Saturday, April 17, 2010

DSEA Representative Assembly

The Delaware State Education Association held their Representative Assembly this weekend in Dover. More than 135 delegates from Locals throughout the state met to participate in the governance of the organization, as well as to receive and give input on timely education issues. Delegates are comprised of working educators such as teachers, para-professionals, food service workers, secretaries, custodians, nurses, and bus drivers.



An involved discussion of Race To The Top was built into Saturday's program. The organization is devoting a lot resources to position Delaware educators to make RTTT a positive experience; not just to survive under the program, but to thrive with RTTT.



Additionally, there were discussions about educator health care and the need to resist tiering of health benefits for the good of the profession. This issue refers to the idea of giving future educators a different level of benefits than current employees. The tiering of benefits makes the recruitment and retention of educators difficult, it damages morale, weakens the union, and diminishes the profession. Also, the organization reiterated our legislative priority of having a seat on the State Employees Benefit Committee, the governing body of the state employee health plan.


The delegates were informed that ideas are being put forward to change teacher tenure. Frustration was expressed about the myth of tenure among the public and some lawmakers. Tenure is not a guarantee of a teaching job for life. Some tenured teachers are terminated every year. Tenure simply provides due process in termination proceedings, nothing more. Educators, and for that matter all employees, should be terminated for just cause. Furthermore, if administrators are doing their jobs of evaluating teachers, then there is no need for a change in the tenure law.

Delegates returned to their homes late Saturday afternoon. By Monday, they will be sharing ideas with their colleagues.

1 comment:

  1. Delegates returned to their homes late Saturday afternoon. By Monday, they will be sharing ideas with their colleagues.

    Hopefully......

    ReplyDelete