Bow, NH – June 9, 2017 

Slowly, ever slowly, the 2017 legislative session crawls towards its June 22 conclusion.  Yesterday, the House and Senate both met in session, though for the House, it was certainly the shortest meeting of 2017, not even lasting one hour.  The primary, in fact the only order of business, was to consider reports from the Senate.  These are when the Senate has amended a bill that originated in and passed the House, and now it gets sent back to the House for further consideration.  The choices are simple.  First, the House can concur/accept the Senate’s amendment, meaning the bill is now passed and sent to the governor.  The second choice is to simply non-concur/reject the Senate’s amendment and thereby kill the bill.  The third option is to request a Committee of Conference, wherein the House and Senate each appoint conferees who meet and try to reach agreement on the bill.  All Committees of Conference must finish their work by June 15, and then the House and Senate will vote on June 22 to accept or reject those Conference reports where agreement was reached.  And that, folks, should be the end of the session, until the legislative process starts to wind up again in September.  

This is not the time to get discouraged about our profession.
It’s time to organize.

Educators at Ohio College Preparatory School join union colleagues at charters across the country as movement to win resources for kids grows

May 2017     President’s Message 

Page 1         Page 2

RHEA would like to congratulate the following members on their upcoming retirement. Thank you for your hard work and dedication to Rush-Henrietta students!

• Nancy Beikirch
• Patricia Burns-Skomsky
• Caroline Harrington
• Colleen McCarthy-White
• Mary Oakes
• Sue Sanbury
• Carol Stevenson
• Mary Laio
• Rich Thompson

Colleagues,  

 1) Calendar Update - On Friday, May 26^th at 2 p.m. the NPS provided us with a draft of SY17/18 Calendar.  NTU President John M. Abeigon and the NTU Negotiations Team had numerous concerns about the calendar.   We shared those concerns on Tuesday morning in a meeting with NPS senior staff.  

Bow, NH – June 2, 2017 

Thursday, June 1, was a gorgeous day, easily the best weather we have had here in NH for some time.  Clear skies by afternoon, warming temperatures, and no rain!  In Representatives Hall in the NH State House, however, it proved to be a much drearier and depressing day, although not terribly surprising.  On the final day to act on Senate bills, the Republican majority flexed their muscle and demonstrated anew that elections matter.  Remember this, when your friends and co-workers tell you next year they are not bothering to vote because “it just doesn’t matter.”  It does, and yesterday’s votes in the House prove it.

This will be a very brief bulletin since neither the Senate or House were in session this past week.  Having said that, there was activity.

The Senate has now crafted and released its proposed State budget for the 2017-19 biennium.  In an effort to win over some of the extreme right-wing Republicans whose votes scuttled the House version of the budget, Senate Republicans on the Finance Committee adopted very conservative revenue estimates as a means of justifying leaving many programs and initiatives unfunded or underfunded.  Full funding of all-day kindergarten has been removed from the budget, and funding for battling the opioid crisis remains inadequate.  Yet despite the supposed financial stringencies, the majority in the Senate have found monies to pay for a spokesperson for the Dept. of Education at an annual $83,500 salary (to speak at the behest of Commissioner Edelblut) and also to increase the funding for charter schools (as opposed to the traditional public schools which the vast majority of NH students attend). 

Council of Baptist Pastors President Rev. Dee Dee Coleman and DFT President Ivy Bailey celebrated Teachers Appreciation Day during a special service held at Russell Street Baptist Church on May 30. 

Here are our income/expenses for 2016:

Expenses: http://cccft.wa.aft.org/sites/default/files/cccft_2016_tax_info1.pdf

Income:http://cccft.wa.aft.org/sites/default/files/cccft_2016_tax_info2.pdf