Merced/Mariposa Teachers UniServ Council

Round 2 - RIFs

In the CTA Legal Services Memo attached to this post, it states that "In certain limited circumstances, due to fiscal necessity, school districts can proceed with a second round of layoffs of certificated employees after the March 15th layoff process."  Please review this Memo to take the necessary steps to protect yourself in case you are potentially laid off.  Fill out the accompanying questionnaire and give it to your CTA site representative or forward it to our office via fax at 209.723.9598 or via email to mmtuccta@gmail.com.

Round2RIFsFlyerQuestionnaire

Positive Deviance

UPDATE:  Here is a Merced Sun-Star article on Positive Deviance - MUHSD

On Thursday, February 26th, 2009, the Positive Deviance Program, a dropout prevention program focused on the community and community resources to solve the problem, was conducted at the Merced CTA Office.  This program is sponsored statewide by CTA's Institute for Teaching and is funded by a grant from the William and Flora Hewitt Foundation.

The Merced Union High School District Teachers Association was selected as a local for the program.  The catalyst behind bringing this program to Merced and the Merced Union High School District was Sheila Whitley, President of the MUHSDTA.  She noted that she was pleased the District and Association were chosen to be one of the two demonstration sites in northern California.

The keyspeaker for this meeting was Mark T. Munger, an independent consultant and senior associate at Valeocon Management Consulting.  He is currently active in two separate applications of Positive Deviance; introducing PD to schools characterized by low-income and diverse populations in which student performance is challenged by a variety of environmental and social factors and using PD to eliminate MRSA infections in hospitals throughout the country.  He was educated at Princeton University and did his graduate studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in administration, planning and social policy.

Mark T. Munger, IFT Consultant - Positive Deviance

 

      

In attendance were educators, community leaders, local School Board members, Association leaders, M/MTUC Executive Board members, including the Chairperson, Joel Knox.  The attendees later broke into small groups to discuss dropout prevention and the Positive Deviance program.  Below are some of their notes.

   

   

 

   

From left to right, Mark T. Munger, IFT Consultant - Positive Deviance, Yale Wishnick, IFT Program Director, Kelly Horner, IFT Consultant, Dick Gale, IFT Executive Director and Liane Cismowski, IFT Consultant.

 

CTA Call For Action

Call US Senators Today To Oppose Nelson-Collins Amendment!  Download the flyer here Callforaction020509f[1] to learn what the amendment would do. 

Call 1-800-294-9811 Now! 

Reduction In Force (RIF) FAQs

Here are some frequently asked questions regarding reduction(s) in force.  Please pass this information on to anyone who may have concerns regarding this procedure.  Download RIFFAQs

2009 CTA Scholarships

Under "Pages" to the right of this post, the 2009 CTA Scholarships are posted.  These include the scholarships for CTA Members and for Dependent Children.   

Voluntary Dues Contribution Opt-Out Form

CTA is asking its members for a $20 voluntary contribution to help fund future CTA advocacy efforts and to support the CTA Foundation for Teaching and Learning.  According to CTA, "All members will be enrolled in the default allocation option established by Council."  What this means is that $10 will go to support CTA advocacy and $10 will go to the CTA Foundation for Teaching and Learning.  However, members are not required to contribute and may opt-out of this process entirely.  Additionally, members may choose to change their contribution options.  To change contribution amounts or to opt-out entirely, download the Opt-Out form here, fill it out and mail it to the address stipulated.    CTA_Voluntary_Contribution_Change_/Opt_Out_Form.pdf

Name / Address Change

Under the "Important Docs" header to the right of this post, you will find the link "Name / Address Change."  Download this form, fill it out and mail it to our office, 3175 Collins Drive, Merced, CA. 95348 whenever you have a name change, address, phone number and email.  Please take the time to let us know when these changes occur.  When our records are up to date, it positively impacts the level of communication our members receive from our office and from CTA Headquarters.      

We Don't Take Rejection Easily!

Many school districts restrict email messages received from outside sources.  Our email messages to our members are repeatedly rejected by the main server in various districts.

It is suggested that each member establish at least one personal email address that can be used for association business.  This address can be via any of of the free email services offered these days:  yahoo, hotmail, gmail - just to name a few!  Activating a personal/association business email address will ensure that you will be able to access all emails coming from the various levels of the California Teachers Association.

"Why would I want a personal/association email address?"  As both CTA Headquarters and your local offices are becoming more internet savy, many notices are being sent via email instead of regular U.S. Mail.  This method of delivery is both time and money saving for the association.  Conference registration confirmations are just one of many items that are being sent out only via email.  We, at the local office, receive phone calls each day from conference participants trying to determine if they have indeed been registered to attend a CTA Conference only to find out that the email address they have on record with us is their district email address.  This leads us to the assumption that the confirmation sent from CTA Headquarters was rejected by the main server.

The suggestion has also been made that chapter leaders may want to consider setting up an "association" email address.  It can be something as simple as a condensed version of your chapters name. For example, The Merced City Teachers Association could use mercedcityta@free.email.whatever.  This address could be used by the current association leader and then passed along with the password to the new leader once they are elected.  The new leader could establish a new password for that particular address and use it during their term as president.  This would allow some measure of continuity for all members to contact their current leadership!

We all want to be able to keep our personal, work and organizational lives separate.  Establishing an association email address will allow each member to do just that along with allowing them to keep in contact with all the various important CTA contacts.  If you do register a personal/association business address, won't you please let us know today?