2010 Annual SEAC Lobby Day and Legislative Action
On Monday, May 3, 2010 the SEAC Board of Directors and Staff held the Annual SEAC Lobby Day in Sacramento. With the assistance of Barrett Snider, SEAC Lobbyist from School Innovations & Advocacy, we visited the following legislative offices:
- Susanna Cooper, Principal Education Consultant to Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg
- Rick Simpson, Deputy Chief of Staff for Assembly Speaker John Perez
- Cheryl Black, Senate Republican Caucus
- Chris Finarelli, Staff to Senator Huff
- Amy Rutschow, Assembly Republican Caucus
Cooper and Simpson represent Democrats, and Black, Finarelli, and Rutschow represent Republicans.
We discussed with them four issues that have been proposed by the Governor and presented by Senator Huff in SB955. The four issues all represent problem areas for management. They are:
- The current statutory requirement that we pay laid off permanent teachers their full pay and benefits once they substitute 21 days within any 60-day period. When they do, that full pay and benefits are retroactive to the first day. In addition, these teachers have first priority on substituting. One district with 1400 teachers had an excess cost of $1,000,000 over what it would have cost them, if they could have paid subsitutue daily rate only. Another calculation put the total cost of this statute at about $190,000,000 statewide. We are surprised to learn that the unions do not want to deal with this at this time even though such savings could help bring back some laid off teachers.
- Extending the certificated notification deadline from March 15 to at least June 15 which would be after the May Revise. Again, we believe it would be in the unions’ best interests so we can make more informed decisions and not issue notices and then recind them.
- Eliminate the current statutory requirement that lay offs and rehires be based on seniority. This may have some traction even with the Democrats because of the ACLU vs. LAUSD lawsuit which alleges that low performing schools are adversely affected by this statute.
- Creating two options for the Commission on Professional Competency. This is the current three member panel on discipline that requires districts to find a teacher who has taught the same subject or grade level for 5 years within the last 10 years. The change would allow districts to choose whomever they wanted on the panel just like we do for Factfinding. In addition, the governing board would have the final decision.
We know these are difficult issues for the unions, and they may only deal with them in the budget bill where they could trade some of these policy issues for money. In any event, your SEAC Board and Staff are following them closely and holding discussions on these issues.
