NBFT Spotlight AFT-CT urges support of Malloy

NBFT, LOCAL 871, AFT CONNECTICUT, AFL-CIO
NBFT Spotlight
AFT-CT urges
support of Malloy
AFT-Connecticut is urging its
members to vote for Dan Malloy and
Nancy Wyman in the gubernatorial
election on Nov. 4.
According to material provided by
AFT-CT, Malloy believes all our children deserve access to quality education. Under Malloy’s leadership,
graduation rates have increased four
straight years and he signed a law
expanding access to universal pre-K.
Malloy’s opponent, Tom Foley,
champions a system that ties funding
to individual child performance –
benefitting charter schools that attract
the best students and ignoring bilingual and special needs students.
In regard to health care, under
Malloy’s leadership, Connecticut has
led the national in health care reform,
enrolling 230,000 people in medical
plans and is being looked to by other
states to help them with the transition.
Foley thinks businesses have too
many mandates and worries more
about corporations than working families.
Regarding workers’ rights, under
Malloy, Connecticut was the first
See Election, page 2
Members urged to support
change in absentee voting
On Nov. 4, there will be a referendum question on the ballot concerning an amendment to the Connecticut
State Constitution regarding absentee
ballots. The question reads:
“Shall the Constitution of the
State be amended to remove restrictions concerning absentee ballots
and to permit a person to vote without appearing at a polling place on
the day of an election?”
Currently, Connecticut voters
must either vote in person on voting
day, or they can mail in an absentee
ballot if they cannot vote in person
due to illness, disability, absence, or
religious prohibitions. If the referendum question is approved, the Legislature will be able to consider various
early voting methods through the usual legislative process.
According to information provided
by the New Britain Area League of
Women Voters, most states offer the
opportunity to cast a ballot before
Election Day. Thirty-three states and
See Referendum, page 4
VOLUM E 68, Is s u e 2
O c t ober 28, 2014
I N S I D E T HI S IS S UE :
Dear Fed
2
Welfare
3
Shout-outs
3
Retirement options
4
SIG grant announced
4
U N I ON DI RE CTO RY
President
Sue Truglio
Vice-President
High School
Pat Reynolds
Vice-President
Middle Schools
Charles Carey
Vice-President
Elementary Schools
Jackie Escales
Stephen Gray
Treasurer
Bill Sanford
Recording Secretary
Basia Maselek
Executive Secretary
Dan Blanchard
Spotlight Editor
Kristine Harger
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P .O . BO X 152 1
N E W B RIT A IN , CT
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8 60 -2 25 -2 80 8
NBFT.NET
V O LU ME 68 , Is s ue 2
P age 2
CONTRACT CORNER
Dear Fed,
I was recently called into a
meeting with my administrator.
She told me I did not need Union representation – that she only had a quick question. During
the meeting, the topic changed
and I found myself being criticized for my performance in the
classroom. Do I have the right to
walk out the meeting if this happens again?
Ambushed
Dear Ambushed,
Under your Weingarten
Rights, you have the right to
have Union representation at a
meeting in which your performance is called into question.
The law states that a unionized
employee has the right to have a
union representative present and
to represent an employee in an
investigatory interview with the
employer when the employee
reasonably believes that the interview may lead to disciplinary
action and, on the basis of that
belief, requests that his/her union representative be present
while that interview is conducted. This right was established by
the United States Supreme Court
in the case of NLRB VS.
WEINGARTEN, 420 U.S. 251.
If you do find yourself in a
meeting that “turns bad,” you
should politely request that a
Union representative be called
to the meeting and let the administrator know that without
such representation, you choose
not to participate in the meeting.
If the administrator refuses and
you do walk out – and yes, you
have the right to do so – you
should immediately contact your
school’s Union representative
and/or NBFT President Sue
Truglio. You should also send
an immediate email to Human
Resource Director Robert Stacy
at [email protected], and Truglio
at [email protected] (this account is linked to her phone and
she will receive an instant notification). In the email, you
should explain that you have left
a meeting with your administrator and explain why you left.
Dear Fed,
I am very upset about the
district directive that one of my
SLOs call for 100 percent of my
students to meet their goal score
on one of the NWEA tests
(Math, Reading or Language
Usage). Setting SLOs was supposed to be collaborative and
focus on the students in front of
me. I’m being given language to
cut and paste into my IAGDs.
Do I have to do this?
I-DRIVEn crazy
Dear DRIVEn,
Administration does have the
final say on our SLOs and
IAGDs, however, at the midyear conference, you will sit
down with your administrator to
discuss your students’ progress.
At that meeting, if you are still
concerned that you will not
meet the 100 percent goal, you
should bring documentation that
supports this concern, as well as
documentation of what you’ve
done to help your students be
successful.
At the mid-year conference,
you should also ask your administrator to give suggestions for
how you can help your students
be more successful.
Remember also, that should
you feel your administrator is
being unreasonable or unfair,
you have the right to dispute
your rating. The first line of dispute would be the evaluator
(administrator) meeting with the
teacher and Union representation. If the issue is not solved at
the point, you can appeal to a
committee that includes the superintendent (or assistant superintendent), the evaluator, yourself and a Union representative.
If the issue is still not resolved at
that point, the superintendent has
the final, binding say in the matter.
Contract Corner questions
and answered are based on concerns that are raised at MES and
CMES meetings. If you have a
question or concern you’d like
answered here, forward your
question to President Sue Truglio at [email protected].
Election
Continued from page one
state to require employers to
provide paid sick leave, and he
has vowed to continue protecting and defending workers’
rights, including collective bargaining. Foley has called for a
“Wisconsin moment” in Connecticut, to emulate a state
where collective bargaining
rights were curtailed. He has
proposed major job cuts for
state workers and opposed paid
sick leave legislation.
The above information was
provided by AFT-CT. NBFT
Local 871 does not make political endorsements.
N BF T S p ot ligh t
P age 3
WELFARE
Deaths
The Union extends its condolences to the following staff
members whose families have
experienced recent losses:
Alicia Garuti (Lincoln),
mother; Arthur Green (Gaffney),
grandmother-in-law; Maureen
Leitao (Smith), father-in-law;
Tom Leitao (Vance), father; Ann
Levine (Gaffney), sister; Kathy
Lucas (Jefferson), sister;
The Union extends its condolences to the family of a staff
member who recently passed:
Lynn Holland (retired).
sister of Jacklyn English at Pulaski).
The Union extends its congratulations to the following
members who recently married:
Marlene (Eshoo) Calandra
(Smith), Len Prygoda (retired).
Engagements
The Union extends its congratulations to the following
members who recently became
engaged:
Stacey Breton and Larry
Rudnick (both NBHS)
Well-Wishes
The Union extends its wellwishes to the following staff
members:
Mike Angers (Lincoln), Patty
Bell (NBHS), Lee Ann Benn
(Slade), Don Quinn (NBHS).
Births
The Union extends its congratulations to the following
member whose family is expanding:
Bill Candelori (Slade), a
daughter; Colleen Moffett-Mals
(NBHS), a son.
Weddings
The Union extends its congratulations to the following
member whose child has married:
Donna English (Chamberlain), daughter (who is also the
Welfare News should be submitted to Welfare Chairman
Patty Bell at [email protected],
NBFT President Sue Truglio at
[email protected], AND
Spotlight Editor Kristine Harger
at [email protected].
Changes to Welfare News
Dear members,
Beginning with this issue of
the Spotlight, I am making a
change in Welfare News. Previously, I did not include engagements or the weddings of members’ children. These announcements can now be forwarded to
me at [email protected]. I will
include retroactive announcements dating back to July 2014 in
the next issue if you would like
them included.
If you have a Welfare-related
announcement that you would
prefer NOT appear in the Spotlight, I will of course honor that
request. Please let me know if
this is the case.
Kristine
Shout-outs
The Union extends its congratulations to the following
staff members:
 Chris Brummer (former
principal at Smith) for
her promotion to district
coordinator of elementary special education.
 Meg Walsh on her appointment to the Southington school district.
 NBHS Principal Dave
Chambers and Associate
Principal Joe Pinchera
on their tail-gating outreach to teachers and
staff at the high school.
Dear members,
The “Shout-Outs” section is a great place to recognize your colleagues for
their achievements both in
and out of the classroom.
If you or someone at
your school has an innovative program, or raised significant funds for a charity,
or had a major achievement,
please let us know! Feel
free, also, to send a photo.
These announcements
can be sent to me at [email protected], or via interoffice mail to me at NBHS.
Kristine Harger,
Spotlight Editor
N BF T S p ot ligh t
P age 4
Photo courtesy of Matt O’Connor, AFT-CT
FROM LEFT, AFT-CT 1st Vice President Steve McKeever, AFT-CT President Melodie Peters, NBFT
Elementary VP Steve Gray, NBFT High School Vice President Pat Reynolds, and NBFT President Sue
Truglio, at a summer news conference at Pulaski Middle School, where Gov. Dan Malloy and Education
Commissioner Stefan Pryor, announced the award of five School Improvement Grants (SIG) for the following schools: Smalley Academy, Northend Elementary, Smith Elementary, Pulaski Middle and Slade
Middle schools. The money will be used in many different ways to expand educational opportunities for
New Britain students.
Retirement
seminar
AFT-Connecticut will host a
pre-retirement seminar on Saturday, Nov. 1, from 9 a.m. to noon
at Washington Middle School,
1225 North Broad Street, Meriden. Registration begins at 8 a.m.
The workshop will be conducted
by retirement specialist Michael
Cooper, who will discuss the A-Z
of retirement plans.
Fee is $10, payable in advance
to AFT Connecticut 35 Marshall
Road Rocky Hill, CT 06067. A
continental breakfast will be provided. RSVP by Oct. 24 online at
https://leadernet.aft.org/webform/
tprs2014 or by calling 860-2579782.
Referendum
Continued from page 1
the District of Columbia offer
early voting in person. Twentyseven states and the District of
Columbia offer no-excuse absentee voting. Three states allow
mail voting. Connecticut is one
of just 14 states that restricts voting to one Tuesday.
In states that allow it, voters
increasingly choose alternative
voting methods. For example, in
the 2012 Presidential election,
62 percent of Texas votes, 57
percent of Tennessee votes and
70 percent of Nevada votes
were cast prior to Election Day.
The League of Women Voters, along with AFT-Connection
and the New Britain Federation
of Teachers Local 871, are all
encouraging their members to
vote “yes” on this question and
to make voting less restrictive in
the state.
EXERCISE YOUR
CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS
O N N O V. 4 A N D V O T E ! ! !