Ipswich Educators Association

Hello IEA!

I hope you're all doing well.

As spring approaches we naturally find ourselves looking toward next school year. Though attempts are made to avoid unnecessarily upsetting the apple cart, we know this time of year inevitably brings change. In the coming months we'll celebrate retirements, congratulate shifts made in pursuit of professional growth, and say goodbye to staff moving on to new adventures elsewhere. This season of change can be anxiety provoking for some so please take extra care to be kind and respectful of privacy.

-Alicia

You should have received an email Sunday afternoon 4/12 with the subject line "Vote Now: Ipswich Educators Association - 26/27 EBoard & 27/28 Calendar". Voting will be open until Wednesday morning at 8:00am.

The calendar options include a before Labor Day start and after Labor Day start.

All 3 contracts state: "The school calendar shall be determined by the School Committee. However, before determining the school calendar the School Committee will advise and consult with the Association upon request, but the final decision will be solely that of the School Committee."

Once we vote on the contract options, the School Committee will be informed of our results and will discuss/vote on the District Calendar for 27/28.

The Tiger Tour is an opportunity for town officials to visit our schools and see it all in action! In previous years, we've opened Tiger Tours to the three town boards (Select Board, Finance Committee, and School Committee) around budget season. This time, our Tiger Tour visits will be focused on the School Committee. All 7 members of the School Committee will be invited to spend time at the four schools at some point on one of the three days the building is open for tours. All SC members have a current CORI on file.

Tiger Tours will occur May 4th through 8th:

High School - Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

Middle School - Monday, Thursday, Friday

Doyon - Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

Winthrop - Monday, Tuesday, Thursday

Some of you have respond to my last email and offered to show the guests around. I could really use more people to help, especially from the Middle School and Doyon! Please reach out (ieapresident.email@gmail.com) if you're able to help.

Tiger Tour FAQ:

• What do the guides do?
  Tiger Tour guides are there to make sure no one gets lost, answer questions, and point out anything notable (I'll send you some suggestions ahead of time). Prior to their visit I'll ask the SC members if there's anything in particular they'd like to have pointed out and I will give the tour guides that information ahead of time as well.
• Will they get to go every where?
  The week of Tiger Tours we'll put a tiger print out in your mailbox. If your space is open for a Tiger Tour visit please hang the tiger on/near your door. The tiger will signal the tour guide that your room is an option to visit. Your tiger signal can come and go throughout the day based on what works best for you and your students. If it is not a good time for a visitor for whatever reason (i.e. test, student distractibility, etc) then that is perfectly fine!
• How long could I expect them to be in my classroom?
  This will be thought of similar to a 'walk through' so SC members will not be in a classroom for more than 10 minutes.

As many of you are aware, there has been an increase in situations involving students using material available on staff members' social media. Students have taken images from staff social media pages and used AI to create new fake images and videos, in some cases they have created entirely new fake accounts. Sadly, school policy and procedures have not kept up with this growing concern and possible threat to our professional reputations.

On March 31, I attended a School Committee Policy Subcommittee meeting and addressed the lack of policy addressing student harassment of teachers, AI targeting, and social media impersonation. I requested that the policy subcommittee begin working on policy as soon as possible to address these growing concerns and protect all staff. As I told them, creating policy will also allow school procedures around these issues to improve because it will advise administrators how to proceed and allow them to fall back on policy. I followed up my comments of concern with an email providing examples of situations that have occurred in Ipswich or other towns that new policy must cover.

I ended my statement to the Policy Subcommittee with the expectation that the IEA would hear about progress toward the draft of a new policy at the scheduled 4/28 Mutual Concerns Committee meeting. I was very pleased to see that they've had an even faster response and responded to the email I sent with examples by highlighting the steps they had already taken: "After you signed off of our Policy meeting, we discussed how to move this concern forward under "New Business." The steps were for Dr. Blake to follow up with the Tech Department and legal counsel, with time to review at Mutual Concerns, and then advance the conversation/draft policy to the School Committee."

I will continue to keep you updated as this process unfolds and these policies develop.

What can you do?

Please check all of your social media profiles and ensure they are set to private and are unsearchable if at all possible. Even though information taken from your social media and manipulated with AI would not be your fault, it still has the potential to create a nexus that could lead to an investigation. The best way to avoid this is to keep your social media set to private. If you find yourself in one of these compromising circumstances, even (especially) by no fault of your own please reach out to me.

Communication, follow through, and clear expectations regarding student discipline has been a major area of concern lately, especially at the secondary level. More and more frequently I'm hearing about situations where students are making accusations against staff members in response to staff attempting to uphold rules/expectations within the building. The more frequent these outbursts happen with seemingly little to no noticeable consequence, the more it's bound to run rampant - which seems to be what we're headed toward.

I have addressed this with Dr. Blake multiple times. I am bringing it to Mutual Concerns 4/28. At that meeting I will be presenting them with examples of specific situations where staff was upholding rules and expectations, a student responded back with great disrespect and/or accusations, and there was a lack of administrative follow through and/or support of the staff member. If you've experienced one of these situations in the last month, please email me with the details so I can include your examples at Mutual Concerns (ieapresident.email@gmail.com). It is crucial for School Committee to see how enforcing school rules has become a risky situation for staff members due to the pattern of baseless student accusations and lack of administrative action and/or communication.

Years ago, when RetirementPlus was first introduced the enrollment process was very confusing. Some educators were led to believe they were automatically enrolled, others never received an enrollment form. This has had financial repercussions for those impacted. More information about this issue and RetirementPlus legislation can be found here.

Last June, I joined other union presidents in the state and signed a letter urging Senators to come up with a fair fix for RetirementPlus. In March, I joined other union presidents in the state and appealed to our Senator Bruce Tarr asking him to support a fair fix for RetirementPlus by way of two bills before the Senate Committee on Ways and Means. As of now the Bill has passed in the MA House but needs to be brought to the floor of the Senate.

What can you do? Write a handwritten letter and send it to your Senator(s). Find your state senator here. The main message of the letter should be to "move on Bill H4361 as soon as possible to allow teachers to buy into RetirementPlus".

Teacher representatives were added to the Wellness Committee in February just after they finished their "Road Show" gathering feedback from all school councils and FRIES groups. After three meetings of the Wellness Committee with strong teacher representatives, we're happy to report that a newly revised Wellness Policy will be proposed to the full School Committee for a vote very soon. Though not perfect, we feel this revision (if approved) will take the policy in a much more realistic direction.

Thank you so much to teacher representatives: Jen Grenier, Andrea Welch, Theresa Guillaume/Sarah Trotsky, and Hannah Weagle.

At the beginning of the year, at our Opening Day Meeting I urged membership to get involved on the various committees. One of those committees was a joint committee with the district regarding professional development as whole but especially with regards to PD Days. I'm sorry to say resurrecting that committee completely fell off my to do list this year as other, more time sensitive and/or time consuming things got added to the list. It's entirely on me, I dropped the ball on this committee this year. I'm sorry for that. However, the year's not over. Now that the March PD has happened we reflect and the planning turns toward October. This is as good a time as ever to get the committee together and I have taken steps to do just that.

April - Unit A Contract Date - NonPTS educator submit evidence of goals and standards 3 & 4 in the month of April

April 2 - School Committee Meeting 7pm

April 9 - IEA Eboard Meeting 3:30

April 15 - Unit A Contract Date - notify superintendent of desire for voluntary transfer for 26/27

April 16 - School Committee Meeting 7pm

April 17 - TWIG Grant Applications due

April 17 - Paine Grant Applications due

April 20-24 - School Vacation Week

April 30 - Unit A Contract Date - NonPTS 2nd announced observation by today

May - Unit A Contract Date - PTS unanounced observation done by end of May

May - Unit A Contract Date - PTS year 1 educator submit evidence in the month of May

May - Unit A Contract Date - PTS year 2 educator submit reflection on goals in month of May

May 15 - Unit A Contract Date - NonPTS summative evaluation report due (educator sign within 5 days)

May 25 - No School (Memorial Day)

School Committee Meetings can be seen live or recorded on icam's YouTube Channel and the files they look at during the meeting are available here.

The School Committee Policy Subcommittee works throughout the year to review policies to ensure they reflect the needs of Ipswich Public Schools and are in agreement with MASC guidelines. At each subcommittee meeting policies are updated, then changes are voted on by the School Committee and once that happens they are Ipswich School District Policy which we must abide by. The Policy Manual is updated in a somewhat timely fashion to include changes listed below.

Policy review and updates for March:

• Policies reviewed and kept as written
• JLC - Student Health Services and Requirements
• JLCA - Physical Examinations of Students
• JLCB - Immunization of Students
• JLCC - Communicable Diseases
• JLCD - Administering Medicines to Students
• JLD - School Counseling Program
• JQ - Student Fees, Fines, and Charges
• JRA - Student Records
• JRD - Student Photographs
• KA - School/Community Relations Goals
• KBA - School-Parent/Guardian Relations Goals
• KBBA - Non-Custodial Parents' Rights
• KCB - Community Involvement in Decision-Making
• KDB - Public's Right to Know
• KDCB - District Website and Social Media
  
• KDD - News Media Relations/News Releases
• KE - Public Complaints
• KF-R - Community Use of Facilities
• KCD was updated to clarify which gifts the superintendent can accept and which gifts need School Committee approval

Our website includes:

Contracts (current and past) 🔸 District Calendars

Payroll Calendars 🔸 Membership Rights Info

and so much more!

President: Alicia Thomas

Email: ieapresident.email@gmail.com
Website: https://ipswich.massteacher.org/