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OSSTF District 11- Thames Valley
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District 11 Office |
Education Matters Online
News
Volume 2, Issue 4: May 10, 2004
Federation Services Officer ReportsClick on any of the items below to go directly to that article. |
Federation
Services Officer: Mary Lou Cunningham
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Federation Services Officer: Mary Lou Cunningham
Educational Services; Human Rights & Status of Women; Other Points of Interest
District 11 Ed Services:
 | distributed $5800. For P.D. funding to individual applicants |
| organized a most successful School Law workshop on April 1st at the Four Points Sheraton for 70 District 11 members. With dexterity and humour, the workshop was presented by Provincial Office expert Rosemary Clark. Shopping at the Federation store, door prizes of School Law OSSTF resource books and a superb lasagna dinner were other highlights of this workshop. |
| Planning continues for the Learning Conference 2004 |
District 11 Human Rights Status of Women:
When Human Rights are at Stake, Education Matters!
Action Resource Launch Parties sound like a strange incarnation for Human Rights and Status of Women committee meetings , but with gusto and glee, this group has
| introduced Common Threads, a kid-friendly and teacher-tested, OSSTF-created |
| resource package for teaching about sweatshop labour, women at work and the third world |
| suggested that, like the Kielburger brothers, Marc and Craig, we encourage others and students to Take Action; engage in their communities and in the world; and win by making alliances, negotiating with the powers-that-be and persuading friends |
| updated our picture of the situation of trade union members, women and workers in Colombia by inviting Liliany Villado along with Domenic Bellissimo, Human Rights officer from Mobile Drive to talk to interested members |
| confronted the first-world’s inaction in 1994 when genocidal slaughter might have been prevented in Rwanda. |
| coordinated the distribution of information, white ribbons, and activity suggestions to help plan anti-violence action in memory of the 14 women shot Dec. 6th at l’Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal |
To be sure that all had resources at hand, every branch was issued the following:
| a Common Threads binder full of fact-sheets, activities, a video and teachers’ notes |
| a copy of Take Action as well as an invitation to hear Marc Kielburger speak thanks to financial support of Nelson Publishing, space provided by TVDSB, and promotion by our own committee |
| issued invitations to teachers of History and Contemporary Studies, Family Studies, English and Media, as well as all other interested parties to attend a conversation with a refugee who fled a land where a death-squad is the reward for asking Human Rights questions |
| published information about Shake Hands with the Devil, Roméo Dallaire’s recent book, about workshops for students and teachers from the Association for the Elimination of Hate against hate-crimes and genocides in Europe, Africa and elsewhere. |
| asked all branches to identify for their own use and for the use of others, the most effective interventions to raise students’ awareness of issues of violence, misogyny and discrimination directed at women. |
The Human Rights and Status of Women Committee invites all District members to use these resources, to join us in sharing more, and to be active members of our union and community.
Educating ourselves and others around the issues, realities and connections among events is one tool in an effort to make this a better place.
Other Points of Interest:
| Regular Board meetings continue to be monitored. |
| Ministry funding grants are now expected to be announced after the Budget Speech May 18, approximately June 4th |
| Safe Schools Policy and its amendments and the sexual diversity plan have received intense media coverage this spring. Osstf has been involved for over two years with the Ad Hoc Board committee and OSSTF’s chair of Human Rights, Bryan Smith, presented at the recent public input session; click here read his presentation. |
| Twenty-six District 11OSSTF members comprised the AMPA 2004 delegation in Toronto and conducted the business of the Federation at the annual meeting. Their enthusiasm during long hours of the first weekend of March break is second to none. Be proud of the job they have done as once again, other Districts have indicated their awareness of the knowledge, solidarity and strong voice of District 11 Thames Valley. Please ask them to share their experiences as a delegate with your staff. |
Federation Services Officer and TBU Chief Negotiator: Wendy Anes Hirschegger
Collective Bargaining; Our Vision Advisory Committee; Improving Instructional Intelligence Advisory Committee
Collective Bargaining
The four bargaining units are at various stages in terms of collective bargaining.
| The Secondary Teachers' and the Continuing Education Teachers' CBC Surveys have been compiled and shared with the committee. At this point the TBU Table Team is working on preparing the brief. A CET committee will be called together to work on the CET part of the brief. "Notice to bargain" was submitted to the board on April 30. |
| Occasional Teachers' Bargaining Unit President Joe Wilson has put out a call to all OT members to provide input for their negotiations. The OT collective agreement is "Appendix E" of the Teachers' Bargaining Unit and so "notice to bargain" for this unit was also part of the letter sent to the board on April 30. |
| The Continuing Education Instructors' Table Team is also working on their negotiating brief. "Notice to bargain" will be submitted to the board in early June. |
| The PSSP contract is in force until August 31, 2005. |
Our Vision Advisory Committee
The Thames Valley School has been very good about including the various unions and staff associations in the board on its advisory committees. I have been representing OSSTF on this committee for the past two years and I can honestly say that I have seen positive progress on the part of the board in its relationships with its non-Teacher OSSTF members.
A major review and revision has taken place over the last year and is now fully accessible on the TVDSB website. Click on Our Vision from the main board website to see all of the details concerning this board initiative, including:
| The Executive Overview |
| The Foundation Principles (Characteristics which everyone from the Director down to the newest employee should strive to emulate.) |
| The Presentation of the 2003-2004 Annual Report to the Board of Trustees |
| Our Vision Annual Report 2003-2004 |
All employees should have received information about the revisions and direction of the TVDSB Our Vision initiative, whether through their school or worksite, department, or employee group. The OSSTF supports Our Vision because it is compatible with OSSTF values as expressed in our pledge, specifically, promoting and advancing the cause of education, striving to achieve the highest degree of professional competence, and upholding the honour, dignity and ethical standards of our profession.
Improving Instructional Intelligence Advisory Committee
This initiative is also one for which the TVDSB has actively sought OSSTF participation for its advisory committee. If you aren't involved directly with the "Bennett" project, as it is nicknamed, you have probably heard of it through colleagues who are involved.
The "Improving Instructional Intelligence" initiative is a large-scale professional development project which is designed to help teachers increase their repertoire and comfort level with a wider variety of instructional strategies. OISE professor Barrie Bennett has been leading the in-service and one of his conditions for doing so was that the teachers' federation be part of the advisory committee. One of the fascinating things about the training is that Barrie does demonstration lessons with actual TVDSB classes to illustrate the instructional strategies. Cohort teachers observe by closed-circuit television and then discuss the strategies and the dynamics of the lesson. Then they go back to their own schools to try them out themselves.
All of the Principals and Vice-Principals have been receiving this in-service since early October 2003. Shortly thereafter, "Cohort Schools" were selected and each has a team of teachers which have been receiving the in-service also. Each Principal and each teacher involved has been given a book called Beyond Monet: The Artful Science of Instructional Integration which is a veritable gold mine of information.
At a recent meeting, Jim Empringham and Karen Wilkinson, the board Superintendents who have responsibility for this initiative, distributed information about how the project has been going and what the plans for next year. It should be noted that the "Summer Institute" scheduled for August 23 and 24 is entirely voluntary and if teachers choose not to attend or cannot attend for whatever reason; it is simply an opportunity for some additional explicit instruction on strategies already learned throughout the year.
Federation Services Officer: Nancy McDougall
Retirement Booklet; Citizenship Awards; PSSP News; EcoSchools
Retirement Booklet
The retirement booklets will be distributed to retiring members as a memento of the Annual Retirement Dinner to be held June 9, 2004. In addition, a few copies of the booklet will also be sent to schools/workplaces. The booklet will be professionally printed and will include a photograph and profile of each retiree. This year we have just over fifty District 11 retirees in total from Teacher, CEI and PSSP bargaining units. Members who are retiring are encouraged to send their pictures and profiles by May 7th to NancyMcDougall@osstf11.com.
Citizenship Awards
The Grade 10 Citizenship Award Nomination Packages have been distributed to Branch Award representatives. Each Citizenship Award recipient and guest(s), as well as Branch Award representatives and principals, will be invited to attend the awards reception at Thames Secondary School on Thursday June 3rd, 2004. Recipient names and scripts should be submitted to District Office by May 7th, 2004.
Professional Student Services Personnel (PSSP)
The PSSP Annual General Meeting will be held on Tuesday May 25, 2004 at 4:30 at the Lamplighter Inn on Wellington Road South. PSSP members should contact their job class representative if they have not yet received their notice of meeting and nomination forms. Forms must be returned to your job class representative or District Office by May 12th. This year, elections will be held for the positions of Vice- President, Grievance Officer and Secretary-Treasurer.
PSSP Pay Equity negotiations with the Board continue to progress slowly. While we have had Job Evaluation and Steering Committees in place since the Fall, dates have not yet been scheduled with the Board/Provincial OSSTF to provide the training for these committees nor to begin the work of examining changes in circumstance to some of the job classifications within the PSSP bargaining unit.
EcoSchools
I was given the opportunity to travel to Toronto on April 13 along with ten other employees of the Thames Valley District School Board in order to attend an Ontario EcoSchools Staff Development Workshop. At the workshop, we received an overview of the entire EcoSchools program with a special emphasis on tailoring the Five-Step Process, Energy Conservation and Waste Management Guides to meet the needs of our school board.
The EcoSchools project encourages work as an interdepartmental, multi-stakeholder team within school boards in order to respond to one of the greatest challenges of our time: the increasingly urgent need to live in ways which better sustain the environment. The TVDSB will be looking at implementing the EcoSchools program both system wide and at the school level and OSSTF is pleased to be one of the stakeholders involved in this process.