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REVISED 2012-2013 School Calendar
Posted on April 4, 2012 by pleasantvilleea
PEA Election Results
Posted on March 21, 2012 by pleasantvilleea
Tenure Bill/Senator Ruiz S-1455
Posted on March 5, 2012 by pleasantvilleea
S-1455TenureRuizBillConcerns2-9-12
ALERT
Senator Ruiz is placing S-1455 Tenure Bill before committee on March 5th. Please read the NJEA concerns attached.
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Committee Assignments
Posted on February 6, 2012 by pleasantvilleea
| Committee | Members |
| Elections | Kristene Miller (SM)Rose Giunta (WAS)
Trina Jenkins (LAS) Teresa Campbell (DAS) Michael Zain (WAS) Wanda Curry (LAS) |
| Budget | Joe Manetta (MS)Kristene Miller (SMS)
Rose Giunta (WAS) Teresa Campbell (DAS) |
| Grievance | Jean Hovey Chair (WAS)Denise Keen (NMS)
Joe Manetta (MS) Rick Byrd (MS) Rhonda Moore McQueen |
| FAST/Pride | Cynthia Stocks (SMS) ChairLatanya Elias (MS)
Elizabeth Didonato (SMS) Rick Byrd (MS) Michael Zain (WAS) Ernestine Lackland (SMS) |
| Public Relation/ Legislative | Joe Manetta (MS) ChairTim Newkirk
Cynthia Stocks (SMS) Ernestine Lackland (SMS) |
| Membership | Denise Keen (NMS) ChairKristene Miller (SMS)
Grace Ladia (SMS) |
| Health and Safety | Robin Dennis (LAS)Denise Keen (NMS)
Joe Manetta (MS) Jean Hovey (WAS) Elizabeth Didonato (SMS) Rhonda Moore McQueen Dianne Thompson |
| Pre- Negotiations | Latanya Elias (MS) ChairDenise Keen (NMS)
Tim Newkirk Rose Giunta Joe Manetta (MS) Teresa Campbell (DAS) Stephanie Burns (NMS) Rick Byrd (MS) Barbara Potter (HS) |
| Sick Bank | Elizabeth Didonato (SMS) ChairJean Hovey (WAS)
Teresa Campbell (DAS) |
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Executive Board
Posted on January 4, 2012 by pleasantvilleea
Make this the year to get involved and stay involved to keep our union strong and united!
- We are in the process of updating the website. If you have any items of interest for the membership please contact:
- Ernestine Lackland (Corresponding Sec. Lackland.ernestine@pps-nj.us)
- Cynthia Stocks (Senior VP stocks.cynthia@pps-nj.us )
- Rick Byrd ( ESP VP byrd.rick@pps-nj.us )
- Joe Manetta (Treasurer manetta.joe@pps-nj.us )
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Excellent Editorial – Bergen Record
Posted on March 31, 2011 by pleasantvilleea
Monday, March 28, 2011
The Record
NO ONE would confuse Superior Court Judge Peter Doyne for Russell Crowe. The bespectacled, gray-haired jurist looks like, well, a jurist, not a movie star. But while Crowe played a fictional master and commander battling the forces of Napoleon, Doyne was charged as the real-life special master to take on no less a formidable adversary than Chris Christie.
The state Supreme Court appointed a special master to review the governor’s controversial education cuts. Doyne issued his report last week and it was a broadside into the SS Christie. Doyne wrote that “the state has failed to carry its burden” when it underfunded schools by $1.6 billion over two years.
The funding cuts were the result of the state’s fiscal crisis. Christie often says that, unlike the federal government, states cannot print money. Very true. And raising taxes is off the table for Christie. But New Jersey has a constitutional requirement to provide a “thorough and efficient” education to all its children. And it is not fulfilling that requirement.
The high court now has to decide what to do with Doyne’s findings. It can ignore them or it can compel the state to restore funding. But can it compel Christie to do anything he does not want to do?
If the high court puts a pair of “exquisite handcuffs” on Christie, a phrase he has used to describe the Corzine administration’s handling of an application to reopen the former Pascack Valley Hospital under new management, Christie will just find a good locksmith.
This governor isn’t going to back down from a fight, not even a fight with the state Supreme Court. The current education system is not performing to expectations. The old system didn’t either. And the Christie administration is not offering a plan to transform fictional great expectations into reality. Abandoning public schools is not a solution; it is a photo-op.
Politicos are lining up at the Robert Treat Academy, or places like it, and saying, “If we can make it there, we can make it anywhere.” This is show business, not education. All that is missing is Liza Minnelli.
New Jersey spends vast sums on public education with less than the desired results in poor, urban schools. The governor has long contended that throwing more money at failing schools does not improve them. The facts support that. But the alternative is not to starve public schools or abandon them in favor of charters or private schools.
Billions of tax dollars have been wasted in former Abbott or special-needs districts. The money often went everywhere but where it was supposed to land. That was true in state-operated districts — Paterson, Newark and Jersey City — too. You can’t blame the New Jersey Education Association for the decades of poor school performance in Paterson. The state has been running that show, not the unions.
I would like to know why current legislators haven’t brought former Paterson Schools Superintendent Edwin Duroy before a committee in Trenton and asked him how millions of dollars were misspent under his watch. They should start with Duroy and then pick another state-sponsored mess. But Republican and Democratic legislators are not calling for this because the state is littered with too many rocks and there are too many state-pensioned individuals hiding under them.
Wars are being waged between the courts and the state and the governor and the unions. The wrong people are fighting the wrong people.
What New Jersey spends on education is not the problem; the problem is how that money is being spent and who is deciding how to spend it. From the absurdity of a state university going $100 million in stadium debt to keep its $2 million-a-year football coach to the Paterson district using state education money once to repair a Mahwah fire truck, it has been highly paid, politically untouchable education administrators who continue to waste tax dollars.
The court can’t fix that. A special master can’t fix that. A commander could. But right now, the SS Christie is firing at the wrong ships. Sink the teachers and their unions and who is left to teach in the classroom? Edwin Duroy? Now there’s someone you would never mistake for Russell Crowe.
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On The Record – Sunday, March 27, 2011
Posted on March 27, 2011 by pleasantvilleea
March 27, 2011
Host: Michael Aron
Listen to our local legislators discussing education policy.
Special Edition of On the Record taped at the Southern NJ Development Council Conference with legislators discussing the key issues in this year’s legislative races.
Sen. James Whelan (D) Atlantic County
Assemblyman John Burzichelli – (D) Paulsboro
Assemblyman Vince Polistina – (R) Egg Harbor Twp.
Assemblyman Dominick DiCicco – (R) Franklin
Watch the VIDEO
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NJEA TV AD
Posted on March 27, 2011 by pleasantvilleea
Bipartisan Bargaining Bill Awaits Governor’s Signature
Posted on March 18, 2011 by pleasantvilleea
A year ago, Gov. Chris Christie told teachers they should agree to a one-year pay freeze, insisting that the thousands of layoffs caused by his budget cuts would be avoided if they did. That claim was proven false by an Office of Legislative Services report. Still, when faced with the prospect of layoffs, local education associations across New Jersey considered whether to reopen their contracts and agree to wage freezes or other concessions.
Under current law, however, school employees are prohibited from bargaining over staffing levels. Many local education associations, when considering whether to reopen contracts, were deterred by the fact that there was no way to guarantee that their colleagues’ jobs would be saved even if concessions were made.
The reason: there was no legal requirement that concessions had to be used to rehire personnel.
Now there will be if Gov. Christie signs a bill that currently sits on his desk.
“Legislation that has passed both the Senate and the Assembly by overwhelming bipartisan margins now awaits Gov. Christie’s signature,” said NJEA President Barbara Keshishian. S-1940, which passed the Senate by a vote of 36-2, and A-2772, which passed the Assembly 69-8, require that the monetary equivalent of any wage or benefit concession agreed to by a collective bargaining unit be used by the school district to offset reductions in force initiated for economic reasons.
“In light of Gov. Christie’s repeated calls for school employees to open contracts and negotiate concessions in order to save jobs, NJEA urges the governor to sign legislation giving school employees the ability to do so,” Keshishian said. Under current law, employees are prohibited from negotiating staffing levels. That means that even when employees negotiate concessions, they have no legally enforceable guarantee that the district will use the savings to preserve jobs.
“In practice, this legislation allows employees and boards of education to negotiate in good faith on issues of wage and benefit concessions intended to save jobs,” she said. “Employees will have confidence, backed by a legal guarantee, that if they choose to negotiate concessions in order to save the jobs of their colleagues, those jobs will in fact be preserved.”
In a letter to Gov. Christie on March 1, Keshishian urged him to sign the legislation, which has been sitting on his desk since the Assembly passed it on Feb. 17. She wrote, “During the past year, we have heard your call for shared sacrifice to ease property tax increases and curtail salary raises. As taxpayers, homeowners, and public employees who shape young minds, we want to do our part.”
Keshishian noted that several districts have negotiated wage freezes, but still faced deep cuts in staff.
“The legislation before Gov. Christie will make school employees true partners in the task of finding solutions to the problems caused by deep cuts in school funding,” she said.
Christie has until April 3 to act on the bill. If he does nothing, the bill automatically becomes law.
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