MHFT Newsletter -- October 7, 2014

Navigator & Voices Charter Schools County Appeal October 15, 2014

Voices College-Bound Language Academy and Navigator Schools have both filed an appeal for the denial of their petitions to open charter schools in the fall of 2015. The public hearing will be held on October 15, 2014 and the decision will be given at the November 5, 2014 county board meeting. Please save both of those dates and plan to attend in support of our students and public education.

It will be imperative to have all sites represented by our families and educators to show the support for our students and neighborhood schools. Please contact your building rep or Theresa Sage at tsmhft@garlic.com to find out how you can help with this effort.

It will take a unified effort for all of us to send a clear message to the county school board that they should support the local decision to deny these charter companies. Both the denial of the charters this year, as well as last year, are a vote for our students and neighborhood schools. It has been critical to have school board members that are supportive of public education as opposed to outside charter management companies.

Health Care Open Enrollment Deadline October 10, 2014

All teachers must sign a new Benefit Statement/Enrollment Form for health care coverage for 2015 (effective January 1).  Jim Kwon is visiting sites and collecting this documentation. Note that your new premiums will be effective in your December paycheck for a January start date. 

Please review all medical plan options online at:  http://www.calpers.ca.gov/

            Select: Members–>Active Member–> School Employee–> Health Benefits–> 2015 Health Plan Information –>Health Plan –>Search by Zip Code

Explore this website, enter personal choices for coverage, and even view a side-by-side comparison in order to choose the best medical plan for you and your family!

Your eligibility Zip Code is used to determine the health plans you are eligible to enroll in and the rate for your premiums. Premiums are different for different zip codes. If you are an active employee, you may establish eligibility with either your residential or current work address zip code, so be sure to enter your home zip AND your work zip (95037) to select the most affordable option for you.

Site Neighborhood Precinct Walking

In order to continue to spread the word about the MHFT endorsed school board candidates, please join us for precinct walking in your school site’s neighborhood. You will be given a list of likely voters and their addresses, which are located by your school site.  Each site will be responsible for covering the targeted area.

Volunteers will have a brief handout to use for talking points to engage our community in this very important election. Minimally, walkers will have door hangers that can be left on the front doors of the provided addresses. Please return completed lists to your building reps.

We will also be precinct walking on Saturday, October 25. Bring a friend and join the cause!

In case you missed this important article in our last edition:

Charter School Financing

By Gemma Abels, Vice President – Morgan Hill Federation of Teachers

The California Charter Schools Association’s (CCSA)  mission is  to increase the number of “highly autonomous and accountable schools of choice.”  For only $5.00 per student, charter schools receive assistance in charter school development, petitioning, and renewal.  This number seems small until you consider the 500,000 students enrolled in charter schools. One of CCSA’s main legislative goals is to preserve the “autonomy” of charter schools by limiting the oversight local school boards have over charter schools.

The CCSA describes local school boards as the “bureaucracy” charter schools must get around.  In a key note speech for the 2014 CCSA conference, Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, has said that he would do away with this “bureaucracy” all together because the problem with the public school system is that they “don’t get to control their boards” because they are elected and elections are expensive. Hastings has contributed over $600,000 this year to CCSA Advocates for these expensive elections, and he is joined by Carrie Walton Penner ($370,000) and Doris Fisher of the GAP Foundation ($300,000).

The Morgan Hill Unified School District has received a lot of attention from charter schools in the past year.  Petitions by Rocketship Education and Navigator Schools were denied by the MHUSD School Board.  This year VOICES College-Bound Prep and Navigator Schools were denied.  While Rocketship withdrew their appeal, Santa Clara County School Board, an appellate body, upheld the MHUSD school board’s denial of Navigator Schools.  VOICES and Navigator will almost certainly appeal MHUSD’s denial.  All three of these charter schools are California Charter School Association members and not surprisingly CCSA has endorsed candidates in both jurisdictions.  

The Morgan Hill Unified School District will have approximately $8,200 from the state of California to spend on each student this year.  This is actually an increase in funding.  So it seems obscene that CCSA Advocates has spent over $16,000 dollars in less than two weeks to elect Julia Hover-Smoot and Darcie Green to the Santa Clara County School Board.  In two weeks, they have spent over $8,000 to support four candidates for the MHUSD school board.  CCSA advocates for charter school students to have the same per pupil spending as all public school students.  CCSA should be advocating and practicing a policy that school board candidates (and all candidates) do not spend more in an election than California is willing to spend on our students in an entire school year.

Important Dates