Dear Friends and Colleagues-

It was a pleasant surprise to all of us present at the last School Board meeting on November 8, 2011 when members emerged from closed session and announced that the pay cut had been reduced from 2.5% to 1.5%.  This is welcome news to all of us! We are thankful to our School Board and Superintendent for doing this, unsolicited. We are also thankful that LSD finances have greatly improved from where they were a year ago. Asst. Superintendent Brian Johnson has already sent out information about how the restoration of 1% of your salary works. Still, I continue to get questions so here is how it works, LTA interpretation:

• Let’s say you are scheduled to make $60,000 a year on the regular pay scale (without any furlough days, no pay cut). 1% of that would be $600. You would get a check for that less taxes and other usual deductions, in December.

• The rest of the pay checks you will get for the rest of the year will be calculated as they are currently, barring any other cancellations of paycuts or furlough days.

People are asking if it is possible that the rest of the furlough days could be cancelled and more of the pay cut restored to us? We and the LSD are watching carefully to see how the State of California revenues are in December. If they are poor, then “trigger” language could trigger some additional days cut off the school year. If not, then what?

LTA is carefully monitoring the LSD budget and numbers. CTA staff person Jeff Good is utilizing CTA School Financial Analysis software on our behalf. Vice President Brian Guerrero has input the numbers from the various financial reports which LSD must issue, into an Excel spreadsheet. Their numbers agree almost to the dollar. We are happy to report that the district finances seem to be improving. To know if furlough days could be cancelled and more of our pay cut restored to us, we will have to wait until December though.

In my recent email about the QEIA snafu’s and possible remedies to mitigate any teacher consequences (lay-offs, RIf’s, etc), apparently a few veteran teachers took offense at the suggestion that an early retirement opportnity might be part of the solution, and that it took aim at them (us, since I am one). Dear veteran teachers – you are the ROCK of Lennox teaching, and valued, incredible members of all Lennox School faculties. I would never suggest that anyone should retire if they do not wish to, ahead of when they want to. You have earned the right to do as you please! As I go around the district, many veteran teachers have told me not completely positive things about new teaching strategies and lesson plans they must do. Some have mentioned that they would like to retire SOONER, if they could financially swing it. But not all say this. Whichever group you are in, you are entitled to teach as long as you want, as long as you can. But for those who have already begun or want to begin “Act 3”, (as a famous 60 + actress has recently called it in her book by the same name) and want to do something different, an “early retirement opportunity” cash incentive might be useful. A few years ago, when the district got $500,000 in additional federal funds, our school board used it to offer such an opportunity, at $50,000 per possible retiree. Instead of getting only 10 teachers, 13 took it! It was very popular and those teachers who wanted to retire were celebrating, big time! Please know that you have earned the right to teach for however long you want, and no offense was intended in any way.

Stay tuned for more news!

Thanks!