San Mateo Community College Federation of Teachers, AFT 1493
Minutes of General Membership/Executive Committee Meeting
Wednesday, November 13, 2013, at Skyline College
EC Members Present:
Lin Bowie, Salumeh Eslamieh, Eric Brenner, Anne Stafford, Teeka James, Nina Floro, Joaquin Rivera, Katharine Harer, Sandi Raeber-Dorsett, Vicki Clinton, Paul Reukhaus, Dan Kaplan
Guests:
Zev Kvitky, Tom Broxholm
NON-AGENDA ITEMS FROM NON-EC MEMBERS
Tom from Skyline automotive: He has questions about whether meetings are mandatory or not.
Professional development: Tom has concerns about the professional development process at Skyline. Skyline has a rubric that includes points for sharing with colleagues and students. But you get more points for sharing what you learn with colleagues than with students. Seems backwards to Tom. He understands that the committee is trying to make things fair, but he still has concerns.
Tom talked with the PD chair, Rick Hough, but Rick decided to go forward with the form.
He thinks folks need to get approval in advance, even for conditional funding. It’s hard to plan to attend conferences that are early in the fall because we don’t know if we’ll get funding or not. You are supposed to apply 21 days ahead, but some folks are applying closer than 21 days ahead and even some are applying after they’ve gone to the conference and they’re still getting funded. It is frustrating to have people who do not follow the rules still get money; it seems like there should be some system of priorities.
What is the rubric? It’s new to the Skyline PD committee. It is a couple additional questions to help them figure out whom to fund. Salumeh says she’s on the PD committee at Canada, and they don’t use any kind of rubric. The Skyline committee does everything through email. Nina has heard from a committee member who doesn’t feel like her views are heard in the committee deliberations. The intentions are good, but there seem to be glitches. Katharine heard about the rubric, and can see why it would be helpful. But she’s wondering how the decision to use a rubric was made. Not all of the committee even votes, since it’s through email.
It seems like AFT needs to step in. We might look at how the three committees are discharging their duties. Dan used to contact the PD chairs to check in. Maybe we need to resume doing this. Perhaps ask for yearly reports. Perhaps have face-to-face meeting with the PD chairs and set up a best practices list.
We need to stick to the language of the contract. Canada takes late applications on a case by case practice. Teeka and Dan will contact the chairs and meet with them.
MINUTES
Approved with one change; 8 yes, 3 abstain
ANNIVERSARY PARTY
Dan is concerned about attendance. We currently have about 30 who have said they are coming. We’ve planned on 100, so we’ll just see what happens. Set up is at 3:00. We are prepared, thanks to Dan’s heroic efforts at organizing this shindig.
ACCREDITATION PETITION
Teeka and Dan went to CFT Area Council meeting last week. Sandra Weiss brought up the idea of doing a petition of sorts in support of Ron Galatolo’s courageous stand against ACCJC. Apparently there are 12 other “CEOs” who are in support of Ron’s views, but they are not willing to stand up and be counted. Zev clarifies that the petition would really be focused on the CCSF fight against ACCJC, but Ron and his actions might be a part of that.
ACADEMIC CALENDAR
The calendar discussion. We looked at two proposed calendars. We voted to approve #3, but we are not completely happy about the flex day being moved to the day before Thanksgiving.
PETF: NEXT STEPS
Harry is on vacation, and PETF’s clerical support has evaporated. Elizabeth and Nina are ready to be working on the layout and “professional” look of our contract, as ours looks pretty janky[1] in comparison to what other schools use. Harry is working on several pieces that the other PETF members do not have access to, so they’re not sure what to do. Perhaps we can ask Ron Galotolo for help on the clerical piece.
Teeka will call Ron to ask about the clerical help.
With all the accreditation fuss, Lezlee and Elizabeth met with the accreditation site visit team at Cañada, and they had a love fest around the SLOs.
QUALITY PUBLIC EDUCATION CAMPAIGN UPDATE
Katharine, Zev, Teeka and Dan had a meeting to brainstorm the project for our CFT grant. We want to build our capacity for activism and build our leadership. We also talked about the threats to education and how to link a response to those threats into our proposal. Start a political action network SMCCPAN. We focus on local issues, try to connect with our students. In the spring, Katharine will be working on writing the grant with Zev. She’ll have some time for this paid by AFT 1493.
ASSOCIATED STUDENTS PULL BP 2.30 (POLITICAL ACTIVITY) FROM BOARD CONSIDERATION
We’ll see what will happen. Maybe Teeka should contact Barbara and Ginny about it. There was a quid pro quo on this.
BOT’s DISCUSSION ON THE ACCJC RESOLUTION
Mandelkern didn’t like linking our problems w/ ACCJC with the CCSF issues. Mandelkern wanted to do two resolutions, separating CCSF and ACCJC. They don’t want to pass the resolution until we hear about our accreditation reports. So, they’re going to wait 60 days. Holober said that the board is 100% behind Ron.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Joaquin will represent AFT on the hiring committee for the new head of HR. At our last three meetings, we’ve had very low attendance. We decide to cancel our December 4th meeting, because so many folks will not be able to attend.
Meeting adjourned at 4:55.
Minutes by Teeka James
[1] Janky, we learned from Elizabeth, means haphazard and unprofessional.