Hinsdale High School Teachers Association

Your HHSTA joint leadership team met over the summer to cover a wide range of topics, including:

• What are the most important issues we anticipate for the 2008-2009 school year?
• How can we better communicate with each other, with Association members, with District Administration, with the School Board?
• What does an “ideal” Association look like?
• How can we maximize the resources available to us through IEA and NEA?

One initial way discussed, then acted upon, for Association members to present a message of unity was to produce lapel pins for each Association member to wear.

The pins will bear our Association brand in antiqued gold finish. They will also have a magnetic back rather than standard sharp pin back, allowing them to be worn without damage to clothing.

We anticipate receiving them in time to be worn on Thursday, August 28th for Meet the Teachers night. We’re also asking Association members to wear their pins every Friday to show your Association sprit.

This simple act of unity is important because:

• It gives a human face to the Association for community members
• It emphasizes that our Association is stronger together than its members are individually
• It shows support for Association leadership as they address issues of long-term impact with district administrators

Your support in this effort will go a long way toward creating the type of Association we all wish to achieve!

Please contact a member of the Executive Team with your questions and comments.

The following are the prepared remarks from the HHSTA-Central membership meeting, Monday August 18th:

I’ve been the new president of HHSTA-Central for not quite three months now, and I’d have to say that the question I get asked the most so far is:

What is the Association going to do about it?

Truth is, when Tom Ludovice came to me last February to start recruiting me as his replacement, it was probably because I had asked him this question fairly often. I think the reason this question gets asked so much is that at its heart resides an understanding of both our role within the Association and the role of the Association as a whole.

What is the Association going to do about it? is therefore a question of great importance for our Association to ask. In order to answer this, first let me share with you what the Association is doing right now.

This year we have two major issues on the horizon as we start the year: Defining what “excellent” means regarding teacher evaluation and per our CBA, evaluating the distribution of our coaching and extra-curricular stipends.

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The following remarks were made at Monday night’s School Board meeting:

Good evening, my name is Kathy Wynn and I am speaking as co-President of the Hinsdale High School Teachers’ Association. As we embark on a new school year, I would like to say that all 366 members of the HHSTA are looking forward to working collaboratively with each other and with our newly expanded Administrative team. We know that there are some issues that we would like to see resolved or implemented in a timely manner, and to do so will take cooperation between the Association and Administration.

We also recognize that last spring’s ECRA report painted a bleak picture when it comes to staff morale, and we would like to take an active role in any efforts that are being made to address that issue.

Open and frequent communication between the Association and the Administration is essential to realizing these goals. Our vision for this District, and more importantly, for its students, does not differ from yours. As education professionals, we would like to continue the “tradition of excellence”, the phrase that is so prominently featured on the redesigned District web site. There is so much potential for our schools, our students, and our communities. On behalf of the HHSTA, I am here to say, together we can make it happen. Thank you.

Hinsdale Central science teacher and former HHSTA-Central Vice President Kathy Gabric has a pretty impressive resume. A quick look reveals that she’s a member of the Rutgers-led group that landed a $2.55 million grant to advance high school biology and math, the Regional Director for the Benedictine University Science Olympiad Regional, Chairman of the Professional Excellence Committee Hinsdale Central, and has earned grants such as the GK-12 research Grant from the National Science Foundation and the Smithsonian Research and Diffusion Network Grant. She’s a pretty capable in the classroom as well. In light of this, Kathy has been recognized by the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) as their 2008 Illinois recipient of the Outstanding Biology Teacher award. NABT describes this award as follows:

“Every year, the Outstanding Biology Teacher Award (OBTA) program attempts to recognize an outstanding biology educator (grades 7-12) in each of the 50 states; Washington, DC; Canada; Puerto Rico; and overseas territories. Candidates for this award do not have to be NABT members, but they must have at least three years public, private, or parochial school teaching experience. A major portion of the nominee’s career must have been devoted to the teaching of biology/life science, and candidates are judged on their teaching ability and experience, cooperativeness in the school and community, inventiveness, initiative, and student-teacher relationships. OBTA recipients are honored at a special event during the NABT Professional Development Conference…”

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The HHSTA at Hinsdale South was pleased to award a record-setting number of scholarships to graduating seniors of the Class of 2008.  Five $1000 awards were given, as well as six $500 awards.  Recipients of these scholarships, based on applications submitted in the spring of 2008 were:

• Anjylla Foster
• Regina Gallian
• Katie Kaczmarski
• Elif Karatas
• Jenna Kirwan
• Joseph McGuire
• Daniel Miller
• Amanda Peterson
• Afia Shareef
• David Walker
• Reed Wilson

Scholarship funds are derived from the HHSTA Spaghetti Dinner, held the Friday evening of Homecoming Week.  Also, for the last three years, a Faculty Variety Show has been held during Homecoming Week.  Proceeds from the first V-Show benefited victims of Hurricane Katrina.  Proceeds from the shows in 2006 and 2007 went directly to the Scholarship Fund.

We urge community support of these efforts, in order to continue to offer these funds to deserving Hinsdale South graduates.  The date for the Faculty Variety Show is Wednesday, October 15, curtain rises at 7:30 pm.  The Spaghetti Dinner will be held on Friday, October 17 from 4 to 8 pm.  Please join us!!!

At the end of the the 2007-2008 school year, I received my first evaluation as “satisfactory,” after having received an “excellent” evaluation for my previous five years at Hinsdale South.  It was a disappointing evaluation for me, for in October of 2007  I earned National Board Certification, the highest level of certification/achievement available to our nation’s K-12 educators – an achievement I thought would have earned me an excellent rating if anything ever did.  But alas, I received a “satisfactory” rating along with what appears to be 100% of the teachers in District 86; we all received the same rating this year, regardless how we performed in the previous school year.

We were informed this rating stemmed from the Administration’s realization that the dimensions of an “Excellent” rating needed to be “negotiated,” and this not having been done, everyone received the default evaluation of “Satisfactory.” This of course left me confused.  If the details of an “Excellent” rating need to be negotiated, why don’t those for “Satisfactory?” And how exactly had it been decided/determined that I had performed in a “Satisfactory” manner? And was it true that all the teachers at our district had performed at more or less the same level for the previous school year?

None of this made any sense to me, nor did it make much sense to many of my colleagues, who were frustrated by what seemed like an arbitrary decision by the district Administration. This in turn led to speculation and suspicion about what the “real” motivations of such a decision might have been. This is a natural by-product of decisions made without the full participation of all involved.

In my opinion, the administration has shot itself in the foot, for the product of this year’s staff evaluation simply has lost respect from the district corps of teachers, and hence become meaningless (at least that is the sense I have gotten from my colleagues). Although the long-term damage of this outcome remains to be seen, I ask our district administration to look at this experience and learn from it. I invite them to employ openness, honesty and full participation going forward in this. I can guarantee teachers’ desire to participate in such fashion.

“Expect Excellence” has always been the motto of District 86.  That expectation is why many teachers come to the district. It also explains the surprise experienced by many teachers last spring when they received their evaluation forms.  Most, if not all, teachers were rated as satisfactory.  A satisfactory rating is not bad, but given the acclaimed excellence of District 86, doesn’t it follow that there should be a good number of excellent teachers?  Given the amount of time and money expended in the search for superior teachers to hire, one would think the number of excellent teachers would be higher than other “satisfactory” districts.

The preface to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards begins by saying:

“Many accomplished teachers already work in the nation’s schools, but their knowledge and skills are often unacknowledged and underutilized. Delineating outstanding practice and recognizing those who achieve it are important first steps in shaping the kind of teaching profession the nation needs.”

If District 86 wants to maintain the level of teaching to which it has been accustomed for many years, then it must recognize those with outstanding instructional practice by rating them as “excellent.”

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