Re: Written Warning Dated 11/1/05

I received your letter of warning addressed to Elizabeth Jaeger, Michael McDonald, Thomas Prather, Lina Prairie, and myself on November 4, 2005.  You compromised my privacy by addressing my letter of warning to others.  I do not have any control over what they do with their letters, nor do you.  Since this is more than a personnel privacy issue, I am making my rebuttal a public document, as I wish
all correspondence concerning this letter to become.  I am unclear as to what conduct you are referring other than placing letters in teachers' boxes, but from the order given in the last sentence of your letter (Effective immediately, you are to follow the district's adopted curriculum and programs, assess students using the district's or school's assessment tools to monitor students' progress, and attend all mandatory staff development meetings), I assume you are referring to more than placing letters in boxes.  I wish to refute most of what is said and implied in your letter:

It is stated that I put our letter of 10/5/05 into teachers' mailboxes.  I did not.  The letters were placed on a table in the teachers' work room  as per your directive for distributing information. We did not attempted to convince others to sign the letter.  We made those letters available to staff because we believe it is important for us to take a stand on issues which are at the heart of teaching and learning, but we also believe that it is inappropriate for us to force our ideas on anyone else. Although we were told by Jeff  Cloutier, the Executive Director of UTR, that he and Brandon Krueger, the Interim Acting Director of Personnel, had agreed that it would be all right for us to put professional information in one another's boxes, we had waited to do so until we got the word from you.  You were not available for any meetings with us until the Monday, November 14th, 2005 meeting in which you referred all questions to Human Resources.  At the subsequent meeting with Brandon Krueger on Wednesday, November 17th, 2005, in which you attended but did not participate, Jeff Cloutier and Brandon Krueger reversed their decision about the use of the mailboxes.  Although confused and disappointed over the mixed messages, I have still not placed any materials in anyone's box. I have not given the text-based ELD assessments, but they are not, in fact, required by the district.  Upon being asked when these assessments were due, Chris Lindell, Downer literacy coach, told us in a meeting on October 10th that these tests were for the "benefit of the teacher" and that she knew of no time in which they were to be collected by the district.  None of us has ever been asked for test results.

I have not missed an in-service meeting without legitimate reason. Our concerns about Wednesday Project Meetings were addressed in a 10/26/05 memo signed by Jeff Cloutier and Brandon Krueger stating that at least three of these meetings per month were to be planned jointly by teachers and administrators.  I have attended all.

The only way in which our letter addressed the teaching of language arts program was in relationship to the teaching of phonics in 4th grade by the literacy coaches.  The Open Court manual for that grade level does not recommend teaching phonics for 20-25 minutes per day.  If a teacher were to do so, this would entail skipping some other area of the curriculum, thereby denying students "access to the core curriculum adopted by the District for student achievement," (written warning, p. 2).

We do not understand the statement that we do not "create an active learning environment for teachers or for students."   We have tried to create an environment in which teachers can question why they do what they do in the classroom thereby creating an active learning environment for teachers.  We believe an introspective teacher is a better teacher and I'm sure we all agree that the better a teacher becomes, the better the  active learning environment for their students.  Because our commitment to improving our philosophical and intellectual understanding of the pedagogy and curriculum we use, our classrooms are, in fact, very active places in which students are engaged to a very high degree.

You have not met with me in reference to the 10/5/05 letter, but you did meet with me in reference to using the intercom to call meetings not authorized by you.  It is my understanding that I can hold union
or any other meetings at any time after my official school work day and that I can use the intercom to call union meetings.  I shared my understanding with you and also informed you that the UTR executive
director, Jeff Cloutier had attended the meeting in question.  You did not contest anything I said so I assumed that you were aware of contract language concerning this issue.  Even if you had meet with me
about the letter, I could have told you that none of us has taken action of any kind regarding the points stated in the letter since these individual meetings occurred. 

None of us has violated the WCCUSD/UTR Contract, Article 6, Management Rights, Sections 1 and 2, subsections 1-5.  All of the points addressed in your letter of warning have already been taken care of
(Project Meetings, literacy coaches teaching phonics in 4th grade, and ELD testing), as noted above.  None of us has acted on any of the activities stated in the letter. 

You have stated that our "conduct negatively impacts the instructional programs in as much as the students are being denied access to the core curriculum".  Since I teach all the core curriculum, I am not
aware of how my students are being denied.

We have been teaching, and will continue to teach, the language arts curriculum.  The issues of ELD testing and Project Meetings have been successfully resolved.  The letter of warning was written prematurely and without benifit of clear mutual communication and should therefore be rescinded.  I hope this incident will be a catalyst for an open respectful dialog of school wide issues.  I look forward to a more productive working relationship with you. 

Eduardo Martinez
Downer Elementary