As another school year begins, I’d like to emphasize how important recruiting new members and maintaining current members are to OCEA. An organization is only as strong as it membership, and OCEA currently enjoys participation of approximately 80% your local peers. 78% of your dues stay in the state of Nevada to fight for issues that affect you directly. Locally and across the state we face a number of dilemmas that OCEA and NSEA are addressing. The biggest of these is the inability of the state’s resources to match the phenomenal growth the state has experienced in recent years. The old structures geared to meet the needs of a narrowly based economy and a state population of less than one million are simply inadequate today. NSEA has taken a leadership role in the discussions regarding how this inadequacy should be addressed, but this has to be a grassroots effort, and the meaningful discourse occurs in supermarkets and over backyard fences, not through the filter of the media. I urge you to utilize the resources of OCEA and NSEA to educate yourself about these issues so that you can speak authoritatively about them. Meeting the needs of your students, improving your working conditions, and nothing less than the future of our state depend upon each of us understanding the depth of the problem.

In addition, I urge you to help non-members, including both new and experienced teachers, recognize the importance of membership. Some key areas to emphasize include:

Contract negotiations – OCEA negotiates with the District the contract you work under, and these negotiations take time and money. The working conditions and salary you currently enjoy as a District employee are the product of years of such negotiations paid for by the hard work and membership dues of those who preceded you. We only recently signed our contracts for 1999/2000 and the negotiation process will begin again in earnest this fall. Although this is a limited negotiation, it promises to be significant. Since the legislature has no additional money to contribute to re-education, resources grow ever more scarce at the local level. Two guaranteed areas of discussion will be salary and insurance. Last negotiation, the District held fast until the final negotiation session to its proposal to have employees pay the costs of insurance rate increases directly out of pocket. You can be certain that a similar proposal will come from the District this time since insurance benefits are a major allocation for the District and under the control of the insurance company. Although our 2% raise was about average statewide, it did not keep pace with inflation.

Insurance—Membership in OCEA automatically enrolls you in a liability insurance plan worth $1,000,000 to cover all job related incidents and law suits. In addition there is an added coverage of $25,000 for the defense of job related criminal charges. In today’s increasingly litigious society, this protection is important. You can buy separate liability insurance, but most plans are inferior, have a variety of exceptions and stipulations, and require a large deductible before the insurance actually kicks in.

Attorney referral—Should you be accused of some improper action or malfeasance in the course of performing your professional duties, you are entitled to a free consultation with an attorney selected by NSEA for their familiarity with school law. This referral can be used for personal matters as well.

Representation at meeting with administration—If called to any aspect of your job performance, you are entitled to have an OCEA representative accompany you. The rep’s duty in such situations is to document everything said and agreed to at the meeting to avoid future misunderstanding and to insure the contract is being followed. Do you know your contract well enough to represent yourself in all situations?

Grievance—your contract contains language for filing a grievance to secure equitable solutions to problems affecting your welfare or working conditions. While you do not need to be an OCEA member to file a grievance, membership gives you a variety of options not open to non-members.

Of course, we became educators to touch the world through our students, to teach, not advocate politically. Ideally, that is all we should be required to do. Unfortunately, we live in a real world, not an idealized one, and we must observe certain realities. Chief among these is that we are heard loudest when we speak collectively. In an imperfect system it is the most effective and efficient way for us to educate our charges to the best of our abilities. These are some of the reasons membership in OCEA is important to all of us.

Negotiations Update

Jeffery Greb

The term of our current contract is through the end of this school year, however, both sides agreed to reopen certain areas for limited negotiation this year. Those areas include the salary schedule, insurance, and one other Article from each side (c.f. 22.1 of the contract.) Since the items open for discussion all concern money (i.e. there is nothing being negotiated that is purely contract language), the negotiations team will not formally meet with the District until sometime after count day. This will allow both sides to have a clearer picture of the District’s financial position for the fiscal year.

The Evolving Role of America’s Public Schools

In 1697 the Puritans of Massachusetts established schools. The schools were to teach basic skills, including reading, writing, arithmetic, and to develop values that served the community. For 260 years Americans assumed family and church was responsible to raise a child. Schools were to focus on the basis of a formal education. From 1900 to today, the following topics have been added to the educational responsibilities now expected by the American public. Remember, the expectations are cumulative none of the early expectations have been removed as new ones are added.

1900 to 1920

Nutrition

Immunization

Health

1920 to 1950

Vocational education

The practical arts (cooking, sewing)

School lunch programs

1950’s

Sex education

Driver’s education

Safety education

1960’s:

Consumer education

Career education

Peace education

Leisure/recreational education

1970’s:

Special Education

Drug and alcohol abuse education

Parent education

Character education

School breakfast programs (Many schools now feed America’s children two-thirds of their daily meals. In some cases these are the only meals these children receive.)

1980’s

Keyboarding and computer education

Global education

Ethnic education

Multicultural/nongender education

English as a second language and bilingual education

Early childhood education

Full day kindergarten

Preschool programs for children at risk

After-school programs for children for working parents

Stranger/danger education

Sexual abuse prevention education

Child abuse monitoring as a legal requirement for all teachers

1990’s:

HIV/AIDS education

Death education

Grief education

Gang education

Inclusion

Muckraking, or Just Muck?

‘20/20’ attack on teachers was TB journalism at its worst

By Bob Chase, President, National Education Association
(This article was written last fall by President Chase in response to a story aired by ‘20/20’)

Last Sunday, I was in Los Angeles for the Walt Disney Company’s annual “American Teacher Awards” gala—a celebration of talented public school teachers across the nation. Unfortunately, it was a very different story two days earlier on Disney-owned ABC television, where “20/20” featured a shocking attack on America’s public school teachers, portraying them as poorly educated, incompetent, and dim.

Why dignify such a story by talking about it here? Because “20/20” and its reporter John Stossel went beyond the usual Chicken Little hysterics of tabloid-style “journalism.” Their brazenly biased report must not go unanswered.

Mr. Stossel is employed by ABC News. But his story was not “news.” It was an editorial rant. Mr. Stossel repeatedly used propagandistic jargon, attacking “government schools” as “a Soviet-style bureaucracy,” a “monopoly,” and a “conspiracy where the incompetent are protected.”

And where did Mr. Stossel go to document the “ignorance” of America’s teachers? Not to the “American Teacher Awards.” Rather, he chose to spotlight a struggling school in an impoverished inner-city community. He took an exceptional—and extremely unfortunate—case, and presented it as typical of all public schools in America.

This story was unfair – and it was false.

Through my 25 years in the classroom and more recently as president of NEA, I have always been amazed by the high caliber of people who choose the teaching profession. Clearly, teachers have a special motivation. They are willing to put up with substandard salaries and often-difficult working conditions— not to mention condescending TV reporters—because they are committed to making a difference in the lives of children.

Daily miracles

The facts are that 99 percent of public school teachers have at least a bachelor’s degree, and 42 percent have a master’s. A recently released study by the Educational Testing Service—the folks who produce the SAT tests—concluded that “teachers in academic subject areas have academic skills that are equal to or higher than those of the larger college-graduate population.”

The marketplace likes to say “you get what you pay for.” But America’s public schools actually get better than they pay for. Despite teacher salaries as low as $19,000, our schools continue to attract a steady stream of talented, idealistic, selflessly dedicated men ad women. These people work daily miracles. They deserve respect, not denigration.

ABC News aspires to rigorous standards of journalistic fairness and objectivity. Yet Mr. Stossel’s “report” was an affront to such standards. I urge responsible journalists and executives at ABC News to review Mr. Stossel’s “20/20” attack. If they agree that his story was biased and unfair, I challenge them to report on the thousands of superb public schools across America—schools where teachers are respected for their excellence and dedication.

Time for truth-telling

Granted, such “good news” stories might not boost ABC’s Neilsen ratings. And they certainly won’t fit in with Mr. Stossel’s apparent ideological agenda. But they would do justice to truth-telling—and to America’s public school teachers.

Ultimately, what separates public school teachers from their bashers is this: The bashers stand on the outside and throw spitballs, while teachers stand on the inside, courageously confronting the challenges of educating today’s young people. And the good news is that, in most of America’s public schools, the teachers are winning.

BOOKS

Stainback, W., Stainback, S. (1990). Support networks for inclusive schooling: Interdependent integrated education. Baltimore, MD: Paul Brooks

Discusses practical ways school personnel can weave together a pattern or network of informal and formal supports. Discussions cover peer tutors, buddies, and friendships for students, and for teachers, consultative help, professional peer collaboration, mainstreaming assistance teams, and more.

Snell, M.E. & Janney, R. (2000). Teacher’s Guides to Inclusive Practices: Collaborative Teaming. Baltimore: Paul Brooks.

This book guides educators on assimilating students with disabilities into class activities and enhancing social relationships. Topics covered include creating a positive atmosphere, implementing support programs, peer problem solving, and establishing friendship groups.

Web Sites

www.unr.edu/unr/colleges/educ/ndsip – The new and improved Website for the Nevada Dual Sensory Impairment Project is up and running! There is now a Parent-to-Parent Bulletin Board, a Teacher-to-Teacher Bulletin Board, Referral Form with on-line submission, Fact Sheets, Usher Syndrome information and Screening forms, Deaf-blind links page, and Past Editions of our newsletter.

Coming soon will be a Service Provider Request for Technical Assistance Form, Parent Request for Technical Assistance Form, and a Lending Library Request Form.

NEA wants to hear from you about school safety. What are your concerns about strategies to keep schools safe? Do you have any advice to share? Help NEA by filling out an online survey on school safety. Please click your way to www.nea.org/esp/survey/ .