By: Bill Fisher, CNTA Vice-President

Wow!  What a year!

It’s been one full year since I started serving as Vice President of CNTA. The first several months weren’t very eventful and did not indicate what waited for me just around the corner as a new leader of CNTA. Teachers or support personnel would call the CNTA office with concerns or issues, and I would plow my way through to help resolve problems or find resolution for the members. Then things changed very rapidly.

The first crisis began in the fall. The District realized that they were not going to have as many students as was projected and they needed to save $3 million. The district’s solution was to have fifteen of the schools with declining enrollment and adequate facilities go to a single track. CNTA and the District negotiated a single track calendar that helped saved the district the money it needed to save and allowed teachers input in what the calendar would look like.

The second crisis, in January, was the governor’s proposed state budget reductions that included massive public education spending cuts. The District believed they had to cut about $16 million from next year’s budget. The District urged CNTA to freeze step and column on the salary schedule so no teachers would have to lose their jobs. However, CNTA stood firm in the belief that it was way too early to react to any budget in January. We also believed the May revised state budget would not be as severe and the cuts to education would not be as deep as first proposed. CNTA felt that Reduction in Force (RIF) notices were not going to be needed to balance CNUSD’s budget.

RIF’s were the beginning of my third crisis as a first year Vice President. The district, with deadlines looming, gave out RIF notices to about 250 teachers to protect the district financially in order to meet the worst case scenario. CNTA stepped up to meet this challenge and walked many of these members through this painful process to assure RIF’ed members their proper place on the rehire list. I’m proud that CNTA held firm in not freezing step and column because that would have hurt every member and they would never recoup the lost wages. As it was, CNTA was able to negotiate so that not one RIF’ed teacher lost their job. This was, by far, my proudest moment serving as Vice President of CNTA.

All of these great successes for CNTA came, during the most troubled times anyone can remember in a long time, in a year with the District hiring a new superintendent, Dr. Bechler. Throughout all of these trying times this year, CNTA, the Corona Norco School Board, and the district administration of CNUSD, all have performed admirably in the most difficult of times, to better serve the teachers and students of Corona-Norco.

I’m honored and proud to be a part of a caring organization like CNTA. I’m also looking forward to the challenges the 2008-2009 school year brings to me as Vice President of the Corona Norco Teachers Association. As always, please remember, CNTA helps teachers to help kids.