October Board Meeting - Sparwood

Tonight's board meeting was again ignored by the Valley. Once more more people from Cranbrook (ok, we had 3 principals give 'required' presentations to the board, then they left, and we had some parents there while children were introduced, but no one stayed. 3 people from Cranbrook, the Fernie radio station guy, and I..... that was the public gallery.... 3 from Cranbrook, and 2 people from the valley, both of whom were there because it was their job to be there...) showed up to see the board announce how well it is meeting the Bill 33 guidelines.

The senior management team of SD5 do seem to put more money into Special Needs support than they have too, BUT WITH A 1.2 MILLION DOLLAR UNRESTRICTED SURPLUS, they can afford too!!!!!

The board voted to sell Max Turyk Elementary School to the City of Fernie. I wonder if the response they got from the MLA, or the comments from the Mayor of Fernie had any impact? I asked if they considered how the Independent School might benefit from their new (likely) access to the school building, and was told that it was considered, and that the Independent School could have purchased the building anyway.

At least then they would have had to pay for the building!!!!!

Gee, and with no elections for trustees in the valley, maybe it should come as no surprise how little the public seems to be interested in the state of public education in the valley.

Future Trustees??????

As of the writing of this blog, here is the line up for SD5 trustees:

1. Elk Valley (no elections)
-Elkford: Corey Mildenberger returns by acclimation
-Sparwood: Bev Belina returns by acclimation
-Fernie: Frank Lento wins by acclimation (Heather Meek did not stand for re-election)
-South Country: Shawn Danstrom, by acclimation
2. Cranbrook (5 seats) will have an election;
-Chris Johns (retired teacher and former president of the CDTA)
-Trina Ayling (parent of home-schooled children, activist in the fight to keep schools open)
-Dan Hill (activist in the keep schools open fight)
-Barb Symthe
(the above 4 candidates make up the Cranbrook Advocates for Responsible Education, or CARE, team)
-Chris Ellis (incumbent)
-Pat Casey (incumbent, retired teacher)
-Tammy Taite (new candidate)

Lets see what the future brings....

2008 Induction Social

The Executive/Staff Rep Committee passed a motion to set Friday November 14th as the date for this year's Induction Social.

It is the hope of the organizers that this year the social will be in Sparwood. Information on tickets, location, and everything else will show up in your staff rooms later this month....

Highlights from the Oct 6th General Meeting...

The FDTA passed (without dissent) a protection motion that parallels the BCTF protection motion.

The motion reads as follows:
"The FDTA will provide political, financial, and legal support as necessary to any member who may face disciplinary action as a result of participation in a Federation approved job action activity or other collective strategy."

Also brought forward to the membership was a clarification of the employer's new position on TTOC call out. It remains the policy of the FDTA that teachers are not to contact TTOC's directly, and it is also the policy of the FDTA to not give the call out service the names of "preferred TTOC's"

Teachers do not hire, nor do they fire their colleagues. It is the employer's responsibility to do this.

Of critical importance to TTOC's is that the employer will be (in the near future) determining TTOC pay based solely on the record of the Call Out Service - not on the school records. Therefore, TTOC's who accept work directly from teachers will risk not being paid for that work.

The financial statements (FDTA and PD) were accepted.

The 2008 -2009 budget was presented, explained, and approved. It contained an increase in dues of $2.50/month/member. This increase is retroactive to September, so your October pay stub will reflect this.