Portland Education Association

The Dispatcher     

Volume 4, Issue 6               June 2006

 

PEA Awarded Grant for a Full Time Release President

The NEA awards grants to help associations move from a part time to a full time release president. The PEA has applied twice in the past and did not receive the grant. This fall, we turned in our application, and like they say, the third time is a charm!

We were awarded the grant this April. The grant helps to fund a full time release president through NEA and MEA monies. The term of the grant is five years. The funds are slowly decreased over the five year term, with the local association eventually absorbing the total cost of the full time release.

The goals of the grant include:

 

 

District Budget Update

The City Council voted on May 15th to approve the school district budget. In an emergency meeting just prior to this vote, the school committee voted to cut an additional $500,000. It is unclear exactly where this cut will come from, but the Superintendent has stated she hopes to take the cuts in non-personnel categories. Additionally, the PEA has been notified that the Gear UP program's funding is being reduced. Currently three teachers are in the program (one continuing contract and two probationary). The PEA is working with the district to place everyone and it is likely that all three teachers will be offered positions. This is the only reduction the PEA is currently aware of.

 

 

 

 

The Annual MEA Representative Assembly Meeting

On May 20th and 21st the MEA-RA met for its annual meeting in Portland. Delegates who represented Portland were: Kathleen Casasa, Gary Vines, Kim Attwenger, Anna Messmer, Dauna Binder, Molly Clancy, Kathy Mercier, Mary Jo Keenan and Kathleen Costello.

The MEA-RA elected Chris Galgay as MEA President and Grace Leavitt as NEA Director. Louis Kilby-Chesley was unopposed as Vice President. Susan Grondin was unopposed as representative to the MEA Benefits Trust.

 

Highlights of some of the issues discussed at the meeting include:

 

 

 

 

PEA Elections Results

The PEA has elected officers for a two year term starting July 1, 2006. Only one candidate came forward to run for each position, so the PEA–RA with no nominations from the floor and no opposition certified the election. 

 

President:                  Kathleen Casasa

Vice-President:         Kathy Strang

Secretary:                  Joni Beliveau

Treasurer:                  Audrey Cabral

 

Next Years Calendar

The big question is do we have a 2006-07 calendar. Already the staff has received two final calendars with notation to distribute to parents. Major problems emerged with the calendar that had middle school starting at 7:30am and ending at 1:40pm. Many members emailed the Association asking to be represented in this matter. The Superintendent agreed to reconsider and the new times are as follows:     High School: 7:45-1:50     Middle School: 8:15-2:20      Elementary School: 8:50-3:00his has every employee covered by the PEA contract working 6.5 hours and the instructional day for students at 6 hours 10 minutes. This corrects a long practice of having middle school teachers work longer each day. This newest calendar is out to building administration and teachers should be seeing it shortly. But the calendar issues do not end there. Parents are organizing to try to get the weekly Wednesday late start decision reversed. They plan to present their concerns to the School Committee on June 14th. The calendar subcommittee of the Professional Development Committee (PDC) and the PDC as a group preferred a calendar with no releases. The PEA RA voted to support a calendar with large blocks of uninterrupted learning time. The calendar task force echoed these sentiments. The School Committee voted to put early releases every Wednesday (amounting to 34 releases).

 

 

 

 

PowerSchool, Coming This Fall

As you may or may not know by now, Portland Public Schools has purchased a new Student Information System (SIS) that will be partially implemented by teachers beginning in September. School secretaries will be more fully implementing it as of September. It will replace Pentamation which needed to be replaced as it no longer meets the district's or state's requirements regarding data entry. The link below explains the reasoning and justification for this purchase. Over the summer each building will send a few teachers to a PowerSchool training so they can be the "go to" person as a first responder before Central Office technology support staff are called. The Building Technology Coordinator will be one of those people. Explore the link below which brings you to a page of several links containing more information.

http://www.portlandschools.org/Pages/Community/documents/SISUpgrade/BTCResource.htm

 

 

PEA Retirement Social

The PEA retirement social was held on Thursday, June 1st. In her remarks President Casasa offered a Retirement Readiness Assessment, and while Retirement Remediation is available the PEA is quite certain all retirees are ready and we wish them all the best!

 

 The following retirees were honored:

Jo Ann Brimmer, John Cross, Roberta Deane, Leon Freeman, William Gray, Maureen Lowell, Lega Medcalf, Jane Olfene, Sharon Robbins, John Robinson, Linda Rogoff, Gayle Shonley, Andrea Bagley, James Tucker, Jeffrey Lander, Elsie Whidden, Arleen Westcott

 

PEA Scholarships

Portland High School:The recipient of the PEA Scholarship is Maja Reinhartsen. Her parents are Gretchen Langner and Laurence Reinhartsen.  Maja has been an honor roll student, participated in Key Club, and played field hockey for three years. She was awarded both the SMAA academic achievement Award and the Most Valuable Player Award for her senior season. She attended the Chewonki Foundation’s Maine Coast Semester where she widened her awareness of Maine’s outdoor environment, and strengthened her passion for the sciences. This year at Portland she took AP Biology. Next year she will attend Acadia University in Novia Scotia where she will study Biology with the hopes of eventually working in aquatic mammal research and care.

 

PATHS: Congratulations to Sunny White, the 2006 recipient of the PATHS PEA Scholarship. Sunny is a student from Deering in the Early Childhood Education program. She has been an honor roll student at both schools, and was recently inducted into the National Technical Honor Society at PATHS. Sunny has been accepted at several colleges and plans to major in Early Childhood Education at the University of Maine in Farmington. She is the daughter of Albert White and Velvet Amber Brown.

 

Deering High School: Kathleen Casasa-Blouin

Kathleen is the daughter of Kathleen Casasa and Peter Blouin. Kathleen is a lovely young woman with a strong sense of personal integrity.  She is an intellectual leader, an ambitious scholar, a dedicated volunteer, and a courageous, adventurous soul. In addition to Kathleen’s many service activities she is a dependable athlete that coaches can count on to do whatever the team needs. She has been involved in soccer, cross country, and lacrosse. Currently, she is exploring summer service opportunities around the world. She is an inspirational leader, a delightful role model, and an empathic caregiver.

 

 

nea National Education Association                          MEA Maine Education Association