President's Page

To the Membership:

Update 4/16/08

RGNEA Membership,
With the contracts coming out on April 15, 2008, a lot of questions arose around the salary scale and what to do about signing the contract.
Follow this link to see what the MNEA advises about signing your contract.
http://www.mnea.org/member_services/legal/FAQ1.htm
Also, attached to this email is a copy of the current salary schedule.  Sorry about the poor quality of the copy.  The salary on your contract is the same as on your contract last year.  Your negotiation team is still in talks with the administration working out the terms of a new negotiated agreement with the salary scale for the 2008-2009 school year part of that agreement.   If there is a salary schedule change made through the negotiations, upon board acceptance of the change, a new contract should be forth-coming to each teacher.

Richard Thies
RGNEA President
518-4305

Update 4/6/08

RGNEA Members,

Because of election law, I am not able to send this through the RGSD email system because that is a “school resource” as per directed by the superintendents. I have spoken with Gilbert and MNEA legal to clarify and work through the issue.

First of all, a thank you in advance to all of you that volunteered to help our candidate(s) canvass this weekend. It will serve the entire membership to do what we can to get our candidates elected. As I stated before, get the word out to the community who we have endorsed.

Again, the candidates are:

Jonathan Askins

Arnie C. Dienoff

Gilda Hester

Your RGNEA executive members and interview team have listened to the message of each of the candidates and your team has determined that our endorsed candidates will be the one to LISTEN TO OUR VOICE. If this district is to begin ridding the district of the current problems, we need to get board members seated that will be vocal and do something about it. Please take the time and do your part. This small donation of time can do have a huge impact down the road for the teachers and students of this school district.

I’m now looking ahead to Tuesday, the day of the election. We need to have a teacher presence at the polling places to let the voters know one last time who we, the RGNEA, are supporting. There will be ”RGNEA Endorsed” flyers passed out to the voters at the polling places on Tuesday. Please select a location that is convenient to you and serve for an hour or two for the good of all of our membership’s future voice. The polling places within Riverview Gardens are as follows:

Danforth Elementary School

Gibson Elementary School

Lemasters Elementary School

Koch Elementary School

Moline Elementary School

Lewis & Clark Elementary School

Meadows Elementary School

Glasgow Elementary School

Highland Elementary School

-----------------------------------------

Greater St. Mark Family Church

Bellefontaine Neighbors Recreation Center *

Holy Name Church

Lou Fusz

Dellwood Recreation Center *

St. Sebastian Complex

Lewis & Clark County Library

Riverview City Hall

Immanuel Lutheran Church

* other key locations

** Remember, we can serve on the polls outside of contracted hours only.

At minimum, I’d like to see the school building polling places covered by RGNEA members between the hours of 6-8 and from 4-7. If you can serve an hour or two during this time, please do. I am asking the building representatives in each building to coordinate this schedule at this late date. Work before or after school or if you have a Monday meeting, ask the administrator for several minutes at the end of the meeting to organized this schedule since this is off contracted hours. If not, call a brief building level NEA meeting to get workers. Maximize members presence by choosing other locations if you have too many at one location. Building Reps., give the flyers to the person who will be first to serve at the polling place and just pass the material along to the next person. Building Reps, call me direct if you have any questions.

Thanks again.

Richard Thies

RGNEA President

314-518-4305

Update 3/11/08

Update 2/22/08

 

RGNEA Members,

It has come to my attention over the last several weeks that the number of Professional Improvement Plans (PIP) is increasing district wide.  I'm not sure where that push is coming from.  Just so every member knows, I like to share again what you should do if you are told by administration they will be placing you on a PIP. 

I'll start by saying the administration CAN put anybody on a PIP anytime they want.  There usually is nothing the RGNEA can do to prevent a PIP from being implemented.  What we do as the RGNEA is make sure this process is implemented correctly and the goals the administration set down for the teacher are discussed, agreed to and a plan put in place that can be achieved by the teacher.  We ensure this is not a plan setting a teacher up for failure.

If you are called into a meeting for a PIP situation, this, in the mind of the RGNEA is a disciplinary meeting.  This type of meeting, under district policy, allows a teacher to ask for NEA representation.  You should IMMEDIATELY contact your building representative and have them contact the RGNEA president and/or the MNEA UniServ director.  You DO NOT want to attend a PIP meeting without representation.   Your RGNEA will work with the administrator to schedule or reschedule a meeting at a time that will allow someone to be there working for you to get you through this process.   Many times lately, the administrator has been scheduling these meetings in an attempt to avoid having the representation there for a member.  If a meeting is scheduled without representation, you, the member, have the right to ask the administration for a reschedule of the meeting to allow you to have representation there.  Normally rescheduling is not a problem.  If the administrator refuses to reschedule and a meeting proceeds on, you still should ask for your building representative to sit in on the meeting or as a last resort, another staff member in your building.   The administrator should find coverage in classrooms for any person you choose to sit in the meeting with you.  If the administration still declines and pushes the meeting forward, we still advise you to go into the meeting and speak as little as possible.  You do not want to place yourself in an insubordinate situation which could lead to immediate firing.  We can deal with administration after the meeting under policy for the failure to allow representation and most likely the entire meeting may need to be rescheduled and the process started over.

Also, if a PIP is given to you and you are asked to sign it, do so.  It could be insubordinate to refuse to sign this document.  Sign it and underneath your signature state that you are not in agreement, you were refused representation and you will be submitting a rebuttal statement at a later time.  If they did refuse representation at this meeting, you should immediately go through the channels to speak to your RGNEA leadership about this.

In short, there are things we can do to ensure rights and make the PIP process work better for you.  Having representation also is a neutralizing factor in the way members may be spoken to and treated during PIP proceedings.  If you need any more information on this topic, let me know.  Your RGNEA members are here to support you.

Richard Thies

Update 1/16/08

Update 12/8/07

 RGNEA Members,
This is a reminder that our RGNEA Monthly Meeting will take place this Wednesday, December 12, 2007 at the Corner Coffee House, 100 S. Florissant Road in Ferguson, Missouri with the business meeting starting at or shortly after 4:15p.m.
It is extremely important that every building bring multiple people to this meeting.  Why?  Because RG's co-superintendents will be the honored guests and they believe the issues that we bring to them are just coming from a few of us.    Our administration has been telling everyone that this district is running smoothly and there are no major issues among the staff.  Do you AGREE with that?  We've been telling them these are the entire membership's issues.  Your executive officers and negotiation team continue fighting for our membership every week over the issues that you have brought to us.  Now is the time for the membership to step forward and show this administration this is not just a "small group of rebellious members" trying to create some conflict in the district.  These issues are real.  These issues include planning time, pay freezes, administrative/C.O. staff raises, discipline, communication, morale, substitutes, increased work load, class size, curriculum, professionalism, reduction in teaching staff, excess of C.O. staff, consultants, DESE mandates and many more issues, but unless the membership steps forward this Wednesday, it sends a message to this administration that we DO NOT CARE about these issues.  The message to the administration is THEY can dictate the direction they take us.  It will also send a clear message to your hard working RGNEA board that the time they spend is not worth the trouble.  Your team will not step up and continue spending hours each week to this fight these issues we continually face without the membership standing behind us.  The RGNEA team already is fighting an uphill battle because the financial meeting last week had less than a dozen teaching staff in attendance.  The message sent was "teachers don't care about a freeze in salary or what the financial situation is in the district.  The teachers are content with the way things are."  I don't believe that is the message the membership wants to send, but that was the perception the administration received.  The freedom to speak openly is one thing that is much improved.  The superintendents WILL listen to us.  We need to insist they start acting upon these issues. 
Let me remind you that the RGNEA leaders are a group of your peers that stick their neck out and fight these issues for the sake of all of us.  These RGNEA leaders that serve you do not get a single cent for the time they spend.  They negotiate, they are there to fight for your rights, and attend all of the important meetings to make sure our point of view is heard loud and clear.
The NEA is an organization of locals with members that govern and run themselves.  Certainly we pay our dues to the MNEA and NEA and expect to be supported when things are beyond our means of handling situations ourselves.  Gilbert, our UniServ Director, spends an excessive amount of time in Riverview even though he has several other districts he serves.  He always makes sure our needs are met.  Our local spends many hours to get small gains.  Believe me when I say that many of our the smaller problems are fought and resolved without the membership even knowing. 
Let me remind of the past couple of years when the MNEA stepped forward to back us in a lawsuit over contract issues.  I'll also remind you of the hours of time your local RGNEA officers and members gave voluntarily to create an awareness to the community and leaders in the state of Missouri that ultimately led to elimination of the personnel and corruption of the last administration and remind you of the hours we spent to seat RGNEA supported board candidates to the positions they hold today.  That is not all by accident.  Many devoted hours by many devoted people through all levels of the NEA made that happen. 
So now we need your support again.  The direction of the district is different than what we desire.  Please make it a point to put this event on your schedule to attend the Wednesday meeting.  Let's get the word out to all of the membership in your building about the importance of this meeting.  A minimum of 60 minutes on Wednesday is all the time we ask so you can listen and discuss these issues with the superintendents and share why these issues are important to us.  We need to tell them we insist on changes in the way things are done and change the way the staff is treated.  Let's share with them how these issues do affect student achievement.
Let's be there in force at 4:15 and make our position known as a group.  The freedom to speak openly is one thing that is much improved.  The superintendents WILL listen to us.  No more retaliation.  We just need them to start acting upon these issues.  We are in this together.  Let's let our voice be heard.
Thanks for your support. See you on Wednesday.  Any last minute updates or cancellation due to superintendent cancellation or by weather will be posted on the RGNEA homepage and/or in your email by Wednesday afternoon.
 Richard Thies
RGNEA President
314-518-4305

Update 10/31/07

RGNEA Members,

I just wanted to check in with everyone tonight and make sure that
every building is abiding by the new Professional Development
procedure which shortened the work day by 15 minutes.  If your entire
building or any individual RGNEA member had any problem getting the 15
minutes either before or after school, I'd like to know.  I am
prepared to deal with any issue regarding the new procedure.  The new
PD procedures in place are posted on the RGNEA site for viewing.

http://rgneamain.googlepages.com

I'm also advising every RGNEA member to keep a personal log of all of
the PD activities attended during non-contractual time during this
school year.  When you reach 18 PD activities/meetings or 18 hours,
you do not need to attend any more if you choose.  We can only go to
bat for you if there is abuse of this agreement if you have a paper
trail documenting all of your time in PD activities.  The building
reps. or somebody you trust in your building should keep a log of all
of the meetings attended by the entire staff.

I'd also like to be kept informed of PD abuse during the school day.
It is not the intent of the contract agreement to put more PD
activities during planning time.  If the number increases from what
the time has been in the past (1 per week), I'd also like an email
informing me of the building(s) abusing this.

--------------------

Your negotiation team heads into Meet and Confer training on Tuesday
(30th).  This bargaining training is set up for the administration
team, but we have been invited to attend and we will attend in good
faith even though our team has been trained previously.

The superintendents informed me last week the negotiations would
resume immediately regardless of any training we would all receive
along the way.  This still has not happened.  We are baffled why the
stonewalling continues.  This is week 7 or 8 since the administration
has cut off contract talks for the current 2007-2008 school year.  We
hope to see some immediate movement or we will be calling on ALL OF
THE MEMBERSHIP for some help.  More info later.

With that said, I do hope that building level everything else is going
fine.  If you do have any issues you need answers for, feel free to
call me day or evening.  Your RGNEA team is here to support YOU!

Richard Thies
RGNEA President
314-518-4305

Update 10/29/07

This is a memo from the superintendents, explaining how the new PD plan will be implemented.

Memo

Co-Superintendents

Rhonda Key, Ph.D. & Natalie Thomas, Ph.D.

(314) 869-2505 ext 2416 (314) 869-2505 ext 2418

 rkey@rgsd.k12.mo.us / nthomas@rgsd.k12.mo.us

To: Riverview Gardens Staff

 

From: Rhonda and Natalie

 Date: October 26, 2007

Regarding: Professional Development and Length of 2007-2008 Certified Staff workday

The Board of Education, faculty and staff are committed to improving student achievement in the Riverview Gardens School District. Professional development that is high quality, job-related and embedded in daily operations is a major factor in student achievement and teacher success. Therefore we are providing the following guidelines for the 2007-2008 school year:

1. Beginning on October 29, 2007 the teacher work day has been reduced to 7.5 hours until the end of the 2007-2008 school year. Principals will work out duty schedules and assign arrival and departure times based on student needs and safety concerns.

2. For the 2007-2008 school year, principals can hold up to 18 required after school professional development sessions. Staff may be required to attend for 60 minutes. Principals and/or PDC committees may arrange appropriate and necessary staff development to meet the needs of students. If additional (more then a total of 18) sessions are appropriate, or the 18 required sessions exceed 1 hour, the additional meetings or time should not be considered required. (Principals should count all required meetings held after school before today’s date toward the 18 sessions.)

• Improving student achievement is our number one priority. The district will provide training and support to allow teachers and administrators to implement school and district improvement plans and the performance-based teacher/administrator evaluation process.

• District employees are accountable for implementing school and district improvement plans as well as meeting the expectations identified in the performance-based teacher evaluation.

• For professional development opportunities that are deemed appropriate, but not required, materials and notes will be made available for those not in attendance.

3. Each school is maintaining a record of after school professional development activities.

4. From this date on, written evaluations of each required after school professional development activity should be developed, distributed and reviewed as part of the continuous improvement process.

Please work through your principal or supervisor if you have any questions. Additional thoughts/questions can be directed to either of us. Thank you again for all you do, every day, to increase student achievement.

Update 10/3/07

RGNEA Members,

As we strive to get the administration to come back to the table to
continue the negotiations with us, it will be very important to the
negotiation team for you to show us the documentation for how much
time has been already used in your "Monday (now any day) Meetings".
Building Representatives, please send me a list of the dates and the
length of time of the meeting as we need the time totals up to now.
Have someone you trust in the building keep track of the date of all
meetings and the length of time for all of the past and future
meetings and then let me know when we hit the 15-16 hour mark.

Negotiations still remain stalled although Gilbert, Theresa and I had
a two hour meeting last week with the superintendents in an attempt to
push them toward returning to the table and resolving some of the
issues.  They still insist on training for the administration team.  A
bit of forward progress was made in the PD portion of the package on
the table.  My concern is that we, in good faith, allowed the
administration to move forward on the PD plan with the agreement that
the time spent would be a part of the agreement in the end.  Some
buildings have used up to 15-25% of the 18 hours and now I hear the
administration is telling teachers that the time put in this year on
PD may not be applied to the 18 hours.  If that information verifies,
that move would put a big dent in the negotiations as again we would
have been told one thing and had the administration do something else.
 So basically, we still are not close enough on terms to settle the PD
or any other issue.   Your negotiation team still is fighting the
battle.

Update 9/16/07

RGNEA Members,

Hope all continues to go well as we near the mid-point of the first
quarter.  I must assume things are better because the amount of
district "fires" that Gilbert and I have dealt with over the past
several years has been significantly less this year.  I really hope
that trend continues.

Here is an update of the Professional Development issue of the
contract.  As of this writing, the poll results are:

54 votes to accept the Professional Development portion of the contract.
5 votes to reject the Professional Development portion of the contract.
3 votes to adjust the Professional Development portion of the contract.

Of the members that have emailed and spoken to me, the problem with
the negotiated PD piece of the contract is the day of the meeting.
Agreed, it does make it very easy if every Professional Development
meeting remain on Monday since that has been the day that we have
worked around for many years.  Everyone has built their home schedule
and life around that.  An example of the other side of the issue is
Lewis & Clark.  L&C now has Wednesday meetings.  I've had no
complaints out of that building and it seems to be OK with most
members there.  Obviously, everyone is not going to be happy with any
single time slot, but hopefully since this is Professional Development
Committee driven, it will be worked out with something that works for
the majority in the building.  Remember the PDC members should be
working for you and hearing your opinions on these issues.  Your
building elects the members to the PDC to represent you.  Let them
know your views.  Also let your building administrator know your
views.  I think now most buildings are working together
collaboratively to find common ground.

The other issue is the starting time of the meeting.  In the past the
meetings have started 15 minutes after the dismissal of school.  Now
it will be 30 minutes after the dismissal.  I really don't think
anybody at the negotiation table could really make a stand that it was
possible to begin these meetings only 15 minutes after dismissal and
leave a skeleton crew of  teachers liable for the safety of the
students.  None of us want to put that liability on any of our peers
or administrators.  The negotiation team has given this as a
concession for the shorter meeting time.

Even with that said, we still do not have a done deal with this
contract issue yet.  If we were asked to bring this back by the
administration team for approval right now, we would need to reject
this offer.  You ask why would we need to reject this if we, the
negotiation team, have recommended the acceptance of this and the
votes from the membership have suggested to accept this offer.  Even
though the issues have been worked out, we are having trouble on the
wording for the resolution.  Your team is working to get the language
very clear and concise.  We want ZERO room for the administration to
use loop holes to their advantage.  At this point, the administration
team has not agreed to clear and concise language.  I'm not sure why
because this makes it better for both parties involved, but the
administration team is still manipulating the language to keep loop
holes in the resolution.  Your team is working toward fixing that.

As of this point, the negotiations are still stalled.  I will be
filing a request with the superintendents to resume the negotiations.
We have been stalled while the administrative team goes through Meet
and Confer training session(s).  That was several weeks ago (4?) since
our last negotiation session.  I've not heard of any training that has
been scheduled or taken place.  Makes me wonder what is their real
purpose for stalling.  As time permits, I will certainly keep you
updated.

-------------------------------------

As a reminder, the building representative meeting will be on
Wednesday, September 19 at the Corner Coffee House.  We will be
implementing a new procedure at this meeting.  In the past, your
association has been very generous to pick up the tab for all member
food and drink purchases at these meetings.  MNEA grants have helped
pay for some of the cost in previous years.  We no longer have that
grant, so the cost is directed right back to the local association.
We are certainly not interested in keeping anyone from attending, but
we do need to cut the costs that are incured at these meetings.
Therefore we are implementing a new procedure for all future building
representative meetings.  This procedure will be as follows:

Building Representatives / Executive Members / MNEA UniServ Directors
and invited agenda guests will continue to be able to order one food
item and one drink item off of the menu to be paid for by the RGNEA.

All other RGNEA members attending will be allowed to order one drink
item off of the menu to be paid for by the RGNEA.  All food items will
now be the financial responsibility of those members.

I've asked all building representatives to send me updates of members
representing your building for this school year. If no new information
has come to me, I'm assuming the same members as last year will serve
as your building representatives this year.  I will have a current
building representative list at the meeting.  With this list we will
work with the Corner Coffee House in implementing this new plan.  All
building representatives will be given a ticket that you will need to
present to the cashier at the Coffee House in order to get your food
and drink put on the RGNEA tab.  Any other members will be given a
ticket to order a drink of their choice on the RGNEA tab.  Anyone
going to the counter without a ticket will be asked by the cashier to
pay for the items ordered.  I'll be giving out the tickets at this
September Meeting and we will all discuss this new procedure to find
out if there are any problems and find ways to make this run smoother.
 Hopefully nobody looks at this like the association or the executive
team is depriving anyone of something they think they deserve.  We DO
want to encourage all of our members to attend these meetings and be
involved, but this new procedure is only due to the financial
constraints of our association.  We can only give back to the members
what we take in.

I think that is it for now.  A full update of everything going on will
be given on Wednesday.  Hope to see you there.

Richard Thies
RGNEA President
314-518-4305

-------------------------------------------------------------

Building Representative Meeting
September 19, 2007
Corner Coffee House
100 North Florissant Road
Ferguson, Missouri
4:15p.m.

Update 9/10/07

This info can also be found on the RGNEA Blog

 

RGNEA Membership,

The RGNEA negotiation team has been made an offer on the Monday Professional Development Issue.  We are bringing it back for the approval or denial of our membership.  The proposed agreement is as followed:
------------------

The number of Professional Development meetings during non-contractual time will be 18. (That number is down from 23 meetings that was last approved by the Board of Education)

The length of time of each meeting can be a maximum of 60 minutes. (The amount of time is down from 90 minutes)

The meeting time begins no later than 30 minutes after the school dismissal time.

The Professional Development does not need to necessarily be on Monday, but could be on other days.

The Building Level Professional Development Committee will approve all
PD activities for the building and monitor each activity.

As per the PD agreement already in place from past years, all mandatory meetings shall be advertised 3 days prior to the event.

There will be evaluation forms distributed by the building PDC and turned back into the PDC after the completion of the form.

In addition, the administration will decrease the contracted time required for the teacher by 15 minutes each day from the acceptance of this agreement to the end of the year.  This means that a schedule will need to be made at the building level to allow every teacher to shorten the required work time by 15 minutes allowing every teacher to come to work later or leave work earlier.  This time would be during the current required 30 minutes before the school start time or the required 30 minutes after school dismissal time.  The 15 minutes could be given at the beginning of the day (arrive 15 minutes before the school start time instead of 30 minutes) or at the end of the day (allowing teachers to leave 15 minutes after dismissal time) or work out a combination of minutes before and after school which add up to 15 minutes.  These 15 minutes will not effect student educational time, just potentially the teacher duty schedule.  For those teachers that are currently required to serve duty during these times, the liability of scheduling and covering those duties falls on the administration in the building to cover any time that goes beyond the new, adjusted time requirements in place for the teacher.  Certainly, adjusting times should be a collaborative effort between the teacher and administrator, but the principal has the ability to place the teacher's 15 minutes leave time before or after school where it will least affect student coverage needs.

-----------------------------

Your negotiation team has worked extremely hard to work out a compromise.  In previous negotiation sessions, we have asked for a reduction to 10 Professional Development meetings per year.  We have not budged on that number until this new proposal has been offered. We know even 10 would be more than any other district requiring teachers to work on non-contracted time.  Are we satisfied?  We think this may be all we can get on this issue for this school year.  I know this is not what we wanted, but it is a slight movement in the issue which we have not had in previous years.  This plan has its flaws. Many teachers respect their principals and don't want to put the building principal in a spot to decrease the coverage of building duties while the students are there.  Remember, this is an administrative proposal that we are bringing back.  This proposal is setting a framework for the few administrators that abuse the teacher's rights when it comes to duties and the PD piece.  What you currently have in place in your building may not even be affected by this.

So, your approval of this proposal would mean a cut of 15 minutes per day from your schedule over an estimated 140-160 work days.  That adds up to 2100 minutes or more over the rest of the school year.  We would now be involved in professional development for 18 meetings at 60 minutes and that adds up to a maximum of 1080 minutes.  So the compromise does give us back more non-contractual time to the teachers in return for the Quality Professional Development at the 18 scheduled meetings.

If this is approved, the Professional Development activities WILL now go through the Professional Development Committee in the building. The principal is a member of that committee, but does not hold a voting chair on the committee.  All future PD activities must be approved by this committee.  Hopefully your building has elected members to the building level Professional Development Committee that will represent the entire staff and the PD needs when building PD is suggested.  The building level PDC will have the ability to turn down PD activities that are not quality activities for the entire staff or for selected groups of staff members.  It should be your peers voting on the PD activities instead of the administrator dictating what PD should take place.  A principal dictating what PD takes place will now be at an end.  Teachers will no longer be expected to sit through Professional Development that does not pertain to their subject or needs.  If the subject is reading, the P.E. teacher will not be required to sit through it just so the administration can say they had PD training.  The secretary of the PDC committee is charged with recording the number of meeting days and the time of the meeting. There should also be a PDC group grievance for every PD meeting held that was not approved by this committee or does not conform to the rules set up by this agreement.  As usual, if there are any problems in regard to the administration in following the agreement, we will be there for you.  Contact Gilbert or I to initiate any grievance for your building.  We'll keep you informed and ask you stand behind what your negotiation team is accomplishing for the membership. We, as your negotiation team, are recommending the acceptance of this agreement on the Professional Development portion of the contract.  We GUARANTEE when we go back to the negotiation table in January for the next contract year, our goal is to get most of the Professional Development placed on Professional Development Days on contractual days and less of the after school, non-contractual meeting times. I hope I have cleared up every question you may have in regard to the proposal and the effects of the proposal on our job for now and in the future.  If there are any further questions, feel free to call me or talk to any of the negotiation committee.  Their names are included below.

Your current negotiation team is:

David Jennerjohn - Negotiation Chair (Meadows)
Theresa Beck - Lead Facilitator (Meadows)
Jennifer Joachimstaler - Secretary (Glasgow)
Matt Williams (Highland)
Joda Fogerson (Lemasters)
Alice Webb (High School)
Richard Thies (Highland, Lewis & Clark, Gibson)
Gilbert Balderrama (MNEA UniServ Director)

Thanks again for your continued support.

Negotiation Update 8/27/07

RGNEA Members,
We met again last Monday, August 20th and discussed making changes to the ground rules. The number of copies of the video taped recording of the sessions was the primary focus Monday and after 90 minutes of discussion, the issue remained unresolved.  This was a surprise to us, as we were expecting to continue negotiating the Monday Meeting/ Professional Development issue. The administration team indicated at this session on Monday that they would no longer be interested in negotiations due to the teacher's team not moving enough to meet the administration's one option proposal.  After conferring with the administration on Friday, August 24th, the administration team has agreed to return to the table this Monday to continue working toward an agreement on the Monday Meeting/ PD situation. It has been agreed that after this meeting, whether we find compromise or not, negotiations will be postponed until the administration team attends bargaining training on the Meet and Confer format. Hopefully, this will resolve the administration's stone-walling tactics that have been used thus far. The invitation for training has also been extended to the teachers' team. Some of our team has already agreed to attend these training sessions.

The next negotiation session is this Monday August 27.  I want to extend the invitation to all of the membership to attend.  Your attendance shows the unity of our association.  Remember, our association is only as strong as our members.  Your negotiation team is representing you
and your views.  Please come and hear what is being fought for.

After 4 negotiation sessions, at 90 minutes each, no agreements have been reached.  The administration team has taken a, seemingly, unmovable stand on both the Monday Meeting issue and clarifications of the ground rules.  Hopefully, the training will open the lines of communication to help the administrative and teacher teams come together and reach a resolution to the issues.  I am TRYING to keep a positive attitude.

If you have any questions, feel free to call.

Richard Thies
RGNEA President
314-518-4305