August, 2010
Volume 18, Issue 12
EYES ON THE BOARD
WE GET THE JOB DONE!
School Board Meeting—August 23, 2010
New Dean Of Instruction at Rowe is Leticia Pena
New Assistant Principal at Lincoln is Laura Crounse
New Director of Student Support Services is John Wilde (change of title)
The McAllen ISD Board approved Blue Cross Blue Shield as the third party administrator of the McAllen ISD Self Funded Plan—voting no was Farias, Kent and Saldivar. Blue Cross Blue Shield has an initial one (1) year term with the option of two (2) additional years (one at a time). New rates were not discussed.
Sun RX was approved for pharmacy and Deer Oaks was approved for the Employee Assistance Program. Remember as an employee you have six (6) free visits with Deer Oaks (help is for stress, depression, anxiety, anger, substance abuse, confusion, relationships, marital/family, issues, workplace, problems, referrals for legal, financial, and medical assistance).
Deek Oaks telephone number is 956-631-6188.
Ask for an age appropriate person to counsel you. This service is confidential.
Special Board Meeting—August 16, 2010
*In pending and/or potential litigation the MISD Board directed attorneys to proceed as directed—Topete et al v UIL and McAllen ISD.
*Discussion regarding self-insured and fully insured health plan and related services was the other item on the agenda. As I have told you in previous emails, I was required to sign a confidentially form when the MISD District Insurance Committee began meetings to evaluate health insurance proposals. That form is still in effect for me as negotiations are still on going. The MISD Board will vote on August 23, 2010 to select a company to manage McAllen ISD’s health plan. The two finalists—Blue Cross and HealthSmart have both agreed to manage the PCI Clinic.
School Board Meeting, August 9—The meeting started at 6:15 p.m. and ended at little after 10 p.m.
A few highlights are as follows: *Health Insurance—an hour-long discussion resulted in no decision. Finalists are Blue Cross and Health smart (both include PCI clinic).
A special meeting will be held on Monday, August 16, 2010 to discuss rates, and other details.
WE WON!
In September of last year we filed a district-wide grievance for teachers, librarians, counselors, nurses, and speech pathologists regarding the fact that the district did not pay for the step increase in 2009-2010.
A district-wide grievance means for ALL not just for McAllen AFT members. When the opinion was received on Tuesday, the hearing officer wrote an opinion saying that only McAllen AFT members would receive money—that is cheaper than paying all. You need to have been employed in 2008-2009 to receive money.
Just to let you know another professional organization representative asked one of our McAllen AFT officers if we were going to file a grievance. The officer said yes. The other professional organization representative said “Oh good. We don’t have to do it.”
We think that ALL should receive the step money. It will be up to the McAllen ISD School Board to do the right thing.
The McAllen ISD School Board is going to appeal the decision.
MCALLEN ISD
BOARD OF EDUCATION
Good evening. My name is Ruth Skow, and I represent the McAllen AFT (American Federation of Teachers).
Over the summer we released a White Paper regarding the PCI Clinic provided for employees. We shared the success of the clinic with all teachers living in McAllen—no matter what district they teach in--and with 15,000 parents in the community. A copy is included.
As we are sure you know, on August 10, 2010 Congress passed the Education Jobs Fund.
This bill provides $10 billion in new funding for schools nationwide. Under this program, Governor Rick Perry has until September 9, 2010, to request the funds.
In order for Texas to receive its share of this federal aid, the governor is required to make some assurances that the state will maintain state educational funding at the elementary, secondary, and post-secondary level. The most important required assurance is a statement that Texas will not reduce the percentage of state spending devoted to school formula funding.
Governor Rick Perry has asserted that this requirement would force him to violate the state constitution, under which he cannot make spending commitments that bind future legislatures.
But in reality the federal government requires no more than a statement of intent—not a binding commitment. Once that assurance of maintenance of state effort is given, the money flows, and there is no provision for any follow-up enforcement of this requirement.
The governor has made similar assurances in the past in order to receive other federal funding—most recently in receiving billions of dollars under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act just last year.
The federally required assurance under this new law should be easy to make, considering that the state has a long-established pattern of maintaining or increasing the percentage of state revenue devoted to education. (In keeping with this pattern, the governor and legislative leaders exempted state formula aid to school districts from across-the-board cuts they demanded of nearly all other state agencies earlier this year.)
Based on this analysis, Texas AFT has urged the governor to waste no time in offering the required assurances and to request the Texas share of the $10 billion without delay. We have a Web letter posted on the Texas AFT Web site for our members to send to the governor, at www.texasaft.org. The Center for Public Policy Priorities also has exhorted Texas school boards and superintendents to contact the governor in support of claiming our state’s share of the funding.
If a governor fails to request the money by the statutory deadline of September 9, the federal legislation provides for an “alternative distribution method” to be used.
A document containing “initial guidance for the state of Texas” from the U.S. Department of Education also refers to an “alternate entity” that could provide the necessary assurances for our state.
However, these provisions have not been spelled out, and another part of the guidance document implies that the governor still is the one who must offer the necessary assurances.
The allocation of this new federal funding among Texas school districts must be based on local districts’ relative shares of the latest round of Title I funding. School districts as a general rule are not required to request their share of the money in order to receive it.
As long as McAllen applied last year for their share of stabilization funding under the Recovery Act, they don’t have to apply anew for this new stream of federal aid.
The funds must be used only for compensation and benefits and other expenses, such as support services, necessary to retain existing employees, to recall or rehire former employees, and to hire new employees, in order to provide early childhood, elementary, or secondary educational and related services.
The Center for Public Policy Priorities has said that McAllen ISD qualifies for $6,582,359 and the Moak/Casey Analysis says $6,855,283.
We ask that the McAllen ISD Board of Education use this money to rehire teachers, classroom aides, counselors, librarians, secretaries, custodians, maintenance workers, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, etc.
Thank you.