Correct. And so I'm I'm wanting us to be cautious about that as well. And while I absolutely think we should have a highly qualified ESP who is a member of the crisis response team, that seems kind of like a no-brainer to me. Is it at the level at which it warrants a you know recommendation from the meet and confer team rather than just a well is that something that like so at the sites the principles are they they told that that they principles determine who the crisis response team will be and then there's training that's provided to that group but that's where like before we even I haven't even looked through all the all of them but I want to make sure that we're not just sending what I know are not frivolous but might feel frivolous or because of the number overly controlling um recommendations as I think was perceived to have happened in the past.
Okay. Thank you. Um Kelly, wasn't there a list Joel? Correct me if I'm wrong. Wasn't there a list of exactly that basically like uh items recommendations that lived in certain departments that should just be I don't know reminded or I don't know the right word to say. Was did that exist or am I Use your mic, Daniel. Oh, okay. There wasn't a list of recommendations that didn't necessarily need to live within meet and converge recommendations, but we didn't want to fall off the map, so we basically allocated like this department needs to make sure that this is happening. Yeah, I think if I'm not mistaken, some of that language ended up in the professional agreement last year. Um, so that's probably that might be what you're thinking of. Um what I think a piece of information about this particular option is that each site is required to do a safety plan uh that's on file and it's accessible by um the the business services, right?
Don't you all work with the safety plans or is it facil it's facilities, right? Scott Wells does those? Okay. Okay. Yes. So, Scott Wells. Um, and so part of that recommendation to have an ESP on there, they're generally on there because they're already trained, right? So, a lot of the ESPs that have the CPI training. Um, and it's determined by the site who's on that committee. I think the spirit of this and the issue is Wait a minute. Hold on a minute. I'm sorry. Um, Ivon, I just wanted to clarify. I think the spirit and the the sort of intent behind it was that on some sites it's happening and some sites it's not. So this is just a way to kind of make ensure that it is happening across the board. Similar to the issue with the sped um case manager threshold and that it's a practice that's ongoing but or or for some sites it's ongoing but not for others.
So just to make sure that not only is it happening but that there's also a a highly qualified ESP and that's why we put it on there. Is that right? I mean is that what you're thinking? Yeah. Avon I just want to add did the number of initiatives did on the ensuring that they participate so that uh group of individuals that are represented and employs and bring other perspectives that other employees may not see because they don't do the work. And then I just want to make a note that um even though it says non finance option if the meeting is during the day they will have to find coverage for that ESP. If the meeting is after the school day, then that person will have to be volunteer to work or will have to be paid over time. So I don't think they Yeah, I was just right.
Yeah. Um Rebecca also, which is a good question. Ariel just told me, she goes, "Um, how do we even know who's on a crisis prevention team?" And I think that's like something good to like add that it will be clearly stated at your school site. X, Y, and Z is a crisis prevention team. So technically that's already in the that's already in the um uh provisional agreement. It is. Right. So if it's not happening, it could be you should bring it to your supervisor first and try to resolve the issue there and then it can be grieved beyond that if there's not done enough improvement. Okay. So everyone spoke. Would someone like to try to make the recommend um the re recommendation so we can do a consensus vote? I have a suggestion that this just get added to the existing crisis team language that's already in the PA.
just add including a highly qualified ESP. Is that something we're able to do? Is that something we're able to do, Joel? Is that our authority? Right. Just an ongoing a professional agreement would need to be approved, but we can just say to be added to the crisis prevention language and then put the piece that we want. Yeah, I was gonna say the final professional agreement has to be approved by the board anyways. and we have to present our options to them. But yeah, it can be rolled into the existing um language about the crisis intervention team so that it's not an additional thing. So it's not an additional recommendation. Okay. Um well, let's we should we uh let's let's take a vote on that because I would like to take a vote on that. Okay. So I move that we add language regarding ensuring that a highly qualified ESP is included in the crisis prevention team in the existing crisis prevention team language of the professional agreement.
Hario how we send this recommendation to the board. We're just going to add it to the professional that's what I'm that's what I'm saying. Nothing nothing can be added to the professional agreement without being approved by the board. It has to be approved. I know like you have to approve the professional agreement, but are we sending this on the PowerPoint slide as a recommendation or we're just going to add this language to the professional agreement and when they approve the professional agreement they're going to improve? We should make it aware to them though, right? I mean, we can't just like add things embedded and not Yeah. not let them know an Easter egg. Yeah. So, I think it would be a recommendation basically to add it to add to the professional agreement. Change that language then. revision to crisis team language impressional agreement the district will provide a highly so we'll provide it sounds like will include yeah includeclude so we should say the team the crisis team willclude will include at least one highly qualified ESP yes because it could have more than one okay would someone um let's go ahead and do our consensus vote I need someone to call that out so actually Joel doesn't even need to say the district will it should just say the crisis team will include Yeah.
Oh, that'll even be better. That district will Yes. Uhhuh. Much better. They did not. Yeah, they were not. Yeah, that looks good. Okay. All those in favor? Uh, let's do our vote now. That what's written up there that we agree to? Okay, perfect. Uh the second one, contract substitutes will receive payraises at the classified rate for future pay raises. Comments anyone? I guess I guess my only concern with this is that while historically we have given class when we've used tier raises we have given classified not every year but more often a higher percentage than maybe certified or admin. We don't know that that's always going to be the case. Is there some reason why we couldn't just like Joel was recommending it specify for certified and contracted substitutes who have an ancillary schedule get this percentage versus this percentage. I just get nervous about what happens when the year when certified or ad let's say admin gets 10% and classified get 2%.
Are these this employee group going to have a problem with that? I would if I were them. I mean responding to that I guess Dorothy is that it's very similar to classified employees that would earn a slightly higher salary than like our like lower wage classified employee. So I think of like an office manager is like a classified employee who receives um like the classified raises which are usually given all like in a tier justified being higher. So I think it would just put them in that bucket of those exempt classified employees which you are right the best thing to do would be to isolate out as many positions as we can and give targeted raises but we've seen year after year after year that we don't necessarily always have the time and resources to do that and so I think that this is a good stop gap measure that in the future unless otherwise stated they get lumped in with classified because it's not like they don't get a raise it's just that right right I guess so I guess if I were right now they're being lumped with certified brainstorming for next year.
I like I often wonder as um she was talking about there's certified positions like I don't know Kelly, do you like being called classified versus certified knowing that you're a certificated teacher? I know there's you know managers and coordinators who maybe aren't necessarily thrilled with being called classified versus certified because they are certificated employees but but that's where there's Exactly. Yeah. It doesn't bother I'm good with it. Well, hey, be careful what you say. Well, thank you. Thank you. Okay. Um, let's go ahead and Someone has to do this. Um, I recommend we vote for consensus on this item. We're doing a consensus on number two. Caroline, you're okay. Okay, that one has passed. Uh, pending. These are all pending, remember? Okay. Number three, the school board will adjust the policy of medical leave assistance program to include parental leave. This is the basically the sick bank.
So instead of just your sick days going to whatever other ailment someone may need sick days for, they could use it for parental leave. Right. So right now the sick bank is only for medical. Is that Rachel? We're on number three under non non finance. Oh, I'll remember this one. So when you give away your days when you donate Yeah. When you donate your days, they can only go to the medical leave like Okay. So it can't go. Is that something we as a team can't do? Yeah. My understanding Joel is that by like if this is in our professional agreement and then the board then approves the professional agreement that is like a promise by the board that they will adjust policy per this intention. Yeah, I I understand what you're saying, but I think in the sequence of events, you know, there's more that has to happen to adopt a policy than just having in a bargain agreement.
So, if you think about all the work that's been done this year on all the student conduct things, you were on that committee last year, I believe. So, it's there's a process to recommend policy and then the board has to follow those guidelines. So, I I don't know. I I feel like it could be a recommendation, but I also don't know how quickly they could act on that or if it could even be grieved in a bargain policy if it's not part of the regular policy. So, could we change the language to be softer to say something along the lines of the school board will initiate the process of adjusting the policy or with the intention of adjusting the policy? Like what like whatever the language would be to um say that they have to at least begin that process so they can then go through those steps and make their own decision.
Can we just like that? Would that would that like meet your issue, Joel? I'm just trying to think of it from the board's perspective about being told to do something. Do we have something called parental leave? Like is that even a designated? Well, no. We we talk about Oh, leave time, right? So, it's it's all general leave. We do call some of it sick and we call some of it personal, but it's all the same bank, right? I get that. But we don't have anything that we call parental leave at this point. No, that language comes from FMLA. Yeah. Right. So, when you request to have leave time because of the birth of or of a child or fostering or adoption, all of those things. Um, then we call it parental leave. So, it's not gendered, so it's not maternity or paternity leave. To to clarify, why would the board feel like they're being told to do something if they're agreeing to do it?
Like if it's a recommendation and they agree to the recommendation, why would they feel like they're being d like directed to do something? I I'm just postulating. I don't know. I'm not a member of the board, but I also am wondering, you know, the sequence of it just to know and we don't have a sense of the board of whether or not this is a priority for them. doesn't mean that it can't be put forward, you know, and maybe maybe this is another place where it could be an additional exploration of it because we had a different one that we weren't going to do parental leave. That's what I'm so I think this is one is connected to uh options the financial side number seven the district will create a parental leave package with sufficient leave time blah blah blah and we table that one.
So I would recommend to table this one in regards of if I was a board and that was presented it I will feel like I've been told what to and that's part of the priorities and I know that the the direction that we have received from the board is align it to sog this has no alignment to sog so I will say let's table it I kind of have to disagree because I think they're two separate items this is looking to be able to use medical leave assistance. And so if you have a parent, say a good amount of teachers, right, who have children, this might allow them to come back if they're able to be paid for some of their leave versus automatically quitting. um I think rewarding it and maybe saying like it is recommended that the board consider adjusting the policy or I think there's a way to reward it but I think it would be something that would be good because there are you know parents that might be able to stay or it could be impactful um to some of our teachers.
So I think when I think about medical leave assistance program the way it is in policy is that that's a bank for people who've exhausted all their leave time who are something catastrophic not because of birth. That's why this language spec specifies parental leave. So what we're asking is for all of the employees of the district to donate leave time to donate to somebody who just had a baby. If we only have 20 days to give, we give five days to that person and then we have someone who has cancer and is hospitalized or has catastrophic catastrophic illness before their short-term disability kicks in. Those are very different situations and it doesn't mean that they won't give that to that person, but then that takes days away from other people that might have a catastrophic need. So that's that's what I was going to say to Ivon's point is that Ivon, it's not related to the other parental leave thing.
It's completely different. It's just about the sick bank. Um, and the reason why, and I'm sorry if like you weren't there for that conversation or if it was in a small group or something, the reason why this was suggested is because when we were talking about implementing parental leave, it was told, well, we already have short-term disability and then we then the question comes, well, what about people who don't have enough days or they run through their days and so they have to take unpaid days as a result, like their short-term disability is enough to cover. Um, and then we said, okay, well, what about the leave bank? which is like the purpose of the leave bank is because even if you're hospitalized for like a catastrophic incident that is applies to short-term disability, right? And I think we felt a little weird that one thing into it.
What if they opt in for short-term disability? I think we felt weird that two people could be out on short-term disability, but one of them could be eligible for the sick leave bank and the other person wouldn't be. And so we felt like adding parental leave to the sick leave bank would adjust that. And it is only for people that would run through their days on short like in addition to their short-term disability. It wouldn't be for just everybody, right? It wouldn't be for anyone that has a kid. It would only be for people who have a child, run through their short-term disability, and don't have any PTO days remaining. And in terms of the SFG goals comment, I mean, it aligns to retaining teachers. I I told this anidote in a small group earlier, but I mean we've had like a revolving door of teachers um at my school because we have a vacancy as a result of a teacher leaving and not coming back after their maternity leave.
So, and we're have to fill that position for next year and you can't meet those goals if you're not retaining teachers. I just want to say not everybody's a parent. I'm not a parent, but I have donated to the lead bank for whoever needs it. Um and also the sofg is more alignment into direct impact with students. We're still um some of the recommendations we can make the case of retaining the teachers so that we can impact teachers. But again I want to make I want to honor the direction from the board on the number of uh recommendations that we're putting forward for for approval and the close alignment to student impact not so much adult. Uh Mr. Dr. Carbaja, can I add something to that? As a mom, and I've taught through both of my pregnancies, um, if I was able to bank my leave prior to having my That's a different issue.
Well, yeah, if I had more leave time, it as a mom and you do have a lot of new teachers who are married, so maybe, maybe not. Um, might want to be having children very soon. Um, I think as an admin and as a district, we should look at that because in all reality, those will retain your teachers if they can put in maybe an extra like two to three weeks so they can help with that. Like I think that's a big deal. So remember, the leave bank is based on donation. This year in the two times that we've asked for donations, we have a total of 20 days. we've used 15, so we still have five days available. So, there are going to be some years where we might not get any. And if we don't have any then or we get one and this teacher gets one day as opposed to the person with the catastrophic illness.