Update on “6 of 6” District Initiative

We hope you are enjoying your summer break and perhaps beginning to think about returning to school. We wanted to contact you all and give you an update as to developments on the Superintendent’s teaching “6 of 6” district objective. We are having conversations with the District staff in regard to this initiative because of the increased salary implications that have been mentioned for employees. Please know that USEP has not agreed to any version of alternate schedules that the district continues to propose, but are exploring possibilities to see what, if anything, can be done to increase employee wages.

We had a productive meeting in June with representative of elementary and secondary teachers as well as SRP and non-classroom personnel. The conversations were very open, pointed and appreciated. Here is what has happened since the meeting.

June 19th – open meeting at the USEP offices with good attendance. Many points of view exchanged and suggestions made. E-mails followed with other “must haves” from many of you and these conditions have been communicated to Senior District staff.

June 28th – USEP Survey done with 4 questions asked. Survey did reveal helpful information but we will need to draft a follow up with clearer questions as some confusion resulted which may have impacted the percentages.

July 11th – Meeting with District staff concerning many of the issues raised, by you all, during our meeting in June. The District seems willing to work with us in many ways on these “must haves” but there are still many questions to be addressed which will require additional time, meetings, surveys, etc. Other options which retain “protected planning time” were discussed which could lead to similar cost savings, however, how these would play out at each worksite remains unclear.

Finally – we believe that further in-depth conversations, meetings, etc., must occur as the Union gathers additional information and opinions to better gauge if anything can be agreed upon. We therefore see this process running into the Fall season. We intend to send out a clearer electronic survey to obtain a more refined reply to these critical questions. We may need to ask you and others to attend future meetings to help finalize any thoughts on the merits of this scheduling change. Please be clear that nothing is agreed upon at this time.

We thank you all again for your interest, participation and help in this matter and please enjoy the remaining weeks of this summer break!!