Lansing Legislators need to act now to respond to students' needs

Our local school district is teetering on the brink of financial collapse.  Today, in a meeting with the Coalition of Detroit Public Schools Unions (the representatives of the unions of DPS workers) transition leader Steven Rhodes said the district will run out of money in early April.

Lawmakers in Lansing must take action now to secure DPS' financial security! They must focus on the future of our neighborhood public schools and the children and families who depend on those schools.  They must act now to avoid a financial crisis that would force schools to close before the end of the 2016 school year denying the children the ediucation they deserve.

A aupplemental appropriation must be introduced, supported and passed to allow DPS to operate through the end of the current school year.  The appropriation would solve our immediate funding issues, but it would not address the larger issues of the districts $515 million debt and its lack of resources for our classrooms.  Our state legislators need to act quickly to ensure that our schools are financially viable - now and in the furture!

Your local union will let you know how you can further support our combined efforts.

Ruby Newbold, President Detroit Assoication of Educational Office Employees AFT, Local 4148

Keith January, President Detroit Board of Education Employees AFSCME Council 25 Local 345

Donna Jackson, President Detroit Federation of Para-Professionals AFT Local 2350

Ivy Bailey, Interim President Detroit Federation of Teachers AFT, Local 231

Deborah Louis-Ake President Organization of School Administrators and Supervisors Local 28 AFSA

Tom Scott Operating Engineers, OE324 500 Hulet Drive, Bloomfield Township

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Education Austin to Hold Elections for Officers and Executive Board

The State wants to require all employees to participate in direct deposit of paychecks in the future.  We are seeking input from the membership regarding this matter.  We recognize the benefits of direct deposit (the most significant benefit being the immediate availability of funds).  However, we want to know of members' concerns about direct deposit.

If you have concerns about mandatory direct deposit, or if you have reasons why mandatory direct deposit would be a hardship for you, please let us know by following this link. {unlinked, thank you for all of the responses]

Routinely getting classes or having your schedule or textbook changed hours before a class started, and often after you’d made commitments to other jobs; sweetheart deals; inconsistent raise, peer review and administrative policies; lack of grievance procedures; working in fear that you had no other protection for your position than the good graces of your superiors and all the while whispering with colleagues in dark corners that there had to be a better way.

Serious concerns about the financial performance of Pearson PLC, the world’s biggest education publisher, have prompted a trans-Atlantic alliance of pension funds to call on the company to urgently review its business strategy. The alliance, representing 193,000 Pearson voting shares, has submitted a shareholder resolution, which will be heard at the company’s annual general meeting in London in April. The resolution asks the education conglomerate to look again at its future business plans and end its over-reliance on high-stakes testing in the United States, the market that produces 60 percent of its profits, and questioning Pearson’s support for low-fee private schools in the developing world.

The Advocate

February 2016

State Rep Assembly in April

The Governor's Office continues to be on a path of confusion with their self-created "fiscal cliff" and their "new economic reality".  The Governor held an Open Budget Forum in New Haven this week to push his budget agenda.  That meeting was well attended by A&R members as well as members from other State employee unions.  Members questioned the Governor about his budget plan which not only calls for reduced wages for State employees but also for reductions in the State workforce.  Other Unions are joining us at these events so stop in for a show of solidarity when the next event is sch