RCEA Position Statement Regarding the 2012-2013 Budget

Tim Summers, aka The Bard

At the Thursday February 9 regular meeting of the Roanoke County School Board, RCEA Vice President, Tim Summers, spoke on behalf of our membership regarding issues directly related to us. Summers thanked the school board for the difficult work they’ve done over the past few years and then spoke to several important issues.

· We need a 4% salary increase.

“We desperately need an actual raise that will carry from one year to the next and that will contribute to our VRS and our lifetime earnings for retirement… We see in the news that the economy is beginning to recover. We know that private industry is hiring new employees and is also giving raises. It is time for us to get some financial relief.”

Summers went on to say,

“We have done more and more with less and less. Virginia ranks fourth in the nation for our quality public schools. Roanoke County remains a lighthouse, award winning school division. Your employees take great pride in those accomplishments and deserve credit for them as well. We are getting the job done.

We maintain that a 4% raise can be given to employees without the school division laying off employees or closing schools. Although we understand that schools have to be renovated and maintained, it is time to put employees before buildings. All research indicates that the most important factor for students at school is the quality of the teacher in the classroom, not the repair of the building itself. Now is not the time to spend money air conditioning gymnasiums and building field houses. Those things are icing on the cake. Money must be allocated to people. We have been following the budget development of the Board of Supervisors and will support you in acquiring appropriate funding from them.”

· Health insurance benefits for all employees should be maintained at no additional cost to employees.

· Maintain staffing levels, programs, and activities that relate directly to the delivery of instruction.

“This includes keeping class sizes and teacher/student ratios as low as possible. Schools should experience no reduction in staffing, and there should be no layoffs.”

· A measured approach to teacher evaluation

“We know the school division is working through the new state guidelines for teacher evaluation. Currently these are only guidelines. The best approach to this is to implement only what is actually required by the state. It is required that a significant portion of a teacher’s evaluation be tied to student growth. However significant does not have to equal 40%. We ask for consideration of a lower percentage. “

· VRS and Continuing Contract must be preserved.

Efforts are underway in Richmond to dismantle VRS as a defined benefit pension program. Likewise, legislators in Richmond are attempting to strip continuing contract rights. VEA is fighting hard to defeat these attempts.

“The RCEA joins the Virginia Education Association (VEA) in its efforts to preserve the Virginia Retirement System (VRS) as a defined benefit and to maintain the current arrangement under which the 5% employee contribution continues to be paid by the employer for all employees hired before July 1, 2010. We are also opposed to any change in continuing contract for teachers.”

Make no mistake about it, attaining these goals will be difficult. Some well-meaning, good people may assert that we should just meekly acquiesce and quietly go about, but that approach fails to alert decision-makers of real needs. Real needs go unaddressed if they are never shared. Thus, we presented our requests not in confrontation, but rather, in the earnest hope of joint resolution.