We Did It!

​Dear Members:
 
Well, WE did it! Thanks to all of you for taking action and making your voices heard on behalf of the students you work for and with each and every day. Our collective hard work led to the OVERWHELMING passage of legislation that protects students, fixes 27-year-old broken charter laws, guarantees educators paid parental leave and much more. Give yourselves a round of applause!  👏👏  Gov. Newsom has until Oct. 13 to act on the bills that cleared the legislature and are now on his desk.

Bills We PASSED ✅
 
Charter Bills
AB 1505 allows local school boards to consider the fiscal impact of charter petitions, ensures every student has a credentialed teacher in the classroom, and holds all taxpayer-funded charter schools to the same high standards as public schools. AB 1505 was written by Assembly Member (and Long Beach high school educator) Patrick O’Donnell.
AB 1507 requires charter schools to operate within the boundaries of the district that approved it. This was REALLY important.
 
Parental Leave
CTA-priority bill AB 500 by Assembly Member Lorena Gonzalez requires K-14 districts to provide certificated and classified employees paid leave for a length to be determined between the employee and their doctor for a minimum of six weeks for pregnancy, miscarriage, childbirth and recovery.  That’s in addition to using your sick leave or unpaid leave.
 
A bill we DEFEATED ❌
AB 1078 (Weber): Extends the probationary period for certificated educators to 3 years. Weber is a Democrat and a college professor in San Diego.  At one time, she proposed a FIVE-year probationary period for new teachers which CTA fought and defeated like this one.
 
Need your help on this one.
After midnight, the Assembly passed Senator Anthony Portantino’s school start time bill, SB 328 , which CTA opposes. SB 328 has elementary starting some time before 830am and high school starting some time after 830am.  There is plenty of research that shows elementary kids learn better earlier in the day.  The same research shows that high school students learn better later in the day. However, SB 328 is a bad bill because not all school districts are equal and would place financial and athletic program impacts on individual school districts.  CTA supports each school district deciding what is best for their students.  Send Gov. Newsom an email today and urge him to veto SB 328 and ask him to sign these other bills that we support.