Post by coachdwayne on Sept 23, 2014 7:36:37 GMT -5
The CTA School Psychology Family met Friday at Liberty Middle one hour before the regular staff meeting. We held elections and presented updates from the meetings that we have held with our adminstrators, the Evaluation Dept., HCTA, and the Performance Pay Office. Those meeting notes and updates are attached. CUsersrenakedDesktopSchool Psychology CTA ....docx (18.93 KB)
School Psychology CTA Membership Meeting: 9/19/2014
Welcome – Dwayne Renaker
News from HCTA - Kevin Moran
• Get out and vote. Less than 16% of people usually vote in the “non-presidential” elections. If we all vote, we (FEA Members) can swing the election. We need folks in Tallahassee who will work toward a pro-education agenda.
• Negotiations are underway, but very slowly. School Psychology salary schedules are still on the table. We have requested the following:
1. Two level increase (from 18 to 20)
2. Stipend/bonus for those with additional credentials such as Licensure, NCSP, and BCBA.
3. To have staff switched to “years of effective service” instead of “levels” to determine your pay rate.
Elections - Claudia Long
• Congratulations to Jennifer Berger. She will be the official CTA Steering Rep.
• All others retained their positions: Dwayne Renaker = Sr. Rep, Claudia Long = Co-Rep, Annette Hicks = Alt. Rep, and Marcia Pita = Alt. Rep.
Message Board - Hal Silverman
• Hal has created a wonderful communication tool for us. This message board is not affiliated with the district. We can use this forum to freely share ideas and help each other in a variety of ways.
• Go to: www.hcsp.boards.net and check it out.
Updates from Meetings w/ Anne - Claudia Long
• Claudia updated staff on our most recent meeting with administration. One of the biggest issues was related to covering at schools where there is no school psychologist assigned. The bottom line is that we are all “district” employees. If you have difficulties helping out due to your own case load then please contact the SRA for your area.
Updates on Performance Pay Issues - Dwayne Renaker
• This was not discussed at the meeting due to a lack of time, but here is what we learned from Dwayne’s meeting with Tracy S.
1. Performance Pay for Sch. Psy for this year will no longer be done by ranking and giving us a %. This year, those who achieve a level 4 will get the $2000 and those who earn a level 5 will get the $3000 just like teachers. We consider this to be an improvement over the ranking system because this gives us a guaranteed amount, and we no longer have to outscore our peers to get a high enough ranking to earn the bonus. The bonus is based on how we as individuals fall out on the scale.
2. For those us who are “non-VAM” and have been told that you may not get performance pay next year, we are working on that. I spoke to Jean Clements, the CTA President, and she basically said that this declaration was “B.S.” and that we would deal with this. As a back-up plan, Dwayne also met with Anne and Holly Saia to discuss the possibility of some other form of compensation for these staff members if they are not being considered for performance pay.
Revised Rubric - Why not to sweat it? - Dwayne Renaker & Brandy Riviere
• As you may have guessed, we were not as involved in this process as it was described in the staff meeting. Apparently, the district’s evaluation office started working on the changes last Spring and over the summer. Dwayne was not notified of this process until August. Brandy, Claudia, Dwayne, and Kevin Moran from CTA met with the Evaluation staff twice to discuss/debate the Rubric and the process.
• We offered several recommendations and presented our own proposal. Some of our ideas were accepted, but many were not. OUR focus and approach to this process was to make sure that the school psychology staff could survive this year without any damage, and then we made great efforts to move this process further in a more collaborative way from here on out. In our opinion, we accomplished both. In fact, we have already scheduled a meeting with the evaluation department for this coming March. We will no longer wait to be invited to meetings in August when the revision process apparently starts in April.
• While we are skeptical about the utility of the current rubric to determine the effectiveness of a PSCYHOLOGIST, we think that staff should be able to get through it by following these strategies:
1. Schedule your “Observations” around a meeting or something like that where you can be observed interacting, collaborating, and processing data.
Don’t let either the peer or an administrator insist on a time that will not work for your advantage.
Please call us if you have any difficulties scheduling a good time for the observation.
2. Remember that 1/3 of your evaluation is in Domain 4 which is not part of your observation.
3. Domain 1 is based on what you write up in your pre-observation form. Take some time with that form, and you should do well on Domain 1.
4. Domain 2 is what the observer should see while you are engaged in an activity related to Domain 3. Domains 2 and 3 are the “do and show” domains.
5. The Peers only rate Domains, 1, 2, 3, and 4a.
6. The Principal and the SRA will rate you on everything, but 4b – 4e are not part of the observation.
7. Keep track of what you like about this process and what you don’t like. We will present your ideas when we meet with the Evaluation Office in March.
We will meet again one hour before the next staff meeting.