News

BESE Update: October 2022

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Tuesday’s committee meetings began with a public hearing to receive public recommendations regarding the Minimum Foundation Program (MFP), which is the funding formula for Louisiana public schools. As expected, advocates from the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents, the Louisiana School Boards Association, and the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools testified in favor of increasing funding in level one of the MFP – which is the part of the formula that gives school districts the greatest flexibility in how they can use the additional funding. The Louisiana Federation of Teachers (LFT) has continued to advocate for additional funding to be directed into level four of the MFP, which is the portion of the formula that funds teacher and school employee salaries. The only way to ensure that teachers and school employees receive a raise next year is for additional funding to go into level four. MORE

Tell BESE to Prioritize Raises for Teachers & School Employees

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On Tuesday, October 11th, the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education will hear public recommendations regarding the Minimum Foundation Program (MFP) for next year (2023-2024). As we do each year, LFT will advocate for the largest raise possible for teachers and school employees.

Despite pay increases in recent years, Louisiana teachers and school employees remain below the Southern Regional Average and National Average for pay. In fact, recent state-wide pay raises have been canceled out by increases to insurance premiums from the Office of Group Benefits (OGB). This has

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After receiving emails from hundreds of LFT members, LDOE announced that they would give teachers until December 16^th to get all their information into the glitchy eSER system. Teachers are still required to get in all their IEPs by October 1^st, the only difference is that now you're allowed to submit them on paper, as long as you re-enter the information into the electronic system by December 16^th.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t help teachers who have already sunk hours into navigating a broken system and are still under enormous pressure to submit everything by the end of the week. LDOE’s

Show of Solidarity

We have been receiving a large number of reports about various issues, ranging from violence in the workplace, to the ongoing crisis in transportation, to the impact of shortages, micromanagement, workplace bullying, slow delivery of textbooks and other materials, SWE paper load, classroom behavior, and an overall lack of support. Please consider these two ways to get involved and to let your voice be heard.

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Louisiana's new electronic Special Education Reporting System (eSER) isn't working. It's the new platform that the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) implemented to track Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) for special education students. The rollout of this new electronic database has been riddled with bugs and defects that make it difficult, if not impossible for the special education teachers forced to use it.

The annual fall deadline to submit new and expiring IEPs is October 1st, but many special education teachers have not been able to input the data, despite spending hours

Building Representative Nominations and Elections

The St. Tammany Federation is currently taking nominations for building representatives. You have to be a member of the union in order to nominate representatives, and you can nominate yourself. Please click here to see the flyer with the information on how to participate. We also created a FAQ document with more information to accompany the flyer, and you can see that by clicking here.

Building Representatives and Voting Information

Union members can nominate up to 3 employees at their school to be a building representative. Nominations close on Monday, May 23. Voting will take place June 6-10. These forms can be found in our newly created Google Classroom for Federation members. Click here to see the advertisement flyer and class code. Click here to see some FAQ. Please email union@stfed.org with any questions.

Monday's (5/2/22) Membership Meeting!!

Attention All St. Tammany Federation Members:

As you probably know, we have been working hard on financial negotiations with the St. Tammany Parish School System for the past few months, and we are happy to announce that we expect the process to arrive at a tentative agreement tomorrow (4/29/22). Superintendent Jabbia would like to hold a special school board meeting on Tuesday (5/3/22) to present the final package to the Board for a vote. Our local union president, Brant Osborn, wants to allow our members to have a voice before the deal is presented at the special school board meeting

Financial Reopener Breakdown

Click here to find out more details about the 2022-2023 pay raise.