Planning Time: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

• The Good – Planning time is in law.

§434.  Planning time and lunch periods for teachers; required

A.(1)  The State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education shall adopt necessary rules and regulations requiring, beginning with the 2000-2001 school year, each city and parish school board to provide a minimum of forty-five minutes daily planning time, or its weekly equivalent, and a minimum of thirty minutes for lunch each day which shall be duty-free for every teacher actively engaged in the instruction and supervision of students in the public schools.  Implementation of planning time and lunch periods as required in this Section for teachers shall not result in a lengthened school day.

(2)  The provisions of this Subsection shall be subject to the availability of state funds for this purpose.**

B.  Nothing in this Section shall be construed to affect the provisions of R.S. 17:154.1 relative to required instructional time in the school day.

C.  This Section shall not apply to a city or parish school board operating under the terms of a collective bargaining agreement applicable to teachers employed by the board.

**The MFP is the only funding source from the state and it is considered fully funded.

• The Bad – There is no definition for planning.  Other states i.e. Texas, Arkansas, have definitions limiting what can and cannot be required during planning time.  This is not a power grab from principals. This is to address statewide issues in interpretation of planning time.

 

• The Ugly – In order to remedy the lack of definition in Louisiana Code, we asked the House Education to pass a resolution requiring The State Board of Education to provide a definition.

 

• The Good – Representative Barbara Norton supported educators by sponsoring the resolution.

 

• The Bad – The resolution failed by 2 votes.

 

• The Ugly – Although two of our local legislators, Thompson and Reynolds supported teachers voting yes,  two of our local legislators, Burns and Carmody voted against it.

• The Good, the really Good! – During his testimony, State Superintendent John White stated that planning is in law and not providing it is a violation of law. (video)

In speaking with Superintendent White, we shared that we were poised to go to court regarding planning time violations. He indicated that we should.  We expressed that we would call him as an expert witness.

 

Where we stand – please review the law as provided above.  Any violation of any portion of this law should be immediately reported.  We have worked this through the grievance process, therefore, any further violations on any aspect of this law, we go to court.

URGENT teleconference about our future

Issues that could change our future will be discussed on a Tele-townhall conferenceMonday, April 28 at 5:30 P.M.

LFT President Steve Monaghan and Legislative Director Mary-Patricia Wray will be there to discuss some bills that could silence the voices of teachers and school employees, and other bills that will have a dramatic effect on retiree income.

Please call (855)-756-7520 Ext.24667# at 5:30 P.M. Monday to learn more and to take action!

Tele-townhall topics:

Your payroll choice will be on the line next Wednesday!

Three bills are expected to be heard by the House Labor and Industrial Relations Committee on April 30. In an effort to silence the Louisiana Federation of Teachers and other public sector unions, these bills will strike at our source of funding.

HB 172 by Rep. Kirk Talbot (R-River Ridge), HB 451 by Rep. Alan Seabaugh (R-Shreveport) and HB 1059, also by Rep. Talbot would prohibit public sector unions from collecting member dues through payroll deduction. They are an effort to silence any voice of opposition.

The right of union members to pay their dues through payroll deduction is neither a special privilege nor a burden on taxpayers. It is a service that is available to credit unions, insurance companies and other recognized vendors, as well as unions.

Freedom of speech and freedom of association are crucial to a representative form of government. Prohibiting the payroll deduction of union dues would stifle those freedoms and ultimately weaken our democracy.

Bills would help, hurt retiree income

Bills are under consideration that would provide much-needed Cost of Living Adjustments for retired public servants, including teachers and school employees.

Another would make it very difficult to grant COLAs in the future.

One package of bills is aimed at funding COLAs from the experience accounts of retirement systems for teachers, school employees, state employees and state police. The increases amount to a bit less than $30 per month for each retiree.

The bills, SB 16, SB 18, SB 19 and SB 21, are all authored by the chair of the Senate Retirement Committee, Sen. Elbert Guillory (R-Opelousas). Because of the way Sen. Guillory linked the fates of the four bills, all of them must pass in order for any of the retirees to get a COLA.

The other bill, HB 1225 by Rep. Joel Robideaux (R-Lafayette) would make it difficult, if not impossible, for the four major state retirement systems to provide beneficiaries with cost-of-living increases in the future.

Learn more about these important issues, and what YOU can do, at the LFT Tele-townhall on Monday afternoon at 5:30 P.M. Just call (855)-756-7520 Ext.24667# at 5:30 P.M. Monday to participate.