California Educator

MAY 2012

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MAKING A DIFFERENCE Summer training builds skills and knowledge at www.cta.org/conferences. Enroll- ment is on a first-come, first-served basis, and many strands fill up quickly. For more information, contact the CTA Conference Coordination Center at (650) 552-5355. CTA'S SUMMER INSTITUTE 2012 will be held Aug. 5-9 at UCLA's Confer- ence Center. This event offers a variety of trainings designed to assist chapters in day-to-day representation, help teachers build leadership skills, and improve teach- ing and learning. Register now for your training of choice CTA Members learn and share skills, knowledge and expertise on various topics. Negotiations and Organizational Development Strand — The NOD Strand offers five full-week tracks. Emerging Leaders — Designed to arm members who are beginning their activism with the information, resources and skills needed to become effective organizers and future leaders in their local chapter, this track includes the basic concepts of unionism and advocacy, union history and structure, and effective organizing techniques. This track does not cover bargaining or grievance representation skills. Essential Bargaining Skills — In this highly interactive session, designed to guide participants in the use of a 10-step process to ensure a successful bargaining experience, teams of participants will bargain an agreement and work through extensive coaching and debriefing sessions to determine which strategies were successful. Participants must attend every session from Sunday afternoon to Thursday morning. Advanced Bargaining Skills — This track will teach the skills needed to prepare for and implement successful bargaining. Topics include developing and implementing bargaining strategies and tactics, analyzing contract language, identifying key elements of the district budget, balancing the bargaining goals of complex constituencies, and utilizing CTA's research database. Participants must have three years of experience on a local bargaining team, or have previously completed the Essential 30 California Educator / May 2012 Bargaining Skills track and one year of experience on a local bargaining team. School Finance — Designed for leaders and bargaining team members who want to become more knowledgeable about school finance and district budgets, this session includes tracking the trends of budget priorities, calculating the cost of a bargaining proposal, determining a district's ability to pay, and developing comparability data to support bargaining objectives. Health and Welfare Issues for Active Members and Retirees — This track will focus on bargaining health benefits in order to increase the quality of care and reduce costs, and will also cover current local, state and national medical health care reform measures, current activities of CTA coalitions, and Medicare benefits for retirees. Participants should be prepared to discuss their Summary Plan Descriptions, contract language and other information pertaining to their locally bargained medical benefits program. Legal Strand —The Legal Department offers two introductory partial-week tracks. Participants may register for either or both. Track I (Sunday–Tuesday) — This track will focus on "group" labor and employment issues. Topics include basic union and employee rights under the Educational Employment Relations Act; the legal framework for bargaining; Brown Act open meeting issues; the rights of members to union representation; duty of fair representation — best practices to protect your chapter from DFR liability; union activities that are protected by labor laws; and what actions by the district can be successfully challenged by filing an unfair practice charge. Track II (Tuesday–Thursday) — This track will focus on "individual" labor and employment issues. Topics include the rights of union members under antidiscrimination and sexual harassment laws; the rights of educational employees to a safe and healthy workplace; discipline and dismissal procedure under the Education Code; disability discrimination and reasonable accommodation; leave of absence issues; and cyberlaw, texting, MySpace and Facebook — best practices in a hyperconnected world. Instruction and Professional Development Strand — The full-week IPD Strand will focus on "Building Leadership Capacity in Today's Educational Landscape." Its goal is to empower participants with leadership and advocacy skills to implement the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the accompanying SMARTER Balanced Assessments (SBAC). Topics include the development of the CCSS and SBAC, English-language arts, mathematics, universal design for special populations, assessment literacy, performance assessment and proficiency level, and textbook adoption and supplemental materials. Featured keynote speakers are Doug Reeves and Andy Hargreaves. Teachers, administrators, curriculum coordinators and other educators are welcome. You can use QEIA, School Site Council, PI, SIG and Title II funds to register for this important professional development. Member Benefits Strand — This partial-week strand (Sunday–Tuesday) will show chapter leaders how to cultivate strong chapters and make the most of the numerous benefits provided exclusively to CTA and NEA members. It will help your chapter provide tools to meet members' needs, use member benefits in the fall campaign and other organizing efforts, grow and retain membership, convert agency- fee payers to members, and build chapter appreciation and loyalty. Hands-on activities teach how to survey membership, develop communication pieces, plan a member benefits event, and build a chapter's member benefits action plan. Community Outreach Strand — This partial-week strand (Tuesday–Thursday) will explore a variety of strategies and tools for tapping into community power. Activities include: Keynote from CTA President Dean Vogel; Community Carousel

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