Page 4

Staff support 200 at State Democratic Convention

When fellow CSO colleague

Mónica Mora assisted Huntington

Beach Elementary Teachers As-

sociation members in their recent

job action, she received support in

a way that is only surprising if

you don't work in "Surf City,

USA."

Fellow teachers Pat DeMarco

and Matt Harrell supported over

100 educators who marched to the

local district office demanding

increased support for schools and

respectful pay for teachers by rid-

ing their longboards during the

march.

They explained that being

skaters created a connection with

kids, so why not the community?

Kudos to HBETA for remem-

bering an important organizing

rule- HAVE FUN!

Skating for fairness

HBETA teachers keep the organizing fun

With more than 200 CTA mem-bers in attendance at the California Democratic Convention, CTA Staff Susan Savage, Region 2 Political Or-ganizer, Gray Harris and Helen O’Donnell, Region 1 PCS, provided support and staffed the CTA booth.

The CTA booth was lively and well-attended in the exhibition hall of the Anaheim Convention Center. Staff and member volunteers collect-ed commitment cards in support of

Prop 98, and asked politicians to “Keep the Promise” to fund public education.

Staff worked collaboratively with the “Make It Fair” campaign, the pending initiative to reform Prop 13. They gathered signatures in support of closing loopholes so that corpora-tions and commercial property own-ers will pay their fair share in taxes.

Along with providing support to CTA members, Susan, Helen, and

Gray also supported CTA officers Dean Vogel, Eric Heins, Mikki Cich-ocki-Semo, officers elect Theresa Montaño and David Goldberg, CTA Board members and ABC Committee members.

CTA hosted a dessert recep-

tion on Friday evening which was

well attended by convention dele-

gates, and numerous elected officials.

The (See Convention, page 4).

Convention: CSO

helps ‘keep promise’ (Continued from Page 1) CTA caucus was well attended

where issues facing public edu-

cation and educators were dis-

cussed. Many CTA members

also attended

the labor caucus where we pledged to work together as a coalition to combat the attacks on unions.

Pat DeMarco and Matt Harrell keep the serious business of organizing fun.

LETA puts strategic plan into action Lake Elsinore Teachers Associa-

tion (LETA) is putting the CTA Stra-tegic Plan into action by building an organizing culture to advocate for students, teachers, and parents.

In 2011, what began in Lake Elsi-nore as a chapter response to bur-geoning special education issues in the 22,000 student district in River-side County, has grown into a robust teacher-driven series of programs that now has teachers, parents, students and administrators working together to improve all student outcomes throughout the Lake Elsinore Unified School District (LEUSD).

“We knew we had tapped into something when we hosted our first CTA-sponsored Special Education meeting for interested members, and seventy-five teachers showed up,” said LETA President Bill Cavanaugh. General education teacher Elizabeth Brehm described the situation more bluntly, “We were frustrated to the point that we knew we could no long-er continue with the status quo.”

What LETA heard over the course of these meetings was an out-pouring of valid concerns about stu-

dents being underserved because of programmatic flaws that had led to uneven distribution of services within the district. This led to LETA devel-oping and training a special education committee. These dedicated LETA members have organized around this professional issue by conducting site visits, surveying membership and set-ting strategic goals to improve ser-vices for all students. LETA and LEUSD have agreed to contract lan-guage establishing a joint Special Ed-

ucation Steering Committee to im-prove communication and collabora-tive problem solving.

Further educational change has followed with the establishment of the union-supported Parent Network and a partnership with the local Par-ent Training Information Center called Team of Advocates for Special Kids (TASK). This outreach has led to the engagement of community members whose voices were previ-(See LETA, Page 3)

Lake Elsinore teachers work to improve education in their district

Page 2

Internship, info, culture of CSO addressed The 2015 California Staff Organ-

ization Annual Meeting started April 18 with an opening session that in-cluded a warm recognition of more than a dozen retirees.

After the opening, CSO members engaged in the next step of the Or-ganizing Team’s discernment of this year’s one-on-one campaign. In the campaign, members shared their thoughts on what was needed to make a more perfect CSO, and those thoughts were discerned by the or-ganizing committee. At the annual meeting, CSO members were asked to review the results of that discern-ment and make their suggestions for actions in the areas of Inclusion, Conflicts and Division, Unionism, Communications, Organizing, Bar-gaining and Leadership. Each mem-ber present had the opportunity to attend three rotations.

Day Two of the Annual Meeting started with committee reports, which you can find on the calstaff.org website.

During the business meeting, CSO passed three New Business Items:

New Business Item #9: CSO is to “take immediate steps necessary to advocate for a revitalized CTA In-ternship Program….” CTA has been without an internship program for years, and speakers expressed con-cern that the watered-down program being discussed by CTA Manage-ment would not be sufficient to pre-pare diverse candidates for staff work.

New Business Item #10: CSO lead-ership is to “ensure that all infor-mation provided to the bargaining team, by the health trust and/or re-tirement trust, be immediately dis-seminated to all CSO members.”

New Business Item #11: CSO is to create a “Culture and Structure Com-

mittee” by Sept. 1, 2015. That com-mittee will be charged “to make the necessary changes structurally that would allow CSO to be more crea-tive, inclusive, dynamic, and a so-

cially just union” through an evalua-tion, consultation and recommenda-tion process.

Page 3

As members of the CSO who work with hundreds of CTA chapters, we are always learning from their triumphs and struggles. We learn about what does and does not work, and use those lessons to help CTA affiliates do more of the former and less of the latter.

Those lessons also help CSO be-come a better union. As a union, CSO aspires to do what CSO mem-bers recommend to you: to be a member driven organization, to build the capacity of members, and to work collectively so that members may

reach their professional and personal goals.

In that context, CSO would like to share the highlights of its recently-

completed discernment process.

In the Fall of 2014, following a tough round of bargaining with CTA and an agreement that, frankly, left a some CSO members unhappy, the CSO Organizing Team, lead by Mark DeWeerdt, decided to help regroup and reconnect with members through a relational organizing campaign.

The questions were simple and open:

What does a perfect CSO look like to you?

How do you think we can get there?

What are you willing to do to help?

The Organizing Team’s goal was ambitious – to have this frank con-versation with every CSO member in every part of the state. CSO Repre-sentatives and Cluster Leaders were given the training and materials they needed and, a few months later, near-ly every CSO member had had this

conversation.

By region, the CSO members who conducted the one-on-one meet-ings came together to discern the re-

sults of those meetings, aided by or-ganizing experts Cindy Ensworth and Kim Mina. The results of the discern-ments were brought together and sev-en themes for action were identified: Inclusion, Conflicts and Division (this was ultimately consolidated into Inclusion), Unionism, Communica-tions, Organizing, Bargaining, and Leadership.

The Organizing Team wrote ob-jectives and strategies for each area. At CSO Annual Meeting in April, CSO members were asked to review the objectives and strategies and then propose tactics for achieving them.

The final plan was presented for consideration to the CSO Representa-tive Council on May 29, and will guide CSO’s organizing efforts into the future. CSO members may access the full plan on the CSO website, calstaff.org.

Advocacy Appeal is produced

quarterly by the California Staff

Organization, the union for

professional departmental and

Regional UniServ Staff who

work for the 320,000 members

of the California Teachers

Association. Comments or

inquiries may be emailed to

csocomcom@gmail.com.

Months-long process reconnects CSO, members

Organizing Team members Bobby Yates and Kim Mina work on discernment.

The Organizing Team explains the discernment process at the CSO Annual Meeting.

(Continued from Page 1) ously not heard in the district. Parent forums are now held regularly and a CTA Community Engagement Grant provides childcare, food, and inter-pretation services for non-English speaking parents.

“Access has strengthened our ability to provide services as early as possible for younger students,” said TASK staff member Brenda Smith. Some available trainings include As-sistive Technology, Collaboration, Boys Town, and IEP for Parents training. “It’s been very helpful be-cause these parents now have an ave-nue to ask questions and get the right services for their child,” said Cavanaugh.

Union-led outreach to the Califor-nia Department of Education, TASK, WestEd and CTA for access to tech-nical support and resources has led to the district implementing a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) to strengthen the general education environment for all students. Now there is a focus on supporting school

site teams with training and commu-nication tools.

School psychologist Susan Bot-tino explained, “Our goal was to cre-ate a program that would help both teachers and students feel more sup-ported.” As a result, Student Study Team (SST) discussions now include social-emotional well-being in their assessment and intervention plans. “This allows all of the players a part in supporting each other for the bene-fit of the student,” Bottino remarked. “Let’s face it, students are more suc-cessful and resilient when they are engaged in a positive, supportive en-vironment.”

For general education teacher and chair of the LETA Special Education Committee, Elizabeth Brehm, it’s still all about collaboration and communi-ty. “When students feel supported and have self-esteem they are willing to take more risks and even be willing to risk failure. And when parents feel important, heard and valued, it fosters the type of teamwork necessary for all our students to be successful.”

LETA leads education change for students