The first survey of the “bargaining season” is going out to members.  If you are a member and don’t get the email, please contact the GEA President.

At the last GEA meeting a new logo was approved.  No more “Pepsi” logo!

On July 29^th, 2013, the membership of the GEA met to review the Certified Staff Evaluation Plan created by the District 205 / GEA Joint committee.  The GEA membership continues to express concern over the lack of recall rights and the number of appeals within the plan.  In an effort to move forward, and despite their concerns, the membership voted to approve the plan, but reserves the right to address these concerns in the future.

The GEA continues to hold the position that the lack of Recall Rights and a severely limited number of appeals, will negatively impact our District.  Such an impact will only make our District less attractive to prospective employees and families.

Keep the 29th at 5:30 open for another membership meeting if we need it.

The Eval plan was, again, voted down by the membership. Please use the following form to contact ALL the Board members. If you scroll down in the message box you will find a pre-typed message. Feel free to edit or change the message to your liking. Make sure to type the security code at the bottom of the form before you click send.

Below is also the individual email addresses for the Board members if you would like to create a message yourself.

tcolclasure@galesburg205.org, mpalmer@galesburg205.org, mpanther2@galesburg205.org, blindstrom@galesburg205.org, jgibb@galesburg205.org, nkessler@galesburg205.org, rwelty@galesburg205.org

Please plan on attending the Board meeting Monday night in show of support.
Breakout the GEA or school shirts.

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Members:

The GEA and Board Administration has a Joint Committee meeting scheduled for June 26^th.  We may or may not have movement on the Evaluation Plan. As required by the By-Laws I am giving notice of a scheduled Membership meeting to discuss the Evaluation Plan, Contract, and or By-laws modifications. As with any membership meeting there may or may not be a vote.

At the last meeting some individuals chose not to come because they didn’t think there would be a vote but there was.  Others at the meeting attempted to contact members not in attendance so they could show up and vote without having heard the discussion.  This is a terrible practice. If you want to vote you should be there for the discussion so you can be an informed voter.  Remember – only members will be allowed in.

We will plan to have a membership meeting July 10^th at the GHS Auditorium at 5:00 PM.  If there is no new information to share we will cancel the meeting.  We will have you sign in to vote at the beginning of the meeting.

On the November Ballot, Illinois voters will be asked if they believe the Illinois Constitution should be amended to require a three-fifths majority vote in order to increase a benefit under any public pension or retirement system. We say Vote NO on the Proposed Constitutional Amendment.

This Constitutional Amendment would also require that any local collectively bargained agreement be approved by a 3/5th majority if those agreements had incentives or additional compensation increases beyond salary.

The question on the November ballot will ask, “If you believe the Illinois Constitution should not be amended to require a three-fifths majority vote in order to increase a benefit under any public pension or retirement system, you should Vote NO.”

Please Join our Effort to Defeat this Constitutional Amendment by alerting your colleagues and family members! Join us in Voting NO against the proposed Constitutional Amendment on the November Ballot.

The GEA Bargaining Team has informed the Evaluation Committee and School Board that due to the GEA Team being unable to meet until after August 15^th, we do not see how a vote on August 15th is possible nor do we think it will even be possible by September 1^st.  In addition to calendar issues there are several other concerns…

1.  The Team has not been given the most recent draft of the plan to discuss.

2.  The Team has not been able to meet to discuss any bargaining issues.

3.  There are items that have to be bargained between our two groups, which would possibly entail scheduling another meeting for the two Bargaining teams to meet together.

4.  We do not have time to meet with our entire membership by Sept 1^st to present the plan and answer their questions, so that they may make an informed vote.

The GEA Team also still has some general concerns:

1.  It is our understanding that the District 205 Board of Education is going to be asked to vote on this plan on August 13^th at the Board meeting.  We do not see how can they vote on something that has items yet to be bargained?

2.  The law and the Collective Bargaining Agreement (Section 12.7) clearly states that we have until July, 2013 to get the Plan finalized, so why does it seem like we are all being rushed into this?

3.  The first sentence of Section 12.7 of the CBA states, “The District has an approved waiver through 2013 to utilize the current Professional Development Plan/Professional Growth Plan Model;…”  As stated in our previous memo to the Evaluation committee, the GEA Team suggests that we continue using this model with the exception of utilizing the new mandated categories.

4.  The GEA Team is still concerned that there is no appeal process built into this plan.   It remains the GEA’s position that teachers should have the right to appeal a possibly unfair interpretation of evidence.

The GEA remains in support of the Evaluation Team’s over-all progress and supports their efforts in the current plan.  However, it is the GEA’s position that it is not yet complete and believes such an important issue should not be rushed into in haste.