Life Insurance Coverage Rights Through Your Union Contract
Did you know that our union contract provides a life insurance benefit for SDEA union members?
This benefit provides for a life insurance benefit, through the Hartford Life Insurance Company, that is equal to the member’s annual salary.
Also, it’s important to make sure that you
have the correct beneficiary listed under this plan for you. Here are helpful tips on how to sign up for The Hartford's online platform for managing your life insurance
benefit.
CTA’s Special Education Assessments Guidelines
Click here for CTA’s latest guidance on SpEd Assessments guidelines.
Tentative Agreement Allows for One-on-One or Small Group TK-5 Appointments On-site; Online Learning Continues
Our recently ratified MOU on continued online learning included an agreement to continue to bargain the impacts and effects of the eventual return to onsite instruction. Utilizing more rigorous safety standards recommended by UCSD and in anticipation of updated guidelines from the CDPH that were released on Tuesday, your Bargaining Team has reached an agreement with the District on a small-scale “Phase One” plan to allow educators to provide appointment-based support to students with the greatest needs in the TK-5 grade levels.
Governor's Announcement
Governor Newsom just stated that schools may not reopen until the fall. We want to assure members that no definitive decisions have been made concerning our school year at this time. SDEA members will be kept informed of any decisions made about how the rest of our school year will be structured.
We are going to get through this together.
San Diego Educators Call on County and State Public Health Authorities to Close Our Schools
After consulting with the educators on the SDEA Board of Directors, and discussing current COVID-19 response plans with District leadership, I believe that now is the time to close our schools
to protect the health of students, staff, and the broader community. We call on the County and State Health Officials to allow SDUSD to temporarily cease regular operations.
As educators, we understand the connection between the health and well-being of our students and the health and well-being of their families and communities. The science of COVID-19 is clear:
the best way to protect the communities we serve is to limit the opportunities for this virus to spread. Closing schools would be an important step towards protecting our students, their families and their communities from the COVID-19 threat.
Many of our students depend on our schools for regular meals, even before accounting for the hardships our communities are facing due to lost income from the growing crisis. As we respond to this crisis, we must ensure that there is access to food for our students who depend on our school system for their basic nutrition. We call on the State, County, City, and School leadership to set up safe food distribution systems for our students.
The only way to keep our communities safe is for the County and State to act now.
Have You Signed the Petition Yet?
Last month, we launched the Schools and Communities First
signature gathering at Rep Council. The Schools and Communities First ballot
initiative is projected to bring $12 billion to our schools and communities
every year. Because we know that increased state funding is vital to creating
the schools our students deserve, signature gathering is an important part of
our bargaining plan this year.
What does this initiative have to do with bargaining our
contract? As we shared earlier this
year, SDEA’s three priorities are to bargain a fair contract, elect pro-public
education school board trustees, and ensure that Schools and Communities First
is adopted in November. These three
priorities are intertwined.
Our bargaining demands include increasing the number of
nurses and counselors, adequately staffing special education, and lowering
elementary class size. These demands all
have an impact on the District’s budget.
The school board trustees set the parameters for the
District bargaining team. Our bargaining demands include supports for our most
vulnerable students, lower elementary class size, and respect for educators and
our contract. We must work to elect
school board trustees that share the same values and priorities for our
schools.
For these reasons, all three priorities must be driven out
of our bargaining campaign. Every action we undertake this year will be
directly related to our bargaining platform.
The most urgent work before us is our signature gathering
goal of 3,700 signatures by March 12.
With almost 6,500 members, this is a reasonable goal. However, we can’t just rely on members to
sign on. We must also reach out to
fellow staff members and parents in our school communities.
Beyond our schools,
we must also spread the word with our own families, friends, and community
connections. If you haven’t signed the
petition yet, talk to your AR, CR, or CAT members. If you have signed it, great! Now, get your friends and family to sign on
also.
We have a lot of work ahead of us if we are going to create the schools and communities our students deserve. But, we most certainly can do it! Together We Are Stronger!
Mid-year Raise
As negotiated in our spring reopener bargaining, members will see a 3.7% raise in their January or February paychecks. The raise will be included in the January check if you are on 12-pay. You will see the raise in the February check if you are on 10-pay.
Updated salary schedules can be found on the website here.
Sign the Petition for School Funding
Most of us want similar things: good schools for our children, a healthy family, and safe neighborhoods. But for nearly four decades, big corporations have not been paying their fair share, leaving California with the most overcrowded classrooms in the US and with some of the worst ratios of counselors, librarians, and nurses per student.
In January, SDEA members are kicking off a signature gathering campaign to change that. Along with other labor and community groups, SDEA members are collecting signatures for the Schools and Communities First ballot initiative. It closes commercial property tax loopholes benefiting a fraction of corporations and wealthy investors, without affecting homeowners or renters, reclaiming $12 billion every year to fund schools and strengthen local economies.
With Schools and Communities First, San Diego Unified stands to reclaim $45 million every year to fund our schools. What could an extra $45 million buy for San Diego Unified?
• About 475 teachers, or
• A full-time nurse and full-time counselor in every school, or
• About 900 paraeducators, or
• A 7.5% raise for educators
Think for a moment about the spending that is most important to you. What would you like to see changed?
To qualify for the 2020 ballot, we need to collect 1.6 million signatures from registered voters statewide. SDEA is committed to gathering 3,700 signatures. You can join the effort by talking to your school’s AR about signing on and helping collect signatures from co-workers, friends and family.
For more information, visit www.cta.org/taxfairness and www.schoolsandcommunitiesfirst.org