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VEA members are able to donate their personal leave days to the catastrophic leave bank for members who are may be fighting a serious illness or other helping a loved one who is seriously ill.

Open enrollment for VEA’s Catastrophic Leave Bank starts now. Members can donate a day or more of personal leave to the bank. If you are already enrolled, you do not need to re-enroll again this year. A day of your persona leave will be automatically donated to the bank each year until you withdraw from the program.

If this is your first year in the District, you do not need to donate to the bank. You may also qualify to withdraw from the bank if this is your first year in the District. If this is your second year or more, you need to donate to the bank in order to qualify to withdraw from it.

Please see the attached forms for more information.

• Open Enrollment Flier 2013.14
  
• Catastrophic Leave Bank Donation Form

(Special thanks to Christine McGiffert in the VCUSD HR Department for sending this information out!)

VCUSD plans to unveil a “confidentiality” form that teachers may be asked to sign upon returning to school this week. VEA believes that confidentiality of student information is a vital interest that must be protected. However, VEA has serious concerns about the ambiguity of this form and plans to urge the District to meet with VEA leadership to discuss concerns expressed.

We are urging all VEA members to not sign the confidentiality form (which may be labeled “certificate”) until this matter has been settled.

• Confidentiality/Certificate

It is our understanding that school sites may roll this out tomorrow. We have met with the District to express our concerns with the confidentiality form. We have requested that the form is modified to include language that any disciplinary action must follow due process as defined by the California Education Code. We have further asked that the Board Policies (BP) referenced in the agreement is attached to the agreement.

We are again requesting that this form NOT be signed unless the two items requested above are in the form provided to members. We are encouraging members to speak to their site manager about this concern and ask that everyone remember that they are just the messenger.

VEA is excited to announce that we are founding members of “Common Ground,” an affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation. This new organization is committed to bring profound positive change to the communities of Solano and Napa counties. Common Ground is a non-partisan group that consists of faith-based organizations, non-profits and labor groups.

We are very pleased that our very own CTA President Dean Vogel is attending this event.

Contact Christal Watts at [email protected] or at 707-552-8487 for more information.

Common Ground
Organizing to:
Strengthen our Institutions and
Create Community Change in Solano and Napa Counties

Who is Common Ground?
We are diverse religious and non-profits organizations in Solano and Napa Counties who are forming a broad-based, non-partisan organization, which will help us to:

– Build strong relationships within and across our communities;
– Equip our members with leadership and organizing skills;
– Act powerfully together on concrete issues facing our communities.

We are building this effort with the help of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), the nation’s oldest and largest leadership development and broad-based organizing network.

What Do We Believe?
Relationships. The issues we work on come out of conversations in which people share stories about experiences and concerns. We build on these relationships to strengthen connections between people, which is the foundation for effecting real change.

Leadership. We identify and develop leaders within our institutions and across our communities, so that our institutions get stronger and we can accomplish more together.

Ownership. Dues from member institutions, in addition to some foundation support, fund the organization. We accept no government money. This allows us the freedom to reflect the interests and values of the institutions that make up the organization.

Practical Solutions. We work on concrete issues that we can do something about. Once potential issues are identified, we do research and power analysis to develop practical, achievable solutions. We measure success with a triple bottom line: Are we bringing about change? Are we developing leadership? Are we growing the power of people to act on their values?

Where We Are Now and Where We Are Going?
We have 15 congregations and non-profits that are already charter members and many others seriously exploring membership, and we welcome more!

Member institutions are working internally to identify and form leadership, develop strategic plans and identify issues they want to work on that are impacting their families and communities.

Common Ground will have a Founding Convention Sunday June 23rd from 3:00-4:30pm at St. Patrick-St. Vincent High School, 1500 Benicia Rd, Vallejo. There, 1,500 delegated from our 15 charter members will announce and credential the organization publicly, pledge dues commitments to each other and launch action around an agenda of issues.