One Job. One Educator.

Students require consistency and quality instruction to be successful. Please be vocal advocates for your students. We are hearing that once again, there are plans to divide programs. Sherman, with enough classes for a 1.0 position, already has a .2 tentatively assigned, meaning that students will not have consistent instruction. Please have conversations with your principal and Christa Erolin around how this negatively affects student learning, equity, building scheduling, and teacher workload.

Check the district open positions weekly

PE and Music need departmental coordination to ensure that a k-12 vision of a comprehensive program can be achieved. As educators we deserve to have support and resources on par with what homeroom teachers are provided.

In recent years, C & I has provided basic administrative services-organizing professional development and handling the paperwork and scheduling involved. Mary Waterbly went above and beyond. With Mary's retirement, it is unclear how/if the position will be filled. Ideas have been circulating that the position will be changed and the planning of PLCs may fall to a stipend to be paid to someone who is already working full time.  We are already being asked to provide our own professional development content. This plan would have us doing the administration part of our PLC's as well.

We are professional educators delivering state-mandated instruction to every student. It makes sense to have departmentally specific administrative leadership. Anything less is a disservice to our students and to our fully employed specialists. Should it happen that this stipended work is offered, please help send the message that this work should be an actual job, not an added duty, by not seeking the duty.

The new Employee Self Service software change has had some glitches in tracking leave and insurance. It seems to be a systemic issue, though payroll has yet to acknowledge this. Be sure you have not been affected by checking your pay stubs in Focus.

Things to look for:

*LTD is not the same as the state-mandated Long Term Care insurance that was instituted, then put on hold. That should be $0.00

Equitable Access

If you are pressed into sub duty, remember to document it here for TEA

MyTime Coverage Instructions: Use these hyperlinks within 5 days of coverage to be compensated. 

For the first time in a long time, specialist issues are being brought to the table.

My most sincere thanks to everyone who voted for and campaigned for me during the TEA election. I truly appreciate the extra time and effort that was put in to getting me elected. I am excited to be able to start officially in July though the work has already begun. If you want to join in the work by serving on committees or being a building representative or even if you just want to share ideas about how to improve our union, please send me an email. We can do better and we deserve better. It is time for change. pennycramertea@gmail.com