THIS IS NOT A SOLUTION!

I was preparing a response to the proposed changes of Board Meetings when this comment got posted. Thank you "anonymous".

I think this change is one of those mean-spirited CandyLand "gotcha"s, if you know what I mean.
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I realize this doesn't really belong on this comment chain, but I am wondering if anyone else is concerned about the change of School Board meeting times to THREE pm starting in September. (April Griffin has the link to yesterday's Trib article on her blog.) I see several reasons why this might be a problem, and I have pasted in my letter to the Board expressing these concerns.

I'm interested in what you think.



Dear Board Members,
I am writing in response to your recent decision to change your meeting times from 5 pm to 3 pm. While I sincerely appreciate your efforts to be more accommodating to teachers and members of the general public who might wish to make comments at Board meetings, I nonetheless feel that your present plan contains many problems.

*As you know, many private citizens work until 5 pm. Shifting the time of the meeting to 3 pm would require many of these citizens desiring to address the Board to take several hours off work, as opposed to possibly just leaving a little early as they presently do.

*Middle and high school students and staff being recognized at a Board meeting will now need to miss time at school, which will additionally require said students to fill out School Business forms and miss classes. Thus, the new meeting time ends up requiring more paperwork and potentially inconveniencing schools whose administrators now have to miss possibly the entire afternoon of school in order to arrive at ROSSAC by 3 pm (depending of course on their respective travel times, etc).

*I know you are also aware that secondary schools release at 2:45 or later, and middle schools typically release later still. Many teachers--at all grade levels--work at locations far from ROSSAC and thus will need travel time to get there if they desire to attend a meeting. Thus many teachers would not possibly be able to arrive at a meeting before 4 pm, depending on how far they have to travel.

* While an online speaker's list will certainly facilitate the process, any principal who wants to discourage his/her teachers from attending or even speaking at a Board meeting need only hold a faculty meeting on that day. Indeed, TUESDAY is the typical faculty meeting day for high schools. The current contract says meetings may hold teachers as much as 50 minutes after their workday ends. With the 20 minutes of additional paid time in our work day thus potentially delaying even the beginning of such a meeting, a principal could easily prevent teachers from even leaving their schools until as late as 4 pm. A teacher at a school distant from ROSSAC who then needs an hour of travel time would thus effectively be stopped from speaking at Board meetings. I can tell you that many of my colleagues have already faced harassment and retribution for their work against the 300 min policy. Therefore, moving your meeting time 2 hours earlier makes it EASIER for principals to prevent teachers from attending these meetings.

*Any teacher who earns extra money by working in the Extended Learning Program or teaching night school classes (as I do) will have to miss the entire afternoon's work in order to attend the meeting at all. Thus even attending the meeting at all will cost hardworking teachers extra money. I myself have given up night school time (having made sure in advance that there was a teacher to cover me) in order to attend meetings. Since our night school classes met on Tuesday and Thursday from 3-6 pm, I lost easily $75.00 simply to attend these meetings. I did this on two separate occasions for meetings I felt it was important to attend from the beginning, but on subsequent occasions I simply came to the meeting after night school ended. Under the new schedule, I will not have this option. Under the new schedule, I will literally have to lose income in order to attend a meeting at all, as meetings will now likely be OVER by the time I could get there after my class was over.

For all these reasons and possibly even more that I haven't considered yet, I believe that the new meeting time of 3 pm will actually HINDER the participation and attendance of community members and teachers at School Board meetings. I appreciate your desire to make these meetings more accessible to more people, but the change in schedule does not, for the reasons I have cited, do that at all. In fact, the new time only makes it HARDER for teachers even to attend, never mind speak at, Board meetings. For all these reasons, I seems practical to me to keep the 5 pm meeting time but change the position of speakers within the meeting. If you were to place speakers after recognitions, say, ahead of the discussion of agenda items, you would still be giving ANY speaker wishing to address the Board attention early in the meeting and showing them respect by not making them wait until the very end of a possible long meeting. You would also be maintaining the current opportunity for teachers and private citizens to ATTEND meetings within our very busy schedules, allowing for travel time and the school bell schedules. Maintaining the current meeting time of 5 pm will also make it harder for principals or anyone else to interfere with teachers who might wish to at least attend if not address School Board meetings.

For all these reasons, I ask you to reconsider this decisions and maintain the current meeting start time, increasing community opportunities to address the Board simply by changing the point at which audience participation occurs.

Sincerely,

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Isn't it ironic that the board can change their times to "stay fresh" but will approve the 6/7 schedule which does the polar opposite to employees?
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Bargaining Dates (Thanks Sys!)

"There are 3 bargaining sessions in the last of of June. We need teachers to attend these.

Monday - 6/25, 1-4:45

Thursday - 6/28, 1:30-5

Friday - 6/29, 2-5

All at CTA Headquarters. They expect to be done that week."