The document summarizes updates from two committees - the negotiations committee and the evaluation committee. The negotiations committee has met with the Board five times for over 4 hours each to discuss issues, which takes time to mutually agree upon. Specifics are still being determined. The evaluation committee formed to comply with new state requirements. It is comprised of administrators and union members working to add a "Needs Improvement" rating to their evaluation system. The committee is hopeful the new rubric will provide administrators an objective tool for evaluations.

1. WOODLAND UNITED
V O L U M E 1 0 I S S U E 3 A P R I L 2 0 1 2
Negotiations Update
INSIDE Negotiations have begun and the team has met with the
Board team five times for about 4.5 hours each time. We
T HI S have also met as a team four times for approximately 3 hours
to review materials, prepare for the upcoming meeting with
I S S UE : the Board, and to strategize. Negotiations, by their nature,
are a process that take time. Issues discussed must be
mutually agreed upon by both parties. As a result, the specifics continually
change. This is especially true on issues with a financial component. For this
reason sharing information prematurely could risk communicating something that
Negotiations 1 may not be part of the final package that is presented for ratification. The team
Update continues to get guidance from Matt Beverly, our field service director from
LCFT. Matt continues to work with the Union President to find ways to provide
the members with appropriate and helpful information. Keep in mind, the
negotiations team must remain respectful to the negotiation ground rules in regards
to confidentiality as agreed upon by the Union and Board of Education.
FMLA 1
Evaluation
Committee
2
Family Medical Leave of Absence (FMLA)
This option for an unpaid leave of absence, which is also a
federal law, is available for staff members who are
experiencing ongoing medical problems. FMLA is also
available for a staff member’s immediate family, which
includes the staff member’s spouse, son(s), daughter(s) or
parent(s). This option for unpaid leave can be used with sick
days and cannot exceed 60 workdays in a single school year,
whether the days are used consecutively, in chunks, or
intermittently. Be aware these criterions are the very basic
components of the complicated law. The Human Resource (HR) department can
provide assistance to staff members who feel they need to utilize this option for
unpaid leave.

2. VOLUME 10 ISSUE 3 PAGE 2
Evaluation Committee
An evaluation committee has been formed in order to help the district comply with
Senate Bill 7’s requirement for all school districts to have 4 evaluation rating cate-
gories by September 2012. The committee is comprised of administration and un-
ion members. The administrators include Steve Thomas – Curriculum and Instruc-
tion, Donna VandenBrook – Special Education, Dave Brown – Elementary West
principal, Stacy Anderson – Primary principal, Kim Burke – HR, Vicki Marble –
Assistant Principal at Middle School, and Deb Pelletteire – Assistant Principal at
Intermediate. The Union members include Stacy Book and Kate Jones from Pri-
“The mary, Allison Semmerling and Krystyna Jakielski from Elementary East, Elissa
Barnabee and Darlene Lipczynski from Elementary West, Wayne Howard and
committee is
Elizabeth Burgess from Intermediate, Rich Haines and Joanna Wolk from Middle,
hopeful the along with the Union Vice-President for certified staff and Union President. The
task of the committee is to add the fourth rating, “Needs Improvement”, to the dis-
rubric provides trict’s existing 3 categories: “Excellent”, “Satisfactory”, and “Unsatisfactory”.
These ratings already align with the state’s requirement except for “Satisfactory”,
the which will have to be renamed “Proficient”. The committee broke into 5 sub-
groups. Each subgroup worked on one of the 5 elements of our current evaluation
administration
model, which happens to be based on the Charlotte Danielson Model. The 5 ele-
with a good ments are active engagement in the learning process, learner-centered instruction,
improved academic performance of all students, student motivation and behavior,
tool that and professional growth and responsibilities. Each subgroup is adding the “Needs
Improvement” descriptors to each element while tweaking the other rating’s de-
allows them to scriptors in order to make sure the 4 ratings properly align. The subgroups have
finished their work and now the committee has regrouped to review the work of the
remain subgroups and make sure the committee is in agreement with the additions and
objective in changes. The committee is also considering switching out an element and replacing
it with one included in the Charlotte Danielson model that would better reflect the
their specialists’ roles and curriculum. The committee is also looking at the possibility,
which is still under discussion, of adopting Charlotte Danielson’s rubric as the state
evaluations.” has now decided it will be a critical component of the administration’s prequalifica-
tion evaluation training. The committee will also address how to use these ratings
in order to decide what constitutes an Excellent Teacher, Proficient Teacher, Needs
Improvement Teacher and an Unsatisfactory Teacher for one’s summative rating.
The new rubric will be presented to the staff once it is finalized. The committee is
hopeful the rubric provides the administration with a good tool that allows them to
remain objective in their evaluations. The new evaluation training, which is re-
quired of all administrators and available to interested staff members, will be ap-
proved by the state.
GO TO THE IFT WEBSITE TO GET THE LATEST UPDATES ON
GOVERNOR QUINN’S PROPOSED PENSION REFORM
WWW.IFT-AFT.ORG