CVEU Monthly Newsletter October 2017 Hello Fellow CVEU Members, Let’s get right down to business in our October newsletter Town Hall Meeting For CAVA Certified Staff Tuesday, October 17th at 12 PM We will discuss important updates and next steps in our plan win a strong contract that address workload concerns, job security, and fair compensation for all CAVA educators. *This is a protected, lunch-time activity. You cannot be penalized for attending. Bargaining Update CVEU Representatives, Brianna Carroll, Sheryl Carruth and CTA representative Chuck King met with CAVA Representative April Warren, CAVA lawyer James Young and K12 Representative Katrina Abston on Tuesday in a continued effort to finalize a fair contract. While no written proposals were given to CVEU at this session, the PERB mediator believed progress could be made with another mediation session. It is CVEU’s sincere hope that CAVA will address the important issues we’ve raised based on conversations with the vast majority of the teachers at CAVA, and come to the next mediation session ready to present proposals in writing. We will keep you updated! FAQs from Our Last Town Hall Meeting on 9/26/17 Many questions were raised during our last Town Hall meeting. As is our practice, we wanted to provide answers in our newsletter in case they are helpful to other staff at CAVA. Question: Can you use a sick day during a strike? Answer: Participating in a lawful strike is protected activity for teachers and we can not be fired for doing so. However, educators do not get paid during a strike nor can we use sick or vacation time. Question: Is the time-frame of a strike determined prior to going on strike? Or do we strike until CAVA is willing to respond? Answer: The time-frame of a strike is typically not predetermined. If a strike were to happen, it would most likely last until CAVA administration was prepared to address our members’ biggest concerns including work status, salary, work day, and caseloads. CVEU remains hopeful that CAVA will work to resolve a fair contract before we get to that point. Question: Is the strike going to be strategic in that it will fall directly when admin needs us the most? Answer: There is a process that must be followed prior to educators going on strike. CVEU will adhere to these processes as well as the legal time-frames to ensure that all avenues have been taken prior to going on strike. Merit Based Pay ULP Update As many of you might remember, an informal settlement hearing was scheduled to take place September 28th because CVEU filed charges over CAVA administration’s failure to follow through with their commitments to pay merit raises in 2016-17. That settlement conference was cancelled. After a representative from the Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) spoke with both sides, it was determined that CAVA’s position was too far from CVEU’s request that they follow through on their promise to provide our members with their merit increases. Next step will be a formal settlement hearing. Once that is scheduled by PERB, we will let you know the date. This information is incredibly disappointing for CVEU members who were hoping that CAVA would honor the commitment they made in 2016 to give teachers their merit increase based on their performance for the 2015-2016 school year. Your CVEU leadership will continue to keep you informed of this very important issue. Don’t Leave Your Families in the Dark! There are many changes happening at CAVA that affect your families and we need their help and support. Let your families know about the PTSA newsletter and help keep them informed. Please include the invitation to the newsletter in your next email out to families and help them join more than 300 CAVA families who receive our monthly newsletter!. What is Happening with the Science Department? As you know, CAVA was mandated by the California Attorney General to offer A-G Science courses for students. Last year, in-person Science labs were piloted in two CAVA schools and this year they are being offered in all campuses. Unfortunately, just a few weeks into this school year we have learned that CAVA has been employing dangerous procedures and some of our members are concerned of possible liability due to unsafe practices. In an effort to correct these issues science teacher Deborah Lilly has attempted notify admin in an effort to help prevent a possible disaster and at the last bargaining session CVEU brought this to CAVA and K12 Inc.'s attention. We are hopeful that CAVA will comply with this request by October 30, 2017. Additionally, Earth Science teachers have raised concerns to CAVA administration regarding the influx of students in this particular course. These teachers met with admin to address the significant increase in caseload. They were offered only superficial support via a phone call rather than administration addressing the real problem- low staffing and inequitable compensation. CVEU will continue to focus on the issues that are important to our members as we fight for a fair contract. CTA Supports CVEU We are excited that CVEU has been given the opportunity for three of our leaders to attend the CTA State Council on Saturday, October 21st in Los Angeles. Our members will be speaking to CTA’s various committees and sharing their personal stories of their experience at CAVA. CVEU will continue to collaborate with CTA in our efforts to make CAVA the best online school possible. Letters to April
In this week's Letters to April, we have a very concerning letter not from a CAVA teacher, but from Tom Torlakson, California State Superintendent of Public Schools. The letter details the findings from the State Controller, Betty Y. Lee regarding a two year audit of CAVA and Insight. What the audit found was the following:
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