VOLUME  XXIX    NO. 5                                                                January 2015

Quote of the Month  

 

"Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance." 

 

- George Bernard Shaw

KEA Calendar

Executive Board Meeting

January 22nd, 4-7:00 pm.
January 29th, 4- 7:00 pm. 

 

Voting for NEA RA Delegates in your building
 
January 15th to 23rd

 

Semester Ends- January 23rd

 

Workshop/Report Card Day

January 26th 

 

Pizza & Politics
January 27th, 4-5:30 pm.

 

KSD School Board Meeting
January 28th, 7:00 pm
KSD Board Room 

 

Pre-Retirement Seminar

January 30-31 @ KEA. 

Class Full- Click here to be added to wait list.  

 

Looking Ahead...

 

Elementary Conferences

February 9th -12th 

 

Special Education & the Law    

February 28th, 8:30- 3 pm @ KEA. 6 clock hours are available. Email Becky Babcock to sign up.  

 

Autism Workshop

March 21st, 8:30-3 pm @ KEA.

6 clock hours available. Email Becky Babcock to sign up.

   

Education Counts!


Shared Leave Request

 

Rochelle Davies, of Ridgewood, Beverly Jones-Batson of Kentridge and Angela Jines of Kent Mountain View Academy are in need of sick leave donations. 


 

If you have more than 22 days of sick leave in your account you can donate. Contact Human Resources for more info.

 

All donations welcome and appreciated!


"In the Loop"

If you are not receiving, but would like to receive KEA email correspondence to your home email, please click here to sign up! 

 

Be sure to visit the KEA website, www.kentwea.org to get updates, training opportunities and other important  information! 


Free Notary Public Service

One of the many benefits of being an KEA Member is that we offer free Notary Public Services. If you would like to take advantage of this great benefit, please feel free to contact the KEA Office and speak with Becky Babcock or Regina Redmond.


KEA Compass Classifieds

Have something you'd
like to list here? 


Send an email to Cindy Prescott

KEA members get to list FREE!

 

KEA Staff & Governance
 

Cindy Prescott, President
[email protected] 

 

Christie Padilla, Vice President

Northwood Middle School

[email protected]

 

Theresa Turner 
Secretary/Treasurer
Kentlake High School 
[email protected] 

 

Elizabeth Collins

UniServ Representative
[email protected]

 

Leslie Bedke
UniServ Representative
[email protected]

 

Becky Babcock, Associate

[email protected]

 

Regina Redmond, Associate

[email protected]



Executive Board 
 

Cindy Prescott, President

Christie Padilla, Vice President

Theresa Turner, Secretary-Treasurer

Louise Sargent, Northwood

Zack Stockdale, Kent Meridian

Barbara Landwehr, Kentlake

Lisa Brackin, Mattson

Margerie Heagerty, Cedar Heights



Message from the President:


 

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." Albert Einstein


Thinking ahead just a few weeks, we'll be administering the SBAC in our district. This year, scores will count. We know, as educators, that this is not the way to best teach children.

 

At the last NEA Representative Assembly, delegates to the assembly voted to begin a national campaign to put the emphasis back on student learning. The campaign will move to end the "test, blame, and punish" system presently in existence. Additionally, the campaign seeks to reduce student and instructional time spent now to support this system.

 

The campaign to end toxic testing also calls for the addition of a "testing ombudsman" by the United States Department of Education, The United States Consumer Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission. This position will serve as a watchdog and monitor over the testing companies' impact on legislation concerning education. Also, NEA will continue to press the current administration to completely overhaul ESEA (Elementary and Secondary Education Act) also known as NCLB (No Child Left Behind).

 

As you may know, we are back under NCLB provisions, since our state legislature has not knuckled under in saying student growth has to be determined by state achievement tests such as the SBAC.

 

Parents are jumping on the bandwagon about toxic testing. There have been "opting-out" protests in several states. One parent said, "The kids pay a very high price. It chips away at their sense of selves as learners from a young age; telling them that there is one way to learn and boxing them into narrow ways of seeing their skills and their contributions." (neaToday, July 1, 2014)

 

This issue is timely, important, and so much a part of our daily lives in working with students. If you feel interested in finding out more, consider attending this event:

 

Tuesday Town Hall: Toxic Testing

Puget Sound metro-area educators are invited to listen in on a public discussion of one of our key issues for students:Toxic Testing.

 

The Perils of Standardized Testing lecture is Tuesday, Jan. 20 @ 7:30 downstairs at Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave. (enter on Seneca Street), in Seattle, 98101.  

 

The event features Anya Kamenetz on "The Perils of Standardized Testing." Seattle's recently-passed universal pre-K measure included a stipulation for standardized testing, but according to NPR's lead education reporter Anya Kamenetz (Generation Debt), today's schools are sacrificing learning with similar rules. The Test: Why Our Schools are Obsessed with Standardized Testing - But You Don't Have to Be is her insightful look at the world of standardized testing in an era of No Child Left Behind, increased college expectations, and overachievers. She'll outline the pressures these tests place on students, their families, and school districts, ultimately offering a wakeup call for educators - and parents - to move beyond numbers, and refocus on the child.
 
 

Ticket Info:

Tickets are $5.00 ($6.16 with online fees). For guaranteed admission purchase tickets online at http://townhallseattle.org. 

 

Doors open at 6:30. The events are presented by Town Hall and Elliott Bay Book Company, as part of the Civics series. The series is supported by The Boeing Company, the RealNetworks Foundation, and the True-Brown Foundation. Series media sponsorship is provided by The Stranger and KUOW.

 

Cindy
 

TOGETHER WE MAKE A DIFFERENCE

NEA Members Save on Tax Preparation with H&R Block


 

NEA Member Benefits and H&R Block, the nation's largest tax preparation company and a name that millions of Americans know and trust, have joined forces to offer discounts and special pricing on tax preparation for NEA members.

 

Take advantage of these special tax preparation savings:

  • $20 off in-office tax preparation services through March 31, 2015
  • Special pricing on tax preparation software and online tax preparation programs
To download your discount coupon for use at an H&R Block office, start your return online or purchase tax preparation software, please visit, 

Contract Corner

 

Dear Contract Corner,

 

I'm a fourth grade teacher, and I've been in overload since October. When I got my 28th student and was in overload, I thought that extra para support in the classroom would be ideal.  However, that position has never had a permanent hire, and I am finding it so frustrating to never know if I have para support from day to day.  I am now wishing that I had chosen to be paid for overload instead. Am I stuck with my decision?

 

Signed,

 

Overloaded and Underpaid

_________________________________________________________

 

Dear Overloaded,

 

No, you are not stuck!

 

Last year a Letter of Agreement was written between the association and the district and ratified by you, the members. This agreement on Elementary General Education Overload Relief is now part of the contract, under Article VII, Section 2. When you go into overload, according to the class size numbers in the contract, you may choose para-educator support or compensation of $15.00 per day. If you choose para-ed support, but the position remains unfilled, or a substitute para comes only when available, you may still receive compensation. There must be three consecutive days that the job is unfilled, and then you may start requesting compensation, retroactive to the first day without a para.

 

These days will be filled out on a form your office has. Compensation will be made quarterly.

 

If you are a secondary general education teacher, there is compensation or para support for you as well. Compensation comes in the form of substitute time. The number of days of substitute time depends on your class size. And you may decline substitute time, and take compensation at the sub pay rate instead for the number of days you are due a substitute. 

 

We will bargain for increases in these amounts in the next open bargain!

 

Sincerely,

 

Contract Corner

Teacher Retirement System 3 Members

 

Beginning Jan. 31, you will no longer be able to change your personal contribution rate. This is critical as this month is the last chance you have, while continuing to work for your current employing school district, to make any change that affects both your take-home pay and your retirement savings.

The change is due to a requirement that the Internal Revenue System (IRS) placed on the Department of Retirement Systems (DRS) as a condition of re-qualifying the TRS plan under IRS rules.

The DRS has known for some time that the IRS was not fond of this option in the TRS plan due to the amount of "choice" it created. Starting about 2006, the DRS advised members (at WEA's urging) that they should treat the opportunity to change their rate as the last one. The DRS worked very closely with WEA to retain this benefit for as long as possible. Some 5 percent of Plan 3 members exercised their option to change every year up until now, but they will no longer be able to do that after this January. For information about this issue and for links to the paperwork necessary to make any changes this January, visit the
Department of Retirement Systems website. Forms must be turned in to your employer no later than Jan. 31. 

At the local bargaining table and in Olympia, WEA will continue fighting for professional pay, health benefits and retirement for all public K-12 and higher education employees. The action you take -- your voice -- will play a crucial role in our success and you will be hearing more about our efforts in your local associations and in your local communities in the coming weeks.

One more thing -- a reduced penalty for early retirement will remain in place, although those who retire using the 2008 early retirement factors also have more restrictions on post-retirement employment. For information about early retirement options, visit
this page on the Department of Retirement Systems' website.
 

 

The Best Job in the Whole Wide World  

By Brian Thornton
 

Imagine a job where, on any given day, you might find yourself discussing any number of the following topics: the nature of truth, the interpretation of facts, the evolution of science, what constitutes "good writing," what kind of difference the discovery of the "vanishing point" made in the art world, how something as mundane as a bowl of rice has helped give rise to empires, and how humans interact with their environment, shaping, and in turn being shaped by, where they live. 

 

Welcome to my wheelhouse. I teach middle school social studies.

 

Specifically, what I teach is ancient and medieval world history. As I am fond of telling my new students on the first day of class, when I say "ancient history," I am not referring to the 1990s. (18725)

 

Year in, year out, that joke still gets plenty of mileage from parents during Open House. However, it does also hint at the challenge those who teach this subject to pre-and-early teens face each and every day: how to make the ancient and medieval worlds come alive for a group of people who, if they remember him at all, think that George W. Bush was president "a long, long time ago"? 

 

We accomplish this daunting task by showing our students how little human nature has changed over the past few thousand years. By constantly demonstrating "how we got here." By breaking down and discussing human belief systems, their establishment and their evolution. By showing the formative effects of climate, environment, and population on the development of human culture. By exposing students to the challenges faced by past generations, teaching them to analyze these generations' attempts at finding solutions to these problems, and to discuss their relative success or failure, all while tying these same challenges in to the ones we currently face on the front edge of the 21st century.  

 

And by so doing, teaching our students to make informed decisions. By literally teaching our kids to think for themselves. 

 

I'm a middle school social studies teacher, and I have the best job in the world.

 





Find your employee ID & Win!

Read carefully this month and if you find your employee ID number hidden within this edition, call KEA, 253.852.1350 by Friday, January 23rd to claim your gift card!

 

If the employee ID number is not found and claimed, the gift card amount will accumulate throughout the year. The employee ID number for September was not found. 

 

This month's gift card will be $125.00....so read carefully! 



 
10427 SE 244th Street Kent, WA 98030 /Phone: 253.852.1350/ Fax: 253.854.5404 www.kentwea.org  
 
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