SLTA/CTA Member opportunities

SLTA President’s Update, October 11, 2019
 Greetings Members,

​I hope you survived this crazy week with as little disruption as possible. SLTA’s Representative Council will be meeting on Tuesday, 3:45 PM, at the SLHS Staff Cafeteria.  All members are invited.  This month, we are going to roll out Phase I of our campaign for Schools and Communities First, the statewide ballot measure which seeks to reassess corporate property tax rates and raise up to $11 Billion per year for California schools.

Attend the SLUSD/SLTA Retirement Workshop
On October 30, the District is hosting its CalSTRS Retirement Informational Session, with information about what happens with your STRS accounts, how to plan for the transition to Medicare, and balance your STRS accounts with supplementary investments.  Last year’s event, initiated in partnership with SLTA, was very well received, and is appropriate for all members, not just those nearing retirement.  The event will be held at 3:30 at the Barbara Lee Center.

SLTA planning a STRS workshop and a Member Benefits Workshop
Many of you have attended SLTA/CTA coordinated trainings in the past, including CTA’s STRS workshop and the Student Loan Forgiveness workshop.  We have scheduled the highly popular STRS training for December 9 at the SLHS Library.  We also have scheduled a member benefits workshop for March 24.  We are NOT scheduling a student loan forgiveness training (as we have each of the last 4 years) because Betsy Devos’ Department of Education has not been processing those applications. 

​Grant Opportunities available through CTA
As a CTA Member, you can apply for grants to support your teaching through CTA’s  Institute for Teaching.  The IFT provides grants ranging from $5,000 to $20,000 for projects that fall into its philosophy about school change which is teacher-driven and is based on what is working and successful in our schools and classrooms.  To check out this opportunity, please visit https://www.cta.org/About-CTA/CTA-Foundation/IFT.aspx
In Solidarity,
 
-Tom