Weekly Update 9/2/13

Dear Member,

Hopefully everyone had a great Labor Day weekend (thank you, American labor movement!).   Here’s your weekly update:

·         You can look at past weekly updates and random blogs here. 

·         Your MVEA Negotiations team is looking at adding members, and we need your help to find the right people.   What person pops into your head when you think of the following qualities:  1)  a teacher that is respected by colleagues, administration, students, and the community,  2)  a problem solver that focuses on win/win outcomes,  and 3  a person willing to commit to 60+ hours of meetings spread throughout the year?  If this describes you or a person you know, please send their name todcook@coloradoea.org as soon as possible.  We will contact them and let them, explain the duties of the position, and set up an interview. 

·         As part of the MVEA’s community service, your AR Council voted to support The Western Slope Center for Children, a child advocacy center.  Each month a new area will be responsible for collecting and delivering donations (school supplies, toys, etc.).  Area G, led by the fearless Chris Hobbs, will be the first area to donate.  

·         We broke the 100 new members mark this past week!   Please make sure that all potential members in your building have had the opportunity to join.  By merely sending them the link to watch therecruiting video and then answering any questions they might have, you have done your part to grow our association.   Surprisingly, many new members have said that they simply have never been asked to join, at least not recently. 

·         If you need to send anything to the MVEA, simply use the interdepartmental mail envelopes and mark “MVEA” as the destination.  It’s super easy!

·         Are there any parents, grandmas, or grandpas that you know that would like to donate 10 hours to the children of our school district?    The 500 Plan is designed to bring volunteers into our schools (aimed at grades 3 – 5) to help our students, especially in literacy.    It’s hugely rewarding, and people who spend time in our schools tend to become huge supporters of public education!  So, please send some names and contact information to dcook@coloradoea.org and someone from the 500 Plan will contact them and ask for their help.  

·         There has been a lot of confusion surrounding the self-assessments that all teachers were asked to complete by August 30th.   A few things:  1) your evaluator should not keep a copy of your self-evaluation (it is merely used by you to help back up why you chose your PPP, so don’t leave it with your evaluator), and 2) the August 30th date is a “soft” deadline that was arrived at by looking at our largest schools (i.e. there are 100 teachers at GJHS) who have to have a conference with each teacher by September 30th and then working backwards from that date so that our “worst case” scenarios are achievable.  In most cases “missing” the deadline by a few days is very forgivable.  J   Just communicate with your evaluator. 

·         We set a cap of 50 people for the SB191 Teacher Evaluation class that is being held this weekend.  With that said, we have already had 61 teachers sign up, so we are reconfiguring the room to allow more people to attend.  If you are interested in attending, we will accept 14 more teachers.  All of your questions about this new system for evaluating effective educators will be answered by either CEA’s Teaching and Learning Coordinator (Linda Barker), our Human Resource Director (Colleen Martin) or one of the SB191 Committee Co-Chairs (Darren Cook or Leah Gonyeau).  You can sign uphere. 

Have a great week!