Register for the 2023 MTA Summer Conference
Please join us for MTA’s 2023 Summer Conference at UMass Amherst, August 6th-9th.
This year’s Summer Conference will provide dozens of opportunities to sharpen your union and leadership skills. Register by clicking here!
After several years of a smaller summer conference, this year will feature the return of the MTA New Member Program; New President’s Academy; two sessions of Next Generation (Members will be split into PreK-12 and Higher Ed groups); and so much more.
Like last year, members will have a lot of opportunities to start, continue, or finish their MTA Bargaining Certificate. Offerings will include the basics (Bargaining Foundations and Democratized Bargaining) and a variety of electives including several workshops specific to Higher Ed, ESPs, and locals preparing for contract fights.
This year’s workshops feature some of the following offerings: Reshaping our Responses to Microaggressions, How Poverty Changes the Brain, Do You See Me? The Importance of Students’ Names & Pronouns, Climate Activism in the MTA, Neurodiversity in the Classroom, Bigger than Dobbs: The Socialist, Feminist Politics of Abortion and Reproductive Justice, and much more.
For more information, please visit the MTA website by clicking here.
Registration deadline is Thursday, July 20.
MTA Juneteenth Celebration
Celebrate Juneteenth with the MTA on June 19th at Polar Park. Select this link to be directed to the Massachusetts Teachers Association Website for more information.
Payroll Codes in Munis & Payroll Deduction Codes
Payroll Codes in Munis and Payroll Deducation Codes can be viewed by selecting the “Teacher Resources Tab” in the top menu bar of this page. In the drop down menu select “Important Documents and Forms”. At the bottom of this page you will see links for the Payroll Deduction Codes and the Payroll Codes in Munis. They are different documents.
The current, Fall 2022 Seniority List has been posted for Teachers, Tutors, Para-educators and Administrative Assistants. Go to the “Contracts” tab to view. This list is also posted in each building. Please check your information on this list for accuracy and initial.
A column titled “most recent hire date” was added. This date is much more relevant than “original hire date” and more relative to adjusted seniority date as the most recent hire date relates to one of the following scenarios:
- employee becomes permanent after being in a long-term substituting or temporary status (but they are given service (seniority) for LTS or temporary assignment time if it immediately precedes becoming permanent with no break in service and to be consistent with how we count time for earning professional status)
- employee moved into Unit A from another unit to a new job, most notably tutors or paraeducators becoming teachers (their original hire date in this case would be the date they were hired originally in the non-teaching role)
- employee was hired on (contract signed on) for example, July 5th (original hire date) but seniority and “most recent hire” date is the first paid day that the teacher works (which coincides with his/her/their seniority date if no leaves have been taken). Please note that how original hire dates were recorded is not consistent. Older staff have their original hire dates as the date they signed the contract and newer staff have their original hire date as the first day they were paid in that school year. That being said, it is the adjusted seniority dates that matter, not the original hire dates. And, if necessary, we can always pull contracts to see what date they were signed.
We have deleted all teachers that have left the District, be it retired or resigned. If you see any that we inadvertently missed, please let me know.
Full year and partial-year long-term substitutes this year are not on the list and will be added to next year’s seniority list if they become permanent (giving credit for this year’s length of service).
Teachers seniority dates on this list were adjusted for leaves taken this past year, FY22. Teachers taking leaves this year, FY23, be it partial year or whole year, will be adjusted on next year’s list.
Fiscal Year 2023 Dues Rates and Fillable Enrollment Application
Fiscal Year 2023 Dues Rates and Fillable Enrollment Application
There were no changes to the MTA segment of the dues chart in FY2022-2023 but we would like to again highlight the updates to the MTA segment of the dues chart resulting from Bylaw changes made previously at the 2021 Annual Meeting of Delegates:
- There is an additional FTE based MTA category: Now half time (0.0-0.5 FTE), three quarter time (0.51-0.80 FTE) or full time (0.81-1.00 FTE)
- There is an additional leave of absence reduction: Now full year unpaid LOA, half year unpaid LOA and 8 plus week unpaid LOA qualify for reductions
- The three annual dues reduction dates (11/14, 2/1, 4/14) are now based on enrollment date rather than hire date. This only applies to first time members.
As a reminder, total member dues include 3 components:
- NEA Dues
- MTA Dues
- Local Dues (as applicable)
NEA and MTA dues are charged and payable to the MTA based on each local’s payroll schedules and submissions can be made:
- Directly from the employer to the MTA
- Pulled from your bank accounts monthly via an ACH transaction
- Sent by check
Information from Building Meetings by the Negotiation Team
The week prior to April vacation, our Negotiation Team met with the membership to share information gathered from the “green sheets”. Select the link below to see the google slide presentation summarizing this information. The slides will display in presentation mode and advance at 3 frames per second. If you have any questions, please contact members of the negotiation team.
Link: Google Slides-WEA Contract Negotiations Spring 2022
Are you having trouble receiving WEA emails?
Many email providers use algorithms to weed out junk mail. Many of the emails that we send end up in the promotion folders of our members. Attached is a video that is less than 1 1/2 minutes long, that will show you how to move our emails from your promotions folder to your primary inbox. Select the link. Video
WEA Scholarship
College students take notice – the deadline to apply for a WEA Scholarship is April 26, 2022. An application is available on this site, under the “WEA Scholarships” in the menu.
DESE/DPH Memorandum Update,December 30, 2021
DESE and Mass DPH updated the Memorandum stating the protocols for responding to COVID-19 Scenarios – SY 2021-2022. This document outlines the testing and quarantine response protocols for this school year, including the new “Test and Stay” protocol for districts in the statewide COVID-19 testing program or for districts with a similar, separate testing initiative. To read the rest of this document select this “link”.