November 5, 2009 Consultation Minutes

Instructional consultation minutes
November 6, 2009


Fingerprinting of Employees

Meeting called to order at 4:32 PM. Fingerprinting of all employees was mandated by Senate Bill 9 in 2007 to be completed by September 1, 2011. HISD has been informed by the state that fingerprinting will be done in HISD in the first quarter of 2010. Formal notice will be sent out on December 7, 2009. New hires have been fingerprinted as a condition of employment. All employees designated by the state will be required to be fingerprinted by the 80th day after December 7, 2009 with a break for Christmas until January 11th at which time the clock will restart. If any designated employee has not been successfully fingerprinted by the 80th day, that employee’s certification will be inactivated and they will not be eligible for employment. The state is holding the district responsible, but will communicate directly with the employee. They will communicate through an e-mail from Itsbatch and will have the subject line as “AutoEmail: SB9 Fingerprinting Information Houston ISD” as the subject line.

Employees need to create/update an account with SBEC, verify that the name on their certificate matches the name on their current driver’s license of state issued identification card, update their e-mail address in their SBEC account (this is where their FASTPass will be sent), and follow the instructions to access their FASTPass.

Employees will be fingerprinted on campus at a designated date and time or at a vendor location. Fingerprinting will take 10 minutes for fingerprinting and take picture. Vendor will work from 8 to 5. There are approximately 700 employees who will be required to pay for fingerprinting which will cost $52.00. All others will be paid for by the state.

Organizations are being asked to inform their members of the requirements and how to get the documentation right. HFT requested that HISD consider paying the fee for those employees who are not covered by the state or at least paying for the lower paid employees for whom the fee would be a hardship.

HFT concerns:

1. H1N1 vaccination district plan has not been approved. Plan will follow the CDC recommended policy which is Health care personnel first, persons at risk second, all other last, teachers will have to fall in line unless in high risk group. Nurses will who choose to give vaccinations will be paid $45 per hour.
2. Dispensing medications by nurses from students in residential homes is a concern. Medications are being removed from original container a placed in another container and an adequate supply is not being provided. Students are on occasion missing doses because the medication has not been delivered. This issue will be investigated.

2. EVAAS scores and PDAS

“To my knowledge the professional standards team has not issued any such instruction”

What about the feeder pattern questionnaire that strongly suggested that if a teacher shows no growth on EVAAS then why is there no growth plan. Talking to principals, they are saying that they were told this by regional superintendents, and executive principals. What is the district going to do to clean this up?

Dr. Grier has seen the form. It is a check list that is seeking to ask the principals to look at the data. It is intended to alert the principals to the data available.

What proof do you have that EVAAS is a predictor of teacher behavior? It does effectively predict student behavior. It is not intended to evaluate teacher performance.

“I am not going to answer that question” from the administration. “It is just another piece of information that should be followed up on.”

Is the administration denying the problem, do they even recognize that there is a problem? This is affecting teachers every day. Does the administration even care? Students say at 10th grade “TAKS means nothing to me because if I fail who cares” and we are evaluating teachers on that attitude. A clear statement needs to be made. “I can assure you that Dr. Grier has never given any directive to use EVAAS in this manner.”

When we returned to school in August this was in place. HFT has files where teachers have been taken off MPDAS and placed on a growth plan. HISD knows that TEA has already ruled on this issue at least for termination. Has anyone explained to the principals that you cannot remove a teacher from MPDAS to PDAS based on EVAAS scores? HFT will take every one of these to TEA if necessary.

If this keeps up you will see more teachers leaving with little or no notice. HISD has one of the worst urban turnover rates in the state. No one wants to work in a place that makes them miserable.

3. Deloitte study was not adequate. There are persons who have been demoted in classification and are being paid at a substantially higher rate than their classification and will not receive a raise in the conceivable future. Member bringing issue to consultation has been improperly classified and has been told that she was improperly hired. Her job description is incorrect. She averred that she and five others in her department are all improperly classified. Study was inaccurate in her case. JAQ sent back to her was not the JAQ that she filled out. The culture of HISD has changed. Five years ago this was a great place to work. The culture has changed to a very unfriendly corporate mentality. This needs to be looked at immediately. This is not the final opportunity to look at the compensation. What is going to be done?

4. Teachers in middle school identified their students as English teachers. At beginning of the summer their classification was changed to reading. District avers that the change was not made after the fact; the change was made on recommendation of the advisory committee for middle schools. The argument was that both English and reading teachers prepare for the reading test therefore the teachers should be combined into one group and the rating should be made on the reading test and the language test should be dropped. The idea was passed by the curriculum department. Problem is that the EVAAS scores for reading are substantially lower than language arts scores; this means that the teachers concerned are stopped from transferring. The only thing principals care about is the reading and math scores. These are people that are being affected by arbitrary changes.
Committee will be reconvened in order to look at these issues.

If teacher chooses not to participate in ASPIRE, they are not required to do the ASPIRE training. Principals need to have a memorandum on this issue.

CHT - Tracey Wear stated there are clear guidelines for exiting from advanced academic classes. There is the growth plan and the entrance agreement. Exiting can take place as soon as the student fails to clear a growth plan.

HEA - Renzulli is not mandatory for all teachers on all campuses.

HFT - Teacher Aides on many campuses are being used as a fulltime teacher. It is abusive to the TA to use an $18,000 aide in a $45,000 position. This is generated mostly in the South district. “Teacher Aides should not be assigned full time to a teaching position where grades are given”

District wants list of school’s involved. HFT pointed out that these persons are at will and are afraid for their jobs. They will need a guarantee of protection. In some schools, the librarian has been replaced by an aide. “An aide can serve as a librarian as long as students are not left in her care without a certified teacher.”

A Teacher Aide who works with students daily and has been trained to the same level as the certified personnel. Any Aide who steps into a classroom must be trained.

HFT - Planning time and lunch. Once again principals are violating the law, requiring some teachers to observe other teachers during their planning time. This will be addressed once again. Principals are arrogant about this. It is the law. This issue will be placed on the regional superintendent agenda.

CHT - Parent wants a copy of the teacher lesson plans. Let the principal give the parent a copy.

CHT 2 “Leadership teams” some of whom are not certified campus appraisers are conducting walk-troughs’. Some teachers have had as many as four persons observing at one time. This is getting out of hand; other things are being delayed or not done due to the repeated observations by multiple persons.

CHT 3 Is the administration aware of the amount of paperwork and testing being done in the schools. Weekly benchmarks and common assessments have to be given and then the teacher is being required to disaggregate the data. Some teachers are staying until 6:00 to complete the data. The requirements are stopping any teaching to be done. This is excessive and the data acquired is useless. Is this for real? This is being required.

CHT 5 General guidelines on teacher required at night. Only for parent contact or for educational events requiring teacher participation, i.e. Math night, open house

CHT 6 There is no policy on using teachers as crossing guards.

CHT 7 Teachers training on Gradespeed receiving stipend should get the stipend if they have provided evidence of training on campus and ongoing support.

CHT 9 Principals are aware of the policy on public reprimand. If name of school can be given, then the issue will be dealt with on an individual basis. Is there a way to remind people of the policy? Not only in public, but reprimands in e-mails which reprimand persons for failure to comply with a request sent to every one on campus, and on walkie-talkies.

HEA 1 Board policy is two days after the end of the cycle to enter grades. There was some confusion this grading cycle, we were told one date and locked out two days early. “Gradespeed should not be dictating to the school”. Retakes are an issue with this.

HEA 3 Too many meetings, too much paperwork, and discipline are being demanded of every teacher. This includes doing IEP’s for students failing a benchmark.

The sheer volume of today’s agenda should be a call that things are going on that should not be happening. The problems are with the regional superintendents.

Adjourned at 6:36 P.M.