October Newsletter

Calendar of Events:
§ Rep Council Meeting – Thurs, Oct. 2nd, 4:00 pm, LFG, Room 406
§ Meeting with Lisa Kaplan @It’s a Grind, Monday, Oct. 6th, 4:30 pm
§ Meeting with Sue Heredia & Jen Baker @ It’s a Grind, Mon. Oct. 6th, 7:00 pm
§ Meeting with Ron Dwyer-Voss @ It’s a Grind, Tuesday, Oct. 7th, 3:30pm
§ Meeting with Teri Burns @ It’s a Grind, Tues. Oct. 7th, 5:30pm
§ School Board Mtg. – Wed, Oct. 8th, D.O. 6:00 pm

(Board Member meetings are generally the Monday and Tuesday before board meetings each month. Please feel free to attend or send us items of interest to address with board members.)

Your Executive Board:

President: Brenda Borge, LFG
Vice-President: Jeanne Gute, TR
Treasurer: Carey Resch, LFG
Co-Secretary: Amber Allison, JF
Co-Secretary: Cora Victorine, HE, WR

Appointments:
Membership Chair: Cynthia Connell, LFG
Grievance Chair: Leslie Levine-McGhie, HE
Bargaining Chair: Cynthia Bluewater, D.O.
PAC Chair: Fred Lavell, AL

CA Budget Update
Please visit your CTA website at: www.CTA.org
Political Action Committee

The Natomas Teachers have endorsed the following candidates for school board:

Bruce Roberts
Jules Tran
Sue Heredia

Please contact Fred Lavell, PAC Chair, to help with the school board elections from now until November.

Safety Committee

We are committed to solving the many school safety issues currently going on in the district, and need your help to address these issues in a systematic and proactive way. Please contact your site rep if you have a story, information, or want to help with teacher and student safety issues.

GO GREEN? Let NTA know if you prefer us to save paper & post more info on the blog:
Please visit our new blog site:
http://natomasteachers.blogspot.com
Please check it as often as you can!
Coming soon - our own NING (a secured social network site for Natomas teachers)

Your Site Reps:
(if your site has held an election and have new site reps, please let us know)

American Lakes – Naomi Nakahara
Bannon Creek – Linda Wells
Jefferson Elem – Maureen Ramos
Two Rivers Elem – Jerry Lovejoy, Kris
Nanry
Witter Ranch – Tanya Praest, Jim
Clarke, Kimberly Chambers
Natomas Park Elem – Bret Greenfield,
Lauren Frazier
Heron – Peter Talbot
Hight Elem – Allyson Kirby
Leroy Greene MS – Kristen Rocha,
Justin Vorhauer
Natomas Middle – Anthony Katsaris,
Emilio Moran
Natomas High – Joel Schweiger, Ruth
Ward, Ben Layne
Inderkum High – Ken MacPherson, Scott
Macmillan, Patricia Hite-Leech
Discovery High – Terese Collentine

Negotiations Update:
Contract negotiations are set to resume in October with the district.

New Board Goals
Please give your input to your site reps and the NTA leadership on the new board goals. We need to hear from you. Keep us updated as to what is happening (or not happening) at your sites.

California’s Educators Say Lawmakers Turned Their Backs On the Public and Passed a Reckless Budget that Hurts Students and Public Schools Now and in the Future, Taking $3 Billion from Schools
David A. Sanchez, president of the 340,000-member CTA, released the following statement in response to the state budget package passed by lawmakers tonight and sent to the governor for signing:
September 19, 2008
“The governor and lawmakers have passed a rushed and shameful ‘get out of town’ state budget that leaves the state’s millions of students in their dust. This gimmick-filled budget, which is more than 81 days late, will hurt public schools, colleges, health care, working families and communities for years. This disastrous spending plan still does nothing to solve the state’s structural deficit. It sets our schools and students up for more funding shortfalls and sets California up for the same budget problems next year. “This budget cuts $3 billion from public education this year and never restores those funds. It gives the governor new powers to cut funding for some education programs mid-year, undermines Proposition 98, the minimum school funding law, and will certainly guarantee that the amount California spends on its students remains locked at the bottom nationwide. “Failing to provide any ongoing new revenues, this ‘new deal’ budget is no real budget at all. It continues to rely on borrowing money from the lottery and future state revenues in order to close the $15 billion budget deficit. It takes $1.4 billion from hospitals and human services for the elderly, disabled, and children. It means a quarter-million children will be denied health insurance. It eliminates the eight-hour work day for some workers, while providing new tax loopholes for corporations that will cost the state billions. Working families will suffer.“Our elected officials missed their opportunity to lead. This is not the responsible state budget plan that our public schools, educators and voters have been waiting for. CTA will be looking into all options available to ensure that our budget process better serves California students and their right to a quality education.”