Union stands ready to do that hard work. It will require keeping teachers in the profession and making them strong leaders. This Union stands ready to make our members strong and proud leaders in education. It will require epic new thinking by all of us. This Union stands ready to walk hand in hand with our District partners, through the hell-fires of politics to do what is right for our students.