You’ll find information on a number of high priority bills under consideration.

Knezek Offers Resolution Demanding Snyder Drop the Appeal and Return our 3 Percent

Sen. David Knezek (D-Dearborn Heights) introduced on March 29 SR 37, a resolution demanding Gov. Rick Snyder return the money taken illegally from school employees’ paychecks from 2010-12, the subject of a seven-year court battle led by AFT Michigan and the Michigan Education Association.

Karen Riggleman, a member of the Jefferson Federation of Teachers, was announced as the recipient of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers' Mother Jones Award at the LFT's annual Paraprofessional and School Related Personnel Conference, held April 1 at the Baton Rouge Crowne Plaza Hotel.

New Orleans paraprofessional Yovonda Curtis received a Louisiana Federation of Teachers PSRP Scholarship at the Federation's annual Paraprofessional and School Related Personnel Conference, held on April 1 at the Baton Rouge Crowne Plaza Hotel.
 

"I know some of the teachers are going to ask, why did he leave Detroit?” said Ivy Bailey, Detroit Federation of Teachers - DFT Local 231, president.

http://www.wxyz.com/news/region/detroit/dps-superintendent-candidate-under-fire-as-school-board-considers-him

April 3, 2017 — Three weeks after the UW-Madison Academic Staff Assembly overwhelmingly voted to adopt our resolution on fair pay for Faculty Assistants, the Faculty Senate voted overwhelmingly—in the presence of the chancellor and over the opposition of some members of the University Committee—to adopt a virtually identical resolution. With these two electrifying victories and previous endorsements by the ASM and TAA, the students, graduate employees, academic staff, and faculty of this university solidly and publicly support our campaign.

To all Current Members, we are moving all of our AFT members to a new dues payment system. Switch your dues payment to the new system TODAY!

Texas lawmakers are attempting to strip away your right to pay AFT membership dues via payroll deduction. We see this as an attempt to silence our voice on educational issues. Therefore, Fort Bend AFT is transitioning all of our members to a new dues payment system so we can retain our power and keep our collective voice. Moving our members to the new payment system will allow us to continue standing strong, united, and using our collective voice on issues that matter to public education employees.

We need each and every member to take 5 minutes to switch their dues payment to the new bank draft system ASAP.

Make the switch in one of 3 ways:

1.        Click here to use our secure online system.
2.        Call our office and our trained staff will take your information via phone:  281-240-1865
3.       Click here to download our membership application, fill it out & mail or fax it in

Colleagues,

1. Contract Update – We are hoping to finalize all contract documents in the next few days.  Our goal is to have everything out to the membership by the end of the week, including a specific calendar of events, and the terms of the tentative agreement for your review. 

In a final flurry of action, the NH Senate completed action on its bills this past week, setting the stage for the next round of activity at the State House.  One of the bills passed by the Senate was SB3, which is another in a long line of attempts at voter suppression.  With some newspapers continuing to give front-page coverage to claims of massive voter fraud in NH (even as the stories themselves admit there is no evidence to back such claims), NH Republicans voted to impose new restrictions upon individuals registering to vote.  Under this proposed leg

Click here to download the PDF.

Stop the effort to divert money from public schools to private schools, home schoolers and others.  We need to protect public education. SB 193 is a voucher bill under the guise of “Education Freedom Savings Accounts”.  A hearing before the House Education Committee has been scheduled for Tuesday, April 4^th at 10:00am at the Legislative Office Building, Room 207, 33 North State Street, Concord, NH. 

Please Support Public Education

Defeat SB 193

Stop School Vouchers

Stop the effort to divert money from public schools to private schools, home schoolers and others.  We need to protect public education. SB 193 is a voucher bill under the guise of “Education Freedom Savings Accounts”.  

Each school district receives $3,560 +/- for each student enrolled in K-12. This bill would divert 90% of that amount to an account for a child who attends any private school, charter school or for home-schooling expenses. Another 5% in administrative expenses can be diverted to the administration of the “scholarship account”.

This bill will cause a significant impact on local property taxpayers as money is diverted away from funding our public schools and into a system with little or no accountability.

A hearing before the House Education Committee has been scheduled for Tuesday, April 4^th at 10:00am at the Legislative Office Building, Room 207, 33 North State Street, Concord, NH.

Please attend the hearing and show your opposition. If you do not wish to testify, you can sign a card showing your opposition.

If you are unable to attend, you can email the full House Education Committee directly at HouseEducationCommittee@leg.state.nh.us.

For more resources on this issue, please visit our web site at:

http://nh.aft.org/2017-nh-state-house-news#

For breaking news, follow us on Facebook at AFT New Hampshire or Twitter  @AFTNewHampshire.