August 17, 2010
Reminder: Join us at a
SEA Rally
to support our bargaining team
5:30 p.m., August 18
JSCEE
prior to the School Board Meeting
Does the Seattle School District truly want to move forward with historic change, or is its strategy to block progress with an unyielding insistence on unproven, unacceptable testing schemes?
The SEA negotiating team extended a branch today that should make it clear whether the district’s true goal is to use test scores to improve student achievement and quality teaching, or whether it is merely a ruse for some other agenda.
Early in the day, the district’s negotiating team continued stonewalling on the issue of using test scores for teacher evaluations. Finally, when challenged by SEA to identify what parts of their SERVE proposal they were actually willing to negotiate over, their blocking strategy became clear.
The district was not willing to negotiate any proposal that didn’t base teacher evaluations on student test scores. It was their way or no way.
SEA supports moving forward with the historic progress already achieved through the jointly negotiated Professional Growth and Evaluation plan. So SEA’s bargaining team huddled privately to develop a creative solution that would meet the core values of SEA members and the interests of the district.
The result: A proposal from SEA that seeks to carve out middle ground by recognizing the district’s interest in using test data to help recognize teachers who may benefit from additional help, while not misusing test data to evaluate and fire teachers.
District negotiators said they would seriously consider the SEA proposal. We will know how seriously when we meet on Thursday morning for our next bargaining session.
Remember . . .
the Seattle Education Association
General Membership Meeting
Thursday, September 2, 2010, 4:30 p.m.
SPU's Royal Brougham Pavillion
3414 3rd Ave W (at W Nickerson)
Seattle
