March 2024 Minutes

APLE General Membership Meeting

    March 15, 2024, 6:30 p.m.

Agenda

1. Officer Roll Call

Teresa Alvarado

Steve Nichols

Carlye Seybold

Sally Sherman-Weckerlin

David Lutz

Kim Fisher

Morgan Rinckey

Jozi Heckel

Call to order: 6:33

2. Officer Reports

   1. Chairs

      1. Grant money for Tutor Smart will be running out by next school year. Maybe we can ask Emilio for some TAAP money.

      2. Denise Barber:

         1. Erika White having a campaign kick-off at Holland Branch on March 17th. She is CWA president.  

         2. March 27th at 6pm for Talk About It with EriKa White on Zoom or Facebook. 

   2. Treasurer: $417.21

   3. Trustees/Negotiators

3. Old Business 

   1. Safety

      1. Last meeting was cancelled. 

      2. The committee is a part of CWAs contract, but no one from the union attended the last meeting. 

      3. More security issues happening around the system. 

      4. ELT are communicating better about why branches are closing. 

      5. HR has developed a checklist for vehicle accidents and instructions for injured staff.

      6. A generic closing checklist will be coming. 

         1. It can be modified by branches. 

         2. It’s helpful for subs and people filling in. 

         3. Several issues happened at Mott that led to this. 

      7. Safety videos have been replaced with safety newsletter. 

   2. Staffing and subbing

      1. Staff feel they are being pulled frequently.

      2. Walgreens builds in 10% extra staffing for fill ins. 

      3. We are still in discussions with HR. 

      4. All APLE positions are nearly full. 

      5. Several new sub hires. 

         1. We have about 3 subs right now. 

      6. HR will be hiring more subs this summer. 

      7. Admin spends half their time filling gaps in schedule.

      8. Can we hire full-time subs? Floating librarians?

         1. We had them in the past. They were absorbed into the branch/area if they were a long term placement. 

      9. We used to have a larger sub pool of retired librarians. 

      10. Part-time people aren’t picking up as many sub hours. We don’t have as many part-time people as we used to. 

      11. Subs say they don’t feel like they are being treated well. 

      12. Some subs weren’t picking up consistent hours. 

      13.  Branches with extended hours never had additional staff hired to fill those hours. 

      14. Some librarians feel they extended their branches hours just to be pulled to fill in other places. 

      15. Librarians being pulled can’t do the job they were hired to do if they are watching a desk. 

      16. Some branches/areas pull back on services/programs because of staffing issues. 

      17. Reach out to Steve and Teresa if you feel you are being pulled a lot. 

4. New Business

   1. APLE Election nominees

      1. Candidates:

         1. Co-chairs:

            1. Teresa Alvardo

            2. Steve Nichols

         2. Secretary/Treasurer

            1. Carlye Seybold

         3. Negotiators

            1. Michelle Eggert

            2. Amy Hartman

            3. Jozlyn Heckel

            4. David Lutz

            5. Sally Sherman-Weckerlin

            6. Kelly Sradeja

         4. Trustees

            1. Juliette Hebert

            2. Tyra Jones

            3. Morgan Rinckey

            4. Renee Sarra 

      2. Ballots will be sent out the week of March 18. 

   2. Professional Development 

      1. Staff Development Day

         1. Will be on Presidents Day 2025. 

         2. It will be all day, lunch is included.

         3. Community partners are invited to talk. 

         4. Will there be a talk about trauma informed care?

            1. PLA is offering a trauma informed care training. 

         5. There was a brief mention of ELT refusing PL and AL for that day. 

            1. Staff were allowed to use it in the past. 

         6. It used to be on Veteran’s Day. 

      2. Librarian Retreat 

         1. Teresa is part of the committee. 

         2. It will include all librarians. 

         3. It could include contract 101 training. 

   3. Self-evaluation questions

      1. Questions are confusing and repetitive. 

      2. HR ran the idea past APLE, but were never shown a final product. 

      3. We have language in our contract that APLE has to look evaluations over before it's sent to staff. 

      4. Originally managers wrote most of the evaluation of an employee and we added on after. 

      5. One manager asked if a staff member would be in trouble if it wasn’t finished. HR wants us to finish it. 

      6. Staff were told it would only take 2 hours, for many it's taking a lot longer. 

      7. New librarians should use their probation goals to answer questions.

      8. At a certain point, some staff just answered with one sentence. 

      9. Email Sheryl Grauman with any questions. 

      10. Do staff keep a document with their accomplishments throughout the year? 

      11. It makes it easier for HR to track all evaluations that managers should be filling out, like 2 month and 4 month evaluations. 

      12. We need to check on probation staff and make sure their managers are filling out their evaluations.  

   4. Reference Policy

      1. The policy was put on board agenda, but not given to APLE first. 

      2. APLE received a copy and the vote was delayed. 

      3. All officers looked it over for critique. 

      4. The policy has a lot of language that doesn’t fit with our current work. 

      5. We wrote up notes and set it to Cathy Bartel. 

      6. It was developed by the Reference Committee.

5. Open Floor

   1. Custodial jobs not getting done after the 3:30pm, which makes it hard for Children’s Library and branches who have Connecting Kids to Meals. 

      1. They may have programs that night.

      2. Children’s Library has also seen delays in getting someone for simple issues, like toilet paper change.

   2. Could we have more signage for behavioral issues like no climbing or running, no eating at computers. 

      1. Some branches put signs everywhere even if they don’t come from Communications. 

      2. You can make signs to use without Communication approval. 

      3. Patrons need to follow behavioral guidelines as well, even if they aren’t listed. 

      4. Can we have more visual signs to let people know appropriate library behavior? 

   3. We need better signage for people to get from Teen Library to Children’s Library.

   4. Predictive Index

      1. It’s more of a personality test for coworker relationships. 

      2.  APLE will ask HR for further details about it. 

   5. Please write up nominations for Staff Awards. 

      1. Winners are decided by committee. Made up of Exempt, CWA, APLE. 

      2. The awards will be in person this year.

      3. It came about after feedback that staff wanted more appreciation and acknowledgment of staff hard work. 

      4. It’s also a great opportunity to meet with your coworkers that you don’t usually see throughout the year. 

Adjourn: 7:54 PM. 

Next meeting in person at Sanger on May 10th at 6:30pm. Let us know you have any dietary restrictions.