Connections
Anacortes Education Association                                             March 2007 – Vol. 2, Issue 3

Promoting the cause of public education, by assisting in all statewide activities of the Washington Education Association and by representing AEA members to the public, the school board, the administration, and the profession.

 

Text Box: to SPOTLIGHT: WEA Legislative Efforts The following items spotlight some of the recent and continued efforts of WEA’s legislative team. The group works tirelessly to influence change to the benefit of membership. Protecting Gain Sharing Act now to protect part of your pension WEA opposes legislative efforts to repeal gain sharing, which would reduce the future pensions of more than 100,000 active and retired education employees. E-mail your legislators right now and urge them to protect your retirement benefits. Pension gain sharing benefits education employees in retirement Plans 1 and 3 and increases their monthly pension checks. It's unfair - and just plain wrong - to balance the state budget by cutting the compensation of school employees, especially when the state has a $1.9 billion surplus. Reducing retirement benefits will make it more difficult for schools to keep experienced teachers and education support professionals in the profession. WEA opposes the repeal of gain sharing unless there is a commensurate improvement in retirement benefits. Gain sharing benefits aren’t guaranteed. They are subject to the ups and downs of the stock market. The last gain sharing event was in 2000. The next gain sharing event is scheduled for 2008. It could be upwards of $2,000. House Bill 1771 and Senate Bill 5779 repeal gain sharing entirely, while Senate Bill 5668 and House Bill 2116 would eliminate gain sharing for new educators. WEA opposes all these restrictive bills. Urge your legislators to protect gain sharing and health care by e-mailing them via the WEA Legislative Action Center. How Much Might You Lose? Click to open a handy calculator to see how much a typical certificated school employee would lose if gain sharing is repealed (Microsoft Excel file).

Your Association Leadership

Putting Members First

President – Peter Donaldson, Mt. Erie

Vice President – Carl Dellutri, AHS

Treasurer – Roxanna Moser, Whitney

Secretary – Dawn Greenfield, Island View

Building Reps: AHS – Ron Campbell, Jon Ronngren, Janet Clark, AMS – Carol Springs, Doug Dore, FID. – Patty Johnson, Stephanie Ward, IV – Kecia Fox, Tony Vecchione, Whit. – Kathy Ruckdaschel, ME – Angie Miller, Suzy Boyes

Grievance Officer: Scott Burnett

Information

·         Bookmark the following web address for a PDF version of our new 2006-2009 Association Contract: https://staff.asd103.org/unions/index.cfm

·         NEW WEBSITE -- Bookmark the following web address for a link to our Association Website: (remember it’s a work in progress. We’re continually working on improving the site.) http://anacortesea.org/
 

Important Dates

□       March 13-16: Early Release, Elementary Conf.

□       March 15: Elementary Evening Conf, 5-8 p.m.

□       March 29, 30, 31: WEA Rep Assembly, Tacoma

□       April 2-6: Spring Break, No School

□       April 18-20: AMS & AHS Early Release, Conf.

□       April 19: AMS & AHS Evening Conference

□       April 26: AEA General Meeting, 4 p.m. Brodniak

□       May 25: K-12 Early Release

□       May 28: Memorial Day, No School

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*These are Ma
 

 

 


Text Box: President’s Message -- Hello Spring! It’s been a busy year for all of us and I expect with conferences and the WASL just around the corner, many of you will be feeling that anxiety bug. It certainly happens to me this time of year. I’m sending this newsletter to share the most recent news from your local and state associations. Here are a few highlights from the past three months. Thanks to all you attended our Dinner event at Bella’s in January. More than 40 members spent 2 hours eating, socializing and listening to WEA local leaders address a couple of pertinent topics. Paul Everyhope of Mount Vernon EA talked about Take the Lead and its statewide efforts. Simone Boe from WEA Federal Way spoke about the importance of WEA-PAC as a politically important tool. It was a great success. Our association went from 9 WEA-PAC members to more almost 50 in one night! I’ve received at least a dozen more since the event as well. Great job Anacortes. Our Association incurred no out of pocket expenses for the event because it was paid for by a grant from 4th Corner. Also on the local front, we’re making progress on the Association website (see from page for link). We ran it by the Executive Board in February and received lots of valuable feedback. I have a laundry list of information to supply our current website designer with, Shannon Gilbert. Once we have those pieces in place, I know you’ll find the site much more useful. My goal is to have a fully functioning and valuable site in place by June. I’d be happy to receive comments regarding its current state. In other news, I hope you take some time to follow up on the Gain Sharing issue on the front page. It does have an impact on us all. There are several ways to make yourself heard. WEA is working hard to get support for legislation to protect the earnings from WEA member’s retirement profits. Another legislative issue spearheaded by WEA recently is the “Rule of 85.” Many states have a law in place which allows teachers to retire with experience and age = 85 years. As it stands now, some of us in Washington will have to work until 65 to claim full retirement. Let your legislators know how you feel about this. Finally, I want to encourage all of you to attend our General Meeting this April 26th. The Exec Board plans to outline several areas of governance we’d like to improve for the following year. We want to move forward with your support. Remember it’s your Association and this is your meeting. -- Peter Donaldson Text Box: This Just In … News from WEA – Straight to you Washington's salary ranking falls: The state's average classroom teacher salary in 2005-06 was $46,326 -- ranking 22nd nationwide, down from 20th in 2004-05. That means the average teacher’s salary in our state is $2,783 (6 percent) below the national average (50 states and Washington, D.C.) of $49,109. It’s also $10,354 (22.3 percent) below the West Coast weighted average (Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington) of $56,680. A substantial pay increase beyond the voter-mandated COLA is a major WEA goal for the upcoming legislative agenda. More education statistics (Adobe PDF file). Better FREE stuff! The feds have revamped their Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE) Web site, making it easier to find helpful classroom ideas and resources. They've also added an RSS feed, that techy way of getting updates on newly added Web content without having to revisit their site. more A new study projects that adequate funding for Washington public schools would require increasing per-pupil spending by 45 percent a year, or $3,613 per student. Read the full report as an Adobe PDF file

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making WEA Work for You

WEA – PO Box 9100, Federal Way, WA 98003-9100,

1-800-622-3393, www.washingtonea.org

WEA is an incredible resource. If you haven’t visited the website recently, you should. In particular, check out the member/services tab.

4th Corner Uniserv Council – 1800 James St, Bellingham, WA 98225-4623 (360) 733-3344