NEWS RELEASE

Natomas Teachers Association (NTA) February 27th, 2012 Contact: Kristen Rocha, NTA President at 916-879-1017 or Krochanta@gmail.com

Natomas Programs and Resources For Students Under Attack.

NATOMAS- The Natomas Teachers Association,

which represents the teachers in the district, has a serious disagreement with an The district has their portrayal, and here is ours: The Contract in question is a signed agreement which both NTA and the district have negotiated over decades. Every single word of the contract has been agreed to by both sides. However, Dr. Hanline stubbornly insists on negotiating items from our contract that are not open for negotiations for this year, according to our January 2011 agreement. Twice now PERB instructed Dr. Hanline and his lawyer to take time to negotiate properly with NTA; they have disregarded this advice. Instead he vilifies us at every opportunity for this document which simply contains the rights and responsibilities of teachers in the district, much of which the sitting school board approved. His letter contains numerous false statements: It is simply untrue that NTA refused to negotiate. We met and presented a proposal in November. In light of the expected positive adjustment in the districts ending balance for the next two years, NTA proposed a restoration of the salary and furlough days back to the contractual level that classrooms saw before the threat of state receivership was abated. That proposal greatly benefits the students and the classrooms by restoring the school year and class sizes. The district ignored it at the table, but they persist in accusing NTA of not negotiating in good faith. The fact is that they are in violation of many parts of our contract and have numerous active grievances and unfair labor practice charges against them (by both employee groups). It's obvious Dr. Hanline doesnt really care about negotiations, our contract, our legal right to collective bargaining, or the EERA laws in general. He has a history of doing to his other districts the same thing he is doing to us, and he is going to do pretty much whatever he wants to do, couching it all under the umbrella of structural financial efficiency. Call it what you wantWe call it disrespect of the teachers who serve these students and the community in which they live. The district is currently solvent with a 27% reserve, 3 years of ongoing NTA concessions contributed to this. Our 2 previous superintendents Dr. Davie and Dr. Plough introduced many efficiencies and started to make improvements that reached into the classrooms The recent School services report made many recommendations regarding efficiencies and the school board and Dr. Hanline have ignored their recommendation for implementing them. There is no need to

break contractual language using false claims of seeking "efficiency" at this point. This is simply another blatant bullying tactic for which Dr. Hanline is well known. As another conflict, Dr. Hanline has requested a second pay increase for administrators since August, which the school board will likely approve. That will be in addition to approval of more than $3,000,000, that is $3 Million, more in expenditures than were originally budgeted for this year. This just after our near death experience of State Receivership for the district and community members. In the midst of all of his wrangling in the media and his blame game regarding district staff, our students continue to be the victims. Their needs go unmet and we fail to attract new students to our public schools. Teachers are still waiting to see any of the $3 million additional expenses diverted to tangible materials for the students. We are NOT asking for pay raises...we are asking for attention and resources to be focused on the classroom, and away from consultants and new administrative positions in the district office. Additionally, in a separate media release, the superintendent has misrepresented the associations position on class sizes. The statement that our association requested an increase in class sizes for this school year is simply untrue, Rocha said. We did not negotiate to increase class sizes. The district has always had the power to put as many kids in our classes as they want to that has not changed. In fact, NTA agreed to a waiver of compensation for excess class sizes for this school year in an effort to work collaboratively with the district to mitigate the district's financial crisis. Negotiations belong at the bargaining table, Rocha said, But if the district is going to put out information to the public it needs to at least be correct. The Natomas Teachers Association is affiliated with the 325,000-member CTA and the 3.2 million-member National Education Association.