"What office is there which involves more responsibility, which requires more qualifications, and which ought, therefore, to be more honorable than teaching?" Harriet Martineau

Home Page

Welcome to the Banning Teachers Association Website

The BTA Website is an information source for educators of the Banning Unified School District.

New District Proposal and meeting minutes can be found in Negoiations section.

The BTA Bylaws and Standing Rules link can now be found on the Members in Action page.

To set the record straight

Everyone needs to read Dr. Kennedy's summary of negotiations. It is important to understand what she is saying. The District, due to mismanagement, pet projects, and failed programs; have put the district, along with their teachers, in a financial disaster. Banning Teachers' Association have been telling the previous board for the last two years that this out-of-control spending by Dr. Kennedy needs to stop and that eventually it will harm teachers. Well teachers, that day has come. The district's proposal is that the minimum they want to take out of our paychecks is roughly 10% . This is not including the increase in healthcare that is between $100-$250 more a month. The reason I say 10% as the minimum, because if we agree to class-size increases, and by the way, that would officially terminate many RIF teachers' jobs, then that $800,000 of out of pocket expense could offset the 15% they want. Dr. Kennedy's statement that furlough days will result in a much lower out of pocket expense is preposterous. Furlough days are part of our out of pocket expense. The only part of their proposal that isn't out of pocket expense is class size.

As you have read, the district wants to make administration cuts by making their personnel take 9 furlough days. 9 furloughs days are about a 5% out of pocket expense for each principal. Fair, Balance, Accurate. You decide. Did I mention that there were no step and column freezes, no payroll decreases, and no pay freezes? Also, with class size increases, the principals' workload will shrink as they will have less teachers working for them.

BTA Executive Board believes all stakeholders in the education community should have access to accurate, timely, and complete information. So to make this clear and if the district gets their way: teachers are going to be guaranteed a 15% pay cut starting in September. If you do not want a 15% pay cut, then you could raise class-size, terminate our own RIF teachers and then your salary will only decrease by 9.6%. But please understand teachers, that 9.6% out of pocket cut does not include the additional $100 to $250 that you're going to take in increased healthcare benefits as well.

The district's fair share idea:

102,000 principal salary
210 days of work
$485.71 a day
$4,371.39 for 9 furlough days
4.29% of out of pocket expense

Fair and balanced approach, you decide.
David Cesario
BTA Executive Board

Superintendent Kennedy's Salary Contract

Proposed 2012-2013 Calendar

We Want your Input

BTA has a new blog at banningteachers.org and we want to hear from you!

Feel free to leave comments ( log-in not required, but your name would be nice).

Check the BTA Blog Page for the latest Blogs and comments.

Teachers

Roughly two years ago, our previous BTA President started a campaign to get every BTA members' home email address and cell numbers. It has been a very slow process. Now our new president, Janelle Poulter is continuing the quest to get everyone's home email address. BTA has on file 196 home email addresses, out of the 217 Members of the Association. This number continues to grow as more and more teachers realize the direction that BTA Association is headed. Recently, we have improved our website delivery and are finalizing a blog/ comments section for all members to actively participate and share ideas and suggestions. We are moving away from delivering content over the school email. BTA's School Board power point presentations and budget review items will be on our website, not through school email. Negotiations and bargaining items we will do the same. There are many reasons for this, but simply put, it's not in the Associations best interest to share sensitive information over the district controlled email. We realize that some members are moving slowly to embrace this new technology age, so we will be holding a training at the Banning library so all our members can have an email address and have access to the free Internet that the library offers. Please share this with our members who need it. Also, we will be more studious about sending out an email through everyone's school email address stating, "BTA information has been sent to your home email address and please check our website." If you do not receive an email, please email Janelle and she will resend you the information. We apologize for any problems or issues you might have had getting BTA content. We appreciate your patience and understanding as it is our goal and desire to give you all the information in a timely manner.

We will continue to work and find solutions for the best interest of our Association.

The Executive Board

Hello everyone!

I have new information to share with all of you. First, I want to let all of you know that Elizabeth Syria was elected by the rep council yesterday to be our new vice president. In her capacity of vice president, she is an important part of our union leadership and she will be helping me carry out the message of unity in BTA. This will include being a very important part of the procedures that will occur when the district acts upon the proposed Lay Offs. I want to explain more of the Lay Off procedures. Many of you may have heard or have seen the board agenda for this Thursday. It currently contains roughly 71 Reduction in Work Force requests (Lay Off). What happens next, is that the board votes, discusses and could alter or change any portion of the recommendation. Whatever they vote on this Thursday, will be what is carried out in the district by March 15th. That only means that whatever is voted on, will receive a notice of Reduction In Workforce. The final RIF (Lay Off) Will be given by the May deadline. That means some people might receive a notice, but do not receive the final notice by May, and keep their job. Once one of our members receive a Layoff notice by this March 15th, we will have a meeting with all of those members explaining the process in more detail, this includes having your information checked to make sure your seniority /credential information is correct with the district. You will also receive a hearing and at that hearing a CTA representative ( I also believe that we will have a lawyer on hand for you) and BTA representatives will be with you.

I want to apologize for the lateness and the weakness of the seniority list that was out yesterday. The list is missing information that we are requesting. It should include hiring dates and credentialing lists. The list also has shading that is unexplained. We have requested the correct information and it will be shared as soon as possible.

What can we do in the meantime?
BTA rep council has voted yesterday to have two actions occur that our members can be united in. Tomorrow 3/8/12, at school and at the school board meeting, we are requesting our members to wear green to support our membership. On March 15th, we are requesting everyone to wear your black "BTA CARES" t-shirt or wear black to work.

I want all of you to know that all of your executive board members and your rep council members are united, they are organizing, and working hard for our memberships interests.

Janelle Poulter
BTA President

Chief Negotiator Updates

Well, I'm not sure how to give everybody this news but here I go. As many of you are already aware of our District is in deep financial trouble, your BTA pleads and presentations to the past School Board over the past several years went unheard and with that we are now strapped with a projected $6,000,000.00 deficit with no more simple quick fixes. How bad is it? To put it as simple as possible if the District laid-off 70 classroom Teachers with an estimated value of $84,000 (total compensation) that would equal $5,880,000. Even furlough days will not solve this issue which has gone uncontrolled these past few years. Why? That's more than 30 days; currently the State is looking at allowing up to three weeks or 15 days. Now, this will be an unpopular statement, but that has never stopped me in the past, if we would have staffed at the BTA contractual levels these last three years and utilized the added revenues from CSR for grades k-3 and eliminated all programs associated with Tier three flexibility, we would not be in this current situation. For those that are thinking well let's do away with or cut administration, which would still only cover half the cost.

Now with that stated, at last night's School Board meeting the Deputy Superintendent, Paul Jessup, from the County Office, addressed the Board and Kennedy that he was now appointed by Constructional Law to take control of the District financial operations. Meaning he will advice, validate and veto recommended expenditures of Superintendent Kennedy, Assistant Superintendent Fisher and Assistant Superintendent Dr. Wallace.

The School Board Presidents did state publicly that we trust in the new Board that they will make every effort to keep the impact as far from the student as possible. I believe in this message and I personally will work to my fullest for the students and teachers of the District. None of us will benefit from our new School Board Leadership if the District is taken over by a state controller.

Stay tuned more to come. Many of you have already started to ask me many questions with concerns, I will do my best to keep you all updated but I'm finding it a bit difficult to respond individually. I hope these messages to all, at least help.

David Sanchez

BTA cares