I attended the BESE meeting today. As you may have heard, the unruly crowd led to the meeting being adjourned before public comment and discussion of the mask mandate. 

Many have requested that we take the pulse again on the issue of masks now that the second week of school is almost complete. Even if you have taken it before, please take this second survey. There is some new content. As your representative, I need to know where you stand. 

Some take issue with the request for school email addresses. We have to be sure that only employees are taking the survey. Your individual results will not

This employee survey is designed to evaluate the STPSB workforce's reaction to the raise reflected in the first paycheck of the new school year. This is an anonymous survey due to the sensitive nature of the content. Please do not complete this survey during work hours as stated in the Employee Handbook.

In December 2020, the Federation and the School Board came to terms on a collective bargaining agreement. During the first year, teachers were paid $4000 in stipends with no permanent raise and school employees were paid $3700 in stipends.

For this year, teachers received two step raises from

Today the BESE board met to hear an update on the revision of the Social Studies standards and the LEAP scores. Two speakers provided presentations to accompany their updates, but these weren't visible in the live video.

Social Studies standards:

• Since this was an update, there wasn’t much presented on the individual standards themselves; however it was still very informative.
• The standards are being revamped, but this does not include the curriculum itself. It is up to each individual school district to purchase curriculum that is relevant to their students.
• The current standards were last

In order to help our members add value to their union membership, it is a goal of our administration to negotiate local benefits for those who pay dues. The previous Executive Council voted to begin a partnership with two local realtors backed by Coldwell Banker. The idea was to offer real estate workshops to our members as an added benefit. Unfortunately, COVID sidelined that project.

Over the summer, Stephen McCarthy and Judi Camhout, the realtors, approached the new administration about implementation of the program. They were now prepared to deliver workshops on two different pathways to

Several people have expressed concern about this letter from the STPSB to BESE regarding the mask mandate. Here are a few things to consider:

[TL;DR—The STPSB does not have the power to lift the mask mandate. It would take a court ruling for BESE to overrule the governor. In my view, that is unlikely.]

1. On Thursday, June 10, the STPSB voted to adopt a voluntary mask policy for the 2021-2022 school year with 11 Yeas, 0 Nays, and 1 abstaining.

2. On July 28, the union put out an online survey after the district released its back-to-school COVID protocols. Of the 258 employees who took the survey