Meeting of the NASE Executive Committee

Tuesday, September 10, 2024 4:00

Community Room, JFK Middle School

APPROVED 10/8/2024

In Attendance: (34 participants)

Vanessa Coates-Cooney, Sandy Bombard, Harrison Wallace, Ryan Parent, Jennifer Hayden, Xristina Warren, Kevin Schmith, Tammy LaChance, Kristin Thibedau, Kim Bowler, Ellen Brown, Danielle Kowal, Sara Simmons, Laura St. Pierre, Karen Schiaffo, Erica Caron, Mareatha Wallace, Sara Churchill-Winsor, Paula Rigano Murray, Kate Fontaine, Jesicca Lavallee, Heather Brown, Andrea Egitto, Erica Lamanna, Carrie Foley, Brian Bagdon, Jake Gallant, Madyson Mackenzie, Daria Steward, Helen Woods-Blake, Laila Copperansky, Jeromie Whalen, Emily Dumais, Ray Paquette,

 

Excused:

Jamie Lawrence, Holly Taylor, 

 

Andrea calls the meeting to order at 4:03 pm.

 

Item I: Call to Order & Welcome

• Introduce ourselves since we have many new delegates and a new officer

 

Item II: New Business

• Will be having a regular Superintendent meeting with Officers every first Wednesday of the month
• Vacancies in the committee
  • BSS: 1 additional position open
  • Leeds: full slate
  • JSS: 1 additional position open
  • JFK: full slate
  • Ryan Road: 1 additional position open
  • NHS: 2 unknown position, if these unknown are continuing then full slate 
  • SVAHS: full slate
  • At large: there are openings 
• How do we get unions to talk about national health care for everyone?
  • Heather will be bringing this to MTA
• Does anyone evaluate administrators for their standards and transparency around this?
  • The superintendent should be evaluating principals
• BSS needs another reading interventionist and this position seems to be problematic
  • Superintendent stated that principals make decisions about title 1 funds, only have .8 reading (noted that should be going up to full time) and have a full time math interventionist
• Title 1 questions: Who oversees the title 1 money? How much title 1 money does each building qualify for? How much money of what is being allocated for title 1 money is the building actually getting? What is the gap between what is being given and what is supposed to be
• New voices speaking at School Committee is important → speak on how this school year is affected
• Most class sizes at JFK are at 25 with no additional supports, this results in teachers wanting to leave the district/quit
  • There are more classes over 25 students, data uses the average class sizes
  • Invite school committee members to come and see the reality
• Parents are willing to read comments from staff members at public comment at school committee meetings
• At the PD antiemetics presentation with 3 police in the building and officers in the auditorium in plain clothes as well as with heavily armed officers, this was unknown and uncomfortable, concerns with SROs coming back into buildings
• If we use more than the allotted sick time, can we just not be paid for the day that we are out when over the sick time?
• JFK paraeducator evaluation binder is not being communicated about its use and value accurately, needs to be communicated about what this is as a organizational tool → this is just a suggestion and not an evaluation piece
• JFK new schedule is very problematic for teachers and students, is causing chaos for scheduling and providing special education services, JFK building wants to go back to the original schedule because Aspen can’t go back to it unless someone from Aspen comes in to fix it which will take money that we do not have → Kate will handle this with JFK staff
• iReady → 4/5th grade special education teachers needs to now utilize a second platform for IEP progress monitoring, usernames and password access was not given until last week, the amount of time to give this assessment takes about double to triple the amount, some teachers do not have access to this platform, does not compare to abilities and previous data from AimsWeb

Item III: Secretary’s Report 

MOTION: to accept the Secretary’s Report 

Entertained by: Andrea

Moved by: Mareatha 

Seconded by: Sara

Motion Approved: unanimously

 

Item IV: Treasurer’s report 

• This looks very transparent and clear to follow
• Moving towards having a full electronic binder

MOTION: to accept the Treasurer’s Report

Entertained by: Andrea

Moved by: Jennifer

Seconded by: Mareatha

Motion Approved: unanimously

 

Item V: Plan for meetings/negotiations

• Plan a listening tour to each building
• If ideas are coming to you around negotiations please start a list 
  • Please keep in mind not every single item will not be able to go into negotiations and 
• Hoping to have open negotiations again this year, only negotiating members can speak at the table
• HOMEWORK: start a list for ‘wish list’ items for negotiations
• HOMEWORK: think about the best time for a listening time in your building for ideally an hour block

 

Item VI: Officer Reports

• Please read at the end of the agendas and please feel free to ask questions to your officers

Item VII: Adjourn

MOTION: to adjourn

Entertained by: Andrea

Moved by: Sara

Seconded by: Jennifer

Motion Approved: unanimously

 

Upcoming meetings

October 1, 4:00 Ryan Road – NASE Executive Board

October 2, 3:45 NASE meeting with superintendent

October 8, 4:00 JFK – NASE Executive Committee Meeting

 

Officer Reports

 

Teachers (Unit A)

Responding to the nonresponse to the vote of no confidence. Beginning to address PD. concerns around lack of staffing large elementary school class sizes, unfinished schedules at high school, vacant positions with no applicants for, and large classroom sizes. Inequities around classroom sizes. 

 

Admin (Unit B)

Got an extension until September 5th about vacation but back that was not honored by the district. Negotiating MOA for associate principal.

 

ESPs (Unit C)

COVID vaccine mandates that are affecting paras to be hired. Unhappy communication around the antisemitism PD with police presence.

 

SVHS (Unit D)

Most vacancies seemed to be filled at this time. Nothing to report at this time. 

 

Clerical: (Unit E)

Been working on equitable hours for clerical members for unpaid lunches. 

 

Custodian (Unit F)

Looking to hire a lead night at JFK and another member to be out for a potential month or so at JFK.

 

Cafeteria (Unit G)

No open positions at this time. Nothing to report at this time.

 

SVHS (Unit H)

Nothing to report at this time.

 

PR&R 

Nothing to report at this time.

 

Membership Coordinator

Ten processed new members and eight in the process. 

 

Communications Coordinator

Nothing to report at this time.

 

President’s and Vice President’s Report

Dealing with budget issues, working towards a resolution for the vote of no confidence, meeting with Superintendent and Mayor over the summer, monthly meetings are scheduled with the Superintendent at her office, attending MTA regional President’s meeting on Sept. 12

.

CAT TEAM – volunteers 

John Seamon- Ignalis – JFK

Mareatha Wallace JFK

Erica Caron JFK

Jenny Mae Viets NHS 

Jess Lavalle NHS 

Sue Sullivan NHS

Michele Bernhard NHS

Jake Gallant (NHS para)

Karen Hidalgo NHS

Ray Paquette – NHS

Beth Monopoli – BSS  

Jen Lucine-JSS

Huimin Wan- JSS

Sara Simmons RR

Cori Carey – RR

Lisa LaBeau- RR

Katie Dell’Olio  – Leeds

Ty Holter – NHS

Meeting of the NASE Executive Committee

Tuesday, June 11, 2024, 4:00

JFK Middle School

APPROVED 9/10/2024

In Attendance: (31 participants)

Vanessa Coates-Cooney, Tammy Cook, Veronica Douglas, Paula Rigano-Murray, Kate Fontaine, Erica Lamanna, Andrea Egitto, Kim Bowler, Jennifer Hayden, Kira Henninger, Sharon Carlson, Heather Brown, Laura St. Pierre, Karen Schiaffo, Harrison Wallace, Ellen Brown, Sara Simmons, Xristina Warren, Sara Churchill-Winsor, Mareatha Wallace, Madyson Mackenzie, Sandy Bombard, Helen Woods, Danielle Kowal, Hana Zayatz, Laila Copperansky, Daria Steward, Jamie Lawrence, Brian Bagdon, Jake Gallant, Erica Caron

 

Excused:

Kevin Schmith, 

 

Andrea calls the meeting to order at 4:00 pm.

 

Item I:  Call to Order & Check in

• Welcome new delegates 
• Nomination

 

Item II:  New Business

• A Unit F delegate, Kevin, wanted to have a platform around universal insurance → is this the right platform?
  • propose to MTA at 2025 annual meeting, a new business item advocating for universal health care

 

Item III:  Secretary’s Report

MOTION: to accept the Secretary’s Report 

Entertained by: Andrea

Moved by: Sharon

Seconded by: Mareatha

Motion Approved: unanimously

 

Item IV:  Treasurer’s report 

• budget for FY24
• Present budget for FY25  
  • Additional money to new member socials, conferences, appreciation, mileage parking, MTA annual meeting, and contingency lines
  • Suggestion to add a line item for printing → $600
  • Type under new member liaison paid mta → change to $350 NOT $3500

MOTION: to accept the FY25 budget with noted amendments

Entertained by: Andrea

Moved by: Erica

Seconded by: Jennifer

Motion Approved: unanimously

 

Item V:  Resolution for a Cease Fire  

• Review survey → Kira
  • 60 total responses
  • Overall result 72% in favor of NASE signing resolution 
  • Less than 11% of NASE have responded to the survey
• MTA has already signed this resolution, November 2023
• Thoughts: If we are signing onto this resolution, then we should be 100% in with all political items & if we don’t sign this resolution, then we should 0% in with all political items
• Thoughts: Have heard communication from members that would leave union if signed, would leave union if joined, and would do what majority feels
• Thoughts: Is this the focus we want to have right now with our current budget crisis, our current administration crisis, and upcoming negotiation year?
• Thoughts: Is this making a statement or doing actions? What is the follow up if we sign? This seems to be just a statement that we do.
• Thoughts: Why are some so negative around this that have communicated with delegates? Takes focus away from local members, too political, why are we focusing on just one area of international conflict, why are we not focusing on all international conflicts 
• Thoughts: If MTA signed this and nothing changed then this seems very performative if we do so
• Resolution directly read to this CE by Kira for the record
• Thoughts: It is very far away but it does impact families locally
• Thoughts: We need to be very careful about thinking about people only losing their jobs when people are losing their lives

MOTION: NASE to sign on to the Cease-Fire Resolution by the Labor Movement

Entertained by: Andrea

Moved by: Laila

Seconded by: Hana

Motion Approved: Majority Vote in Favor

16 in favor, 13 opposed, 4 abstentions

 

Item VI: NPS Budget season  

• City Council Meeting on 6/20/24

• Proposed to create a special education for the future, currently is being slated in the general city fund
• Cuts that were proposed on Monday night do not add up to the cuts that are proposed, seem to still be $400,000 short of cuts
• Moving towards to have level services funding
• Have huge support from the community
• Have support from neighboring locals
• Have support from MTA president 
• June 17th finance committee meeting to (Quaverly) present the budget
• June 20th city council meeting to vote on the budget
• Follow the Save Our School Facebook page

 

Item VII: VONC

• Meetings in each school for voting
  • 406 possible voters
  • 89.6% response rate
  • 96.4% in favor 
  • 13 people voted no
• MTA conservation communicated that we can move forward
• Names on ballots will not be shared
• Next step → release a press release around Wednesday night and read at school committee meeting
• Is there a way to get this introduced/released so that School Committee can’t ignore/miss it
• School committee meeting on Thursday at 6:30 and the NASE party ends at 7:00 so what is the plan?
• Evaluation has not happened yet so this information has to be released before the evaluation occurs 

MOTION: Plan to release the press release and share press release at the school committee on Thursday

Entertained by: Andrea

Moved by: Kate

Seconded by: Sara 

Motion Approved: unanimously, 1 abstention

 

Item VIII: Adjourn

MOTION: to adjourn

Entertained by: Andrea

Moved by: Karen 

Seconded by: Tammy

Motion Approved: unanimously

 

Upcoming meetings:

June 13 3:00 – 7:00 – NASE End of Year Party, Look Park – Dow Pavilion