PCT PLEDGE

THE ELECTION

By PCT President Morty Rosenfeld

I suspect that most of you were as depressed as I with the result of the presidential election, depressed but not surprised. Many of us realized from the time John Kerry became the Democratic Party nominee that the primary process had yielded a candidate without broad appeal beyond the party faithful, a verbose, somewhat condescending, patrician man constitutionally unable to connect with red-state Americans and completely unprepared to contend with and counter attack an opponent who launched a nuclear assault on his character and record.

By the end of the campaign, Kerry was represented and came to be seen as a weak, ultra-liberal flip-flopper whose patriotism, values and morality were questionable and whose ability to protect the homeland could not be trusted. While we hoped Americans would dislike Bush more than they disliked Kerry, we regretted that we didn’t have a candidate with a vision that could unite Americans by speaking to their goodness rather than their fears, a candidate with a moral vision that saw health care as an inalienable right rather than a commodity, who saw stewardship of the environment as a call of conscience and who saw patriotism as including concern for the way the rest of the world sees us. We didn’t, and we lost.

We can’t give up, however. Demonizing our fellow citizens who voted for Bush will accomplish nothing but the further polarization of the American people. What we must do instead is to work with other progressive forces to find a voice with which to speak to what I still believe is the essentially good nature of the American people. Where our opposition skillfully speaks to our fears and through them to our baser thoughts and emotions, we must be more skillful, more eloquent, more determined to help our countrymen see that our best days have always come when we broadened our freedoms, included more citizens, protected the vulnerable and desired to be good citizens of the world.

NEA/ NEW YORK - NYSUT MERGER

NEA/ New York and the New York Sate United Teachers (NYSUT) have agreed on a set of principles to guide the creation of a single state education union, the so-called merger that has proved to be so elusive. While there is still much work to be done to put the two unions together, the fact that the leaders of both organizations have been able to agree to a multi-year, step by step process of building toward a final merger in September, 2008 is promising. Below is the merger calendar that has been agreed to:

April 2006 - NEA/ New York and NUSUT Conventions vote on new constitution and bylaws

September 2006 - New Organization comes into being and governance transition begins - The boards of directors merged.

For NEA/ New York , getting the Principles of Merger passed our convention will require a two thirds vote of the convention delegates,

something that has proven difficult to do in the past. NEA/New York Board of Directors Morty Rosenfeld and Judi Alexanderson will be working

hard over the months ahead to help to build the necessary support for the merger.

The Executive Board also made the following committee appointments at its November meeting:

The charge of this committee will be to make policy recommendations to the PCT Executive Board for improvements to the district’s special education program.

The Executive Board also completed its appointments to the Title IX Committee. The Committee is set to resume its meeting calendar. Those appointed are:

Prompted by a motion brought by the Kennedy High School SRC, the PCT Executive Board has adopted a policy calling upon the school district to ban the use of cell phones by students in our schools because of the disruption they cause. Citing their concerns about students using their cell phones to snap inappropriate pictures, cheat on exams and generally interrupt the smooth running of their classes, secondary members of the Board were adamant in their view that there are no appropriate uses for student cell phones and that parents interrupting classes to remind students of appointments is simply inappropriate. The vote of the Executive Board on this issue was unanimous.

The Welfare Fund recently distributed Open Enrollment Forms to all members. This form is to be used by members wishing to add family dental or excess major medical coverage beginning in January, 2005. For those wishing to make a change in their coverage, forms must be returned to the Welfare Fund Office no later than December 15, 2004 . Misplace your form, simply call the Welfare Fund Office.

Did you know that since last January 7700 visits have been made to the PCT Web Page with 25000 hits to its front page? From its first year when it had less than 2000 hits for the whole year, readership of our union’s web page has continued to grow as people both in and outside of the school community read it regularly for information and ideas about education and our school district.

Did you know that you can download and print dental and excess medical claims from the members’ area of our site? You no longer have to remember to find your building rep to get a form. They are available to you at home, at your convenience.

Did you know that you can read the latest edition of the Pledge, usually before it appears in hard copy in your workplace?

By now each PCT member should have received a flyer announcing our union’s new relationship with Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate. If you are buying or selling a home, no matter where in the

United States

, as a PCT member you can take advantage of a number of ways to save money and precious time. The professionals at Prudential Douglas Elliman will help you with all of the arrangements. See the announcement of benefit flyer for deatils. Our contact person for this benefit is Janet Manno-Wurtzler who can be reached at 631-549-7480, Ext. 228.