Back to School 2023

What a summer break! It is always a privilege to work in a profession that provides time for individuals to prioritize themselves for weeks at a time. I hope you were able to take time to power up for the next year working with the students of the Temecula Valley.

I enjoyed the ability to spend quality time with my wife and each one of my children. It was not so long ago when they would come to work with me at Vail Elementary and follow me to the TVEA and TVUSD offices and school sites to work with members of TVEA. Now each one is on their path to adulthood, my second is leaving to UNM this weekend!

Our union, TVEA, continues to focus on our main principles, advocating and organizing for: effective and safe learning and teaching environments, prevailing compensation, maintaining the contract, representing members in due process, and encouraging community and strength within our membership.

In April, your TVEA Leadership Council, which is the governing body of the association that sets direction through representing members through sites and job roles, voted to stand beside elementary teachers on organizing to have social studies textbooks that met California State Frameworks and Standards available for the following year. After many months, the TVUSD Governing Board was able to work out a resolution to the situation where elementary students will have access to textbooks for this year. A common-sense solution was long in the making, but not done yet.

Also in April, your TVEA Leadership Council discussed and in May voted to move forward to protect teaching environments and enforce due process. The TVUSD Governing Board resolution in December that provided vague direction on what is and is not allowed in classroom discussion and instruction places all members and employees in jeopardy of discipline.

This resulted in Mae v. Komrosky. (See the article below for more details.)

A Collective Voice

Last year, I and your Executive Board worked diligently to empower the TVEA Leadership Council to bring up discussion and action items. The discussions were messy, but professional and productive. Our union was able to unite around issues and take action. That is the true power of our big tent organization that houses diverse ideas, backgrounds, and philosophies. We share our passion for public education to empower the youth of the community and are humbled by the trust bestowed to us to be partners in the student’s journey.

You are TVEA and through our representative and elected Leadership Council, the direction of the organization is in the hands of our elected representatives.

TVEA welcomes another cohort of site leaders elected in the spring to the TVEA Leadership Council. Many sites have multiple positions, your site may have an open position available! A TVEA Leadership Council role provides an opportunity to learn about contractual rights and help organize us to be stronger in bargaining and in member support. I also encourage you to participate in vital discussions during your site’s 10-minute meetings with colleagues from your site or job role. Our union functions best when members discuss and engage with each other!

Join us! The opportunities are waiting for you to increase our union strength!

Site Leaders are vital in our organization and some sites need representation for this year.

While sites did attempt to hold elections before the end of the school year, we know how the end of the year goes, there are sites that need TVEA Leadership Council representation for this year: French Valley ES (2) , HIIA (1), Paloma ES (2), Summit Academy (1), Vintage Hills ES (2), Day Middle (2), Temecula Middle (1), Margarita Middle (2), Chaparral High (6), Great Oak High (6), and Academic Specialist (representing LCAP, Intervention, Support Specialists, Instructional Coaches etc). The first TVEA Leadership Council is on September 7th and the TVEA Leadership Academy is on 9/22. Make sure your site and group is represented! Hold an election to represent your site/group within TVEA.

Site Leaders:

• Site Leader Election rules
• Ask your site for anyone who may want to declare and collect declarants for 48 hours. A candidate may not run an election. Copy this Declaration Form
• A vote can happen at a meeting with a vote of hands, a voice vote, paper ballots, or a Google survey.
• Submit results

Academic Specialist

If you are intersted in the Academic Specialist Leadership Position complete this Declaration Form and TVEA will run the election. Declaration

Contact tveaelections@gmail.com and tveducators@gmail.com for guidance on holding a site election.

TVEA communicated Fall of 2022 that compensation was on the table, and our Budget Ad-Hoc and Bargaining teams wanted to capture as much of the state approved COLA as possible. With the state budget uncertainties, whether the COLA would be fully funded or deferred, TVEA communicated a plan to wait until the Fall of 2023. Since the state budget is not passed until mid-June (and this year was not finalized until closer to July) arriving to an agreement in the spring takes a tremendous amount of confidence that the state funding for public education advocated by CTA and approved by state legislators will materialize.

In their May meetings, the Executive Board and Leadership Council endorsed a plan to make gains on prevailing wages in the area and to maximize on schedule salary increases instead of one-time payments. To do this, it was better to wait until the puzzle pieces fell into place. The first was that the California Budget was passed and the language was written to fully fund public K-12 education. Now we are waiting for student enrollment numbers for TVUSD. Because the current TVUSD budget is based on a decrease in enrollment, any increase helps the district capture a fully funded COLA. These figures will be available as August draws to a close.

The last TVEA communications from May through late June was in case the district was able to close our bargaining for compensation for 23-24. While we came close, unfortunately, the TVUSD Governing Board priorities were focused on dismissing the superintendent, establishing an interim, and elementary students access to textbooks.

During bargaining, the superintendant and the Governing Board play a major role in defining parameters in which the TVUSD bargaining team can operate. While there was hope that a deal was in play in May/June, throughout the month of June, the district lacked a superintendent to provide the needed leadership to coalesce board direction toward bargaining. While an interim superintendent is now in place, we expect to move forward with bargaining for compensation as planned. We believe that TVUSD is on sound footing for a fair and competitive compensation settlement.

While we would have loved to have a bargained agreement going into the summer as the previous year, the conditions did not align. Now with our membership back, we can continue with full steam. Our union will need to be present to support the bargaining team as they discuss ongoing compensation and maximize a settlement that helps our members support their families and their goals.

On Tuesday, TVEA welcomed 60 new members into the organization during the New Teacher Orientation. This was the first flurry of new hires ready to be in classrooms on day one.

Thank you to Vice President Cynthia Lopez, Treasurer Amber Kott, Secretary Amy Eytchison, Elementary Area Reps Jamie Vaughn and Anastasia Bortcosh, High School Area Reps Derek Heid, Doug VomSteeg, Special Education Area Rep Kerri Bodemer, Membership Coordinator Claudia Candray, Member Engagement Chair Vivi Souvanlasy and Organizational Director Lisa Sisco.

Please take the time to welcome someone new at your site! You are TVEA, and are the main support to our new and veteran educators starting in TVUSD. Say hello and ask if they joined https://join.cta.org . CTA is offering first year educators a $300 Classroom set up grant through the CTA Member Benefits Program https://ctaclassroomgrant.azurewebsites.net . All CTA members can receive 6 free units to help advance through the salary schedule as well. The benefits are legit!

If you are returning from a Leave of Absence or a Medical Leave where you were separated from the district from pay, you need to enroll again. Use the link above and use the same personal email from before. You can contact Lisa Sisco at tveaorgdirector@gmail.com for the email or your membership number.

With the help of the non-profit legal organization, Public Counsel, our union joined with Temecula Valley students, parents, and individual teachers to notify TVUSD that we believe the school board violated the law in adopting its resolution banning vaguely defined content along with other related frameworks and failing to adopt an elementary school social science textbook for the 2023-24 school year.

The decision to participate was made by our elected TVEA Leadership Council at its May meeting and was primarily based on the impacts on potential discipline caused by the vague language in the resolution and elementary students not having access to one of the four California adopted social science textbooks. These are a challenge to our working/teaching conditions and our ability to effectively teach the California frameworks and standards. The conditions also create a hostile working environment as educators are left unsure about what and how to approach topics in an appropriate manner to steer clear of disciplinary measures. That breaches our contractual due process rights and expectations per Public Employment Relations Board and California Education Code.

We understand that TVEA is comprised of 1,300 educators who hold a wide range of opinions on what is best for our students. At the heart of the decision to participate is what TVEA Leadership Council believed was best for both our students and members to provide the stellar public education for which TVUSD is known. To provide a quality educational experience to students and a safe and collaborative working environment for educators.

In the seven months since the resolution was adopted by the board, we’ve seen its broad and vague nature used as a weapon against educators as seeds of mistrust are sowed about professional intent and state adopted materials in the community. Board members made references to textbooks and library books during board discussion as falling into the vague frameworks. Educators had their characters attacked and reputations in the community harmed: unsubstantiated claims made anonymously or at board meetings are used to justify teachers removal from the classroom for weeks at a time, threats towards teacher safety through social media and phone calls, in person allegations of grooming students and sexualizing education, utilizing a textbook available in the library, demands made to modify class content, and warnings to teachers that books in classrooms libraries or instructional materials that are shared can make an educator personally liable. Educators are placed in a position where choosing the “wrong” book or discussing the “wrong” topic results in discipline and being removed from the classroom. In our profession, character and reputation matters, and we object to how individuals' livelihoods are used as game pieces.

The decision to leave our elementary students without social science textbooks or materials is unconscionable. Educators throughout the country are overworked and underpaid. The school board’s failure to adopt a textbook and have them available on day one means that our elementary school teachers and staff will have one more thing on their already overcrowded plates.

The school board majority chooses to waste time and as many dollars as they can to implement political goals without discussion, collaboration, and partnership that is extended. Their refusal to talk, listen, and compromise led to an extended time to adopt a common sense solution to textbooks, that could have happened early in the spring. The resolution under question was instituted as a preventative measure without cause and fails to enhance the educational experiences of Temecula’s students. All of these distractions delay the business of the TVUSD Governing Board calendar and ignores vital topics with employee organizations (certificated, classified, substitutes) like ensuring productive work environments and finalizing compensation talks for the current school year.

Simply the school board’s priorities are misguided and illegal, and it is students and educators who are impacted the most.

Email: tveducators@gmail.com
Website: www.tveducators.org
Location: 29375 Rancho California Road, Temecula, CA, USA
Phone: 951-699-9970