Newsroom
CFT leaders help launch Prop 55 campaign
Supporters of Proposition 55, including educators, elected officials, parents and other community representatives, held a press conference in front of Hamilton High School in Los Angeles on August 15, kicking off the local campaign for the ballot initiative that will protect schools and students from losing up to $4 billion per year.
Compton College accreditation: A decade later
By Joshua Pechthalt, CFT President
One of the principles of our democracy is the right to elect our representatives. In California, one of the most basic decisions we make is about our children’s education through the election of local school boards that govern both K-12 and community college districts. This may not receive the same fanfare as statewide or national elections, but in more than 1,000 K-12 and 70 community college districts, community residents make key educational decisions that matter to them.
Facing bullets and prisons, Mexican teachers stand up to education reforms
On Sunday, 19 June, demonstrators blocked a highway — a common form of protest in Mexico’s southern state of Oaxaca — after the federal government arrested leaders of the state’s teachers union. Heavily armed police then fired on teachers, students, parents and supporters. Nine people were killed, and many more were wounded.
CFT accepts award for pesticide reform work
Today, as CFT members joined with coalition partners in Sacramento to rally for protection from agricultural pesticides for students, the Californians for Pesticide Reform bestowed an award on the CFT for its local and statewide efforts to make schools near fields safer.
Job Corps advisors win back positions
On May 17, the National Labor Relations Board ordered the Sacramento Job Corps to return four more residential advisors to their jobs with full pay and benefits. The NLRB decision makes nine AFT Local 4986 members who have been reinstated and made whole more than 26 months after their initial terminations.
The NLRB also ruled that six residential coordinators were unlawfully removed from the bargaining unit, and adopted an administrative law judge’s finding that the employers are liable for the unfair labor practices.
AFT honors San Diego organizer, Lawndale Federation
Tina Solórzano Fletcher of the AFT Guild, which represents nearly 6,000 employees at San Diego and Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community Colleges, was honored with the Talking Union Award at the annual AFT Paraprofessional and School-Related Personnel conference in April. Fletcher is a member-organizer for AFT Local 1931.
This year, the local prioritized one-on-one contact with non-members, and from September 1 through May 31, signed up 506 new members.
How we made history at Classified Lobby Day: CFT champions bills for classified
April 20 was a historic day for us. We attended the Assembly Committee on Public Employees, Retirement and Social Security to speak in support of our sponsored death benefit equity bill, and we were there when the bill passed out of committee for the first time.
Raising the death benefit to parity with faculty has fallen short in nearly a dozen previous attempts. The increase contained in AB 1878 would provide survivors of classified staff more money for the funerals of their deceased loves ones by increasing the death benefit for classified employee members of CalPERS.
Right for the job: When classified and paras become teachers
CFT-sponsored AB 2122 helps staff transition to certificated status
Carlos Howe began working as a security officer for the Hawthorne School District in 2000, but he wanted more. After earning his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice administration, Howe joined the Santa Monica Police Department. It wasn’t a good fit.
“My hair was on fire everyday. I had recently married and was a brand new father, but it was dangerous and I was always gone, so I switched gears.”
Local Control Accountability Plans create new classified jobs
Engaging families helps close student achievement gap
The first time most parents or guardians of a Berkeley student meet Jocelyn Foreman is soon after bad news has knocked on their door. Be it a death in the family, an eviction notice, a pink slip, or any crisis that throws a household into chaos, she is there to help.
Foreman belongs to a five-person team of family engagement coordinators whose academic mission is to close the achievement gap by ensuring that students have the resources they need to succeed. First things, however, must come first.
Make Classified School Employee Week meaningful
By Joshua Pechthalt, CFT President
Schools can be amazing places. Institutions that focus on the education and nurturing of young people have a special place in our society. While the interaction of students with their teacher is obviously an essential part of the educational process, it really does take a community of people to make learning possible and schools successful.
CFT files amended lawsuit against accrediting commission
Broader in scope than the San Francisco City Attorney's
San Francisco, May 19, 2016—Today the CFT filed an amended complaint with Superior Court Judge Curtis Karnow against the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC).
The complaint, delayed for more than two years by ACCJC legal maneuvers, alleges a broad array of violations of federal laws and regulations, as well as California common law fair procedure, by the Commission. The plaintiffs, in addition to CFT, include several local community college faculty unions, a number of individual faculty members and a student.
Campaign kick-off for Prop 30 extension, now Proposition 55
On May 11, in front of Sacramento’s California Middle School, leaders and members of unions and community groups stood before a large group of reporters and announced that the coalition they belonged to had just turned in more than a million signatures to place the “California Children’s Education and Health Care Protection Act” (now Proposition 55) on the November state ballot.