January 2020I hope your year is off to a great start. This will be a busy year for us all with local, state, and national elections in March and December. In November, there will be two open school board seats and initiatives aimed at increasing school funding in California on the State ballot.
California underfunds education. We are the 5th largest economy in the world but we are in the bottom ten states when it comes to funding education. This affects the education of our students and the working conditions and salaries of our members. The Schools and Communities First ballot measure, if passed, will increase school funding. This initiative will overturn Prop 13 for large business and will result in a $12 billion increase for education along with funding other social services. This initiative will not increase property taxes for home owners and small businesses, who will be exempt. It will only affect large corporations who had their property taxes frozen in 1978. We are in the process of qualifying this initiative for the November ballot. See your site rep or contact me if you have not had the opportunity to sign the petition to qualify Schools and Communities First for the November ballot.
Catastrophic Leave
We are in need of leave donations to our Catastrophic Leave Bank. This leave is for members with a serious illness or other emergency who have used all of their sick leave. We began the year with 337 hours in our account, including the 2018-19 District contribution. Our current balance is 272. If you have already contributed, thank you. If you have not done so, please consider contributing now. You are eligible to donate if you have 20 days saved up in addition to days from this school year. Please use the attached form to donate up to two days. You can give your completed donation form to your site rep or send it to Holly Camozzi at the District Office via the pony.
It's Scholarship Time!
The Petaluma Federation of Teachers will sponsor multiple scholarships that will provide a one-time payment of $500.00 to children of “PFT members in good standing” who are graduating from high school to attend a community college, a four year college, or other institution with a course of learning resulting in a diploma or certificate of completion.The scholarships are for those graduating from high school in the 2019-20 school year. The Petaluma Educational Foundation (PEF) will administer the scholarships. The graduating student must submit the application along with a short (250-300 words) essay describing how having a Petaluma City Schools educator as a parent essay describing how having a Petaluma City Schools educator as a parent influenced you as well as your educational goals
This is intended to be an annual scholarship, however, since the number of applicants will vary from year to year, the scholarship will be reviewed each fiscal year in the total context of the PFT budget.
Applications are available on line at the PFT Website, pft1881.org. Please email the PFT President at [email protected] about your intent to apply. PEF will notify students of the scholarship award and all of the details encompassing.
All completed applications along with the completed essay must be submitted to PFT President, Sandra Larsen, no later than February 29, 2020. Submissions may be done via email, postal mail, or brought directly to the PFT office. Late submissions will not be accepted.
Dues
Our dues structure is defined in our Petaluma Federation of Teachers Constitution. Below is an explanation of our dues.
We pay AFT $234.96 and CFT $574.14 yearly for each full time member. In addition we pay $12.60 to CA Labor Fed and OLI. That means we send out $821.70 yearly for each full time member. Per our constitution, we add our local dues on to that amount. Our local dues portion is based on Step One Column One of our salary schedule. To calculate local dues you multiply $46,170 (step 1 column 1) by .0033 and you get $152.36 That amount is added to the dues we pass on. Our total yearly dues are $947.06 or $94.71 per month as we only pay dues 10 months of the year. Beginning in your January pay check dues will increase by .56 cents per month per month.
California underfunds education. We are the 5th largest economy in the world but we are in the bottom ten states when it comes to funding education. This affects the education of our students and the working conditions and salaries of our members. The Schools and Communities First ballot measure, if passed, will increase school funding. This initiative will overturn Prop 13 for large business and will result in a $12 billion increase for education along with funding other social services. This initiative will not increase property taxes for home owners and small businesses, who will be exempt. It will only affect large corporations who had their property taxes frozen in 1978. We are in the process of qualifying this initiative for the November ballot. See your site rep or contact me if you have not had the opportunity to sign the petition to qualify Schools and Communities First for the November ballot.
Catastrophic Leave
We are in need of leave donations to our Catastrophic Leave Bank. This leave is for members with a serious illness or other emergency who have used all of their sick leave. We began the year with 337 hours in our account, including the 2018-19 District contribution. Our current balance is 272. If you have already contributed, thank you. If you have not done so, please consider contributing now. You are eligible to donate if you have 20 days saved up in addition to days from this school year. Please use the attached form to donate up to two days. You can give your completed donation form to your site rep or send it to Holly Camozzi at the District Office via the pony.
It's Scholarship Time!
The Petaluma Federation of Teachers will sponsor multiple scholarships that will provide a one-time payment of $500.00 to children of “PFT members in good standing” who are graduating from high school to attend a community college, a four year college, or other institution with a course of learning resulting in a diploma or certificate of completion.The scholarships are for those graduating from high school in the 2019-20 school year. The Petaluma Educational Foundation (PEF) will administer the scholarships. The graduating student must submit the application along with a short (250-300 words) essay describing how having a Petaluma City Schools educator as a parent essay describing how having a Petaluma City Schools educator as a parent influenced you as well as your educational goals
This is intended to be an annual scholarship, however, since the number of applicants will vary from year to year, the scholarship will be reviewed each fiscal year in the total context of the PFT budget.
Applications are available on line at the PFT Website, pft1881.org. Please email the PFT President at [email protected] about your intent to apply. PEF will notify students of the scholarship award and all of the details encompassing.
All completed applications along with the completed essay must be submitted to PFT President, Sandra Larsen, no later than February 29, 2020. Submissions may be done via email, postal mail, or brought directly to the PFT office. Late submissions will not be accepted.
Dues
Our dues structure is defined in our Petaluma Federation of Teachers Constitution. Below is an explanation of our dues.
We pay AFT $234.96 and CFT $574.14 yearly for each full time member. In addition we pay $12.60 to CA Labor Fed and OLI. That means we send out $821.70 yearly for each full time member. Per our constitution, we add our local dues on to that amount. Our local dues portion is based on Step One Column One of our salary schedule. To calculate local dues you multiply $46,170 (step 1 column 1) by .0033 and you get $152.36 That amount is added to the dues we pass on. Our total yearly dues are $947.06 or $94.71 per month as we only pay dues 10 months of the year. Beginning in your January pay check dues will increase by .56 cents per month per month.
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