ACE Association of College Educators West Valley Mission Community College District Office at West Valley 741-4631 or ace@wvmccd.cc.ca.us Web Site http://wvmccd.cc.ca.us/wvmccd/ace

APPROVED MINUTES

Thursday, September 6th, 2007

West Valley College BU8 at 2:30 pm

I. MEMBERS PRESENT

Present	Member	Present	Member
x	Roberta Berlani, WVC, FT Rep, Vice President	x	Susanna Pancella, MC, FT Rep, Secretary
x	Randy Castello, WVC, Chief Negotiator, Budget Analyst	x	Rod Pavao, MC, FT Rep, Grievance/FSA Specialist
x	Donna Frankel, AF Rep At-Large		Mel Pritchard, WV, FT Rep
x	Ed Kleppinger, MC, FT Rep, President	x	Ron Smebye, MC, FT Rep
x	Rob Leadbeater, MC, AF Rep	x	Ashley Sousa, WVC, FT Rep
x	Louise Lodato, MC, AF Negotiator	x	Doug Temkin, WVC, Newsletter Editor
x	Ellen McAlister, MC, Negotiator	x	Marge Throndson, WVC, AF Rep
x	LeAnn McGinley, WVC, FT Rep		Sallie Wisner, Web Master

Note: Ashley Sousa was present for the closed part of the meeting only.

Guests: Meg Farrell, Susan Horton, Janis Kea, Andy Kindon, Michelle Reed

II. CALL TO ORDER The President called the open meeting to order at 2:45 p.m.

III. ORGANIZATION

IV. AGENDA: No changes.

V. MINUTES None to approve

VI. REPORTS

A. President:

- We have received reports on low enrollment classes from both colleges. This is in response to an ongoing problem of the administration telling faculty that they must cancel classes. We have stated, as it has been stated in the past, that class cancellation is a department decision but the department must be making their goal set by PGC. If the department is not meeting their goal then they must work with the PGC on their goal. The administration does not get to automatically cancel a class. Suggestion: departments and divisions carefully monitor the low enrolled classes to see if the FTE could be used more effectively elsewhere perhaps to offer a class that has a waitlist.

- Personnel issues have been dealt with at both colleges. The Vice President has assisted with some at WVC.

- ACE office at WVC: the VP of Student Services has requested that we give up this office for a staff person. The WVAS lost their office space and it was suggested that both share an office. All of the furniture in the ACE office belongs to ACE; it was purchased with ACE funds and it does not belong to the District.

- Note transcriber: the person we were going to use has been rehired by the Senates to fill-in until they hire a new permanent replacement.

- MC DC meeting: the ACE president was invited to attend this meeting to answer questions about low enrollment and HBA.

- HBA:

o The Chancellor will send out the letter to all faculty. Only the faculty involved with HBA will receive the letter and verification form. The District will give us a set of labels so that ACE can also send a letter to the faculty who are receiving this packet. Hold Harmless: the Chancellor read a statement into the BOT minutes over the summer in reference to this. The Chancellor said that there would be no liability to the faculty but at that time our attorney indicated that this was not a strong enough statement. In the letter being sent from the Chancellor in the HBA packet is a statement that says the faculty will be held harmless. We received this letter yesterday and have sent it to our attorney and we are waiting for the attorney's decision. As soon as we receive the attorney's decision we will send out an all-faculty email to this effect and also we mail a letter to the faculty receiving the HBA verification packet.

o There are two different opinions about HBA at the two colleges. One belief is that this is past practices that we cannot change and the other that these are new extra hours that are not part of our accountable time. This must be discussed.

o Randy Castello stated: if these are supervised hours we must comply with the contract. For example, if a department didn't directly supervise the HBA then from the department's viewpoint these were unloaded hours. The faculty weren't receiving load for the hours; they were being supervised by the lab faculty specialist and it was part of lab faculty specialist's hours. The question: was the faculty supposed to be doing these hours? If the faculty is supervising the hours then they should be paid for them. Thus the hours never should have been unloaded. There is only one contract and these hours should not be unloaded.

o If a faculty member has HBA on their course they cannot just automatically be pulled off; this change has to go through curriculum.

o Shouldn't the load committee be involved with this? Yes, the decision should not be made by the administration. The question goes to the load committee and they follow process and make a recommendation. If it requires negotiation then it comes to the table. We should be proactive and just take the problem to the load committee ourselves; it should be the first item on the agenda.

o Ellen McAllister, a member of the load committee, indicated that one of the first items on the agenda is to ask for an accounting of all sections with HBA – where it is in the curriculum and how is it addressed in the load manual. Remember that every section of a course must follow the same curriculum. Departments must make the decisions about the curriculum.

- Community Education: The Performance Goal Committees are giving Community Ed more and more FTEF. This is an issue that needs to be looked at.

- Lab Fees: at MC these will no longer be collected; we do not know what WVC is doing. In order to charge a student a fee the student must be able to take with them a product that has some value. The District will now pick up the cost of some items that were once covered by fees. This could affect the 50% balance. Also the payment of a fee may not be a requirement to get into a class. If a class may legitimately have a fee an official request for this fee must be made.

B. Vice President: has been working with the Music Department. They have an unusual situation where they have people come to teach voice lessons and music lessons, etc. These lessons, if purchased on the outside, would cost $60 to $100 per lesson. We do not have a pay scale that handles this. We may need a new category of employee.

C. Secretary: Conference reminder – in October there are FACCC and CCCI conferences please respond to my email if you are going. As of today we have Ed and Louise attending CCCI and Donna and LeAnn attending FACCC. Days and times to work on the Constitution will be arranged.

D. Treasurer: to date all bills have been paid. Signature authority for the checks will be all of the officers. It was recommended that there be two signatures per check. The accountant will be given all documentation for compilation.

E. Budget Analyst: there have been no DBAC meetings to date. Both Randy and Ed will continue to attend DBAC meetings. Documentation for the 50% case has been completed.

F. Newsletter Editor: the first newsletter has been delivered. It should be posted on the ACE webpage. The list of deadline dates did not fit in the newsletter, so it was printed on a separate sheet and posted in each office/division area. The next newsletter will come out the first week in October.

G. Associate Faculty: we have been working on an associate faculty survey for the new contract; it will be sent to the Council via email for comments. Question for the AF reps: do we have SDI? Disability is covered in different ways in different districts. What happens if we get injured and we cannot teach?

VII. CLOSED SESSION

A. Council and Contract Positions

B. Personnel Matter

C. Negotiations

D. Grievances

REPORT OUT OF CLOSED SESSION:

- Council Member: censured and suspended violation of the contract (Article 48) and the constitution of the union (Article VII Section 1).

- Report on negotiations and grievances.

- ACE Council appointments:

Sabbatical Committee: Heather Rothenberg and Joseph Lough for Mission College

PGD: Thoi Nguyen and Jim Van Tassel for Mission College and

Steve Blasberg and Pauline Clark for West Valley College

West Valley Grievance Officer: Richard Greco

- Negotiations Summary:

o Compensation and benefits had been settled as part of the fall 2006 ratification.

o Spring 2007 we went back through all of the articles added Ed Code references and attempted to reword for clarity.

o Tentative agreements on a large number of articles.

o Four major articles that we are still working on: technology and intellectual property articles, which are both new contract article that we have been attempting to get into the contract for some time; evaluations –only minor changes and to decrease the number of forms; performance goals – the District wants to get a class cancellation policy; there will be discussion on setting the WSCH/FTE goal; growth – if we go for growth then what is in it for us.

o There will be forums next week. The negotiators hope that we can do a partial ratification by the end of this month and if we complete the other four articles then another partial ratification at the end of the semester. This contract is for 2005-2008 and it will expire in June 2008. For the new or next contract negotiations we are looking at compensation and benefits and it won't be necessary to open all of the articles again. There was a change in the District negotiating team for fall 2007. Linda Francis was added to the team.

VIII. OLD BUSINESS

None

IX. NEW BUSINESS

The faculty was welcomed to the open meeting.

Forums: At the forums to be held on September 11 at MC and September 13 at WVC a summary of the contract articles will be presented and questions will be answered. Copies of all articles will be on the ACE webpage as soon as possible. We would like to vote on these by the end of September via paper ballot but this is not definite due to some negotiation setbacks with the District.

Since the new contract, 2008-2011 will start negotiations in spring 2008 we all have to think about what we want for this contract. The faculty should provide input as to what is important to them.

Negotiations: Negotiation Team Composition, Develop strategies

Divisions: the Council representatives will be assigned divisions with whom they will be a direct contact. The President and Vice President will gather information on each division to facilitate making the assignments. Donna Frankel volunteered to work with the WV PE Division.

VP Responsibility: Suggestion: we should have a Vice President's report at every meeting as well as a President's report. This should help in providing quicker responses to some matters.

Motion: To have a Vice President's report at every ACE Council meeting; this could be in both closed and open parts of the meeting.

Made by: Marge Throndson Seconded by: Susanna Pancella Passed

Open part of meeting where faculty may speak on items not on the agenda:

o Questions and concerns about the newsletter article and re-employment preference, e.g. what is meant by historically taught. What is the status of the examples in Appendix CC?

o Request for clarification on why the WV rep was censured and suspended.

Everyone was thanked for attending the meeting.

X. FUTURE BUSINESS

Next regular ACE meeting: September 20 at 2:30pm in BU8 at West Valley College.

XI. ADJOURNMENT The meeting ended at 4:45pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Susanna Pancella, Secretary