Do

So far I have completed the June orientation meeting with new hires and begun knocking doors. I am approximately 70% of the way through an initial knock of that list. The conversations have been good and have changed with each potential member spoken with. For some, this is their very first job and they have never heard of a union, and others had experience in their old teaching position with a union. It has been invigorating to have these discussions. I am in the middle of door knocking members and discussing how they are feeling about the state of our district and how bargaining went last year. Most have been positive but there have been several with concerns and it has been interesting working through those. Approximately five people have expressed interest in filling the elementary board position. Seven have said they would be building reps and a handful of others have said to check in with them in September once the year has started and they have had a change to think on it. Twenty seven former employees have signed their continuing membership forms and seven of the new hires have signed their forms. At this time I have not knocked any non-members doors.

Our local/state union is definitely growing stronger as we are able to engage more with members. We have had 30% of people who didn’t resign their forms this year commit to signing and continuing to be a part of the union. We’ve only spoken to one person who is seriously considering becoming a non-member. We’ve had four new hires say that they would like time to consider more what this type of commitment would mean and 16% have signed their form already. At the local level our union is being greatly benefited because we have had seven people express interest in becoming building representatives for this upcoming year. This data is found in artifact 6 (contact report).

The BBQ will not be held until after our Captsone projects are due and at this time I am not sure how many people will be attending. The week before it I will hustle (an online APP) our members trying to ensure that those who wish to attend will have RSVP’d. I think having a good turnout for this event will help show how successful my TLI project has been. Also, if we can identify at least one person in each of our buildings that don’t have representatives in them before the end of the summer that would show success.

I think that the door knocking has been successful. Reaching out to people in this way helps them feel like they are part of the process and that their voice can be heard. Throughout the discussions people are asking some good questions about our future and relationship with administration, they are showing interest and wanting to be involved. People are beginning to see how this type of group process can be effective in collaborating purposefully and that it is important that we have a variety of stakeholders to help inform decision making. By knocking doors and having these conversations I am really building capacity of others by identifying potential leaders and helping them find their voice in being involved, and increasing ownership of our shared vision. The technology piece has really been on me in my communication with others and utilizing the NEA VAN to collect the data.

The biggest obstacle has been reaching people. We still have quite a few people whose doors need to be knocked and summer is running short. The best that can be done at this point is to continue on reaching as many people as we can before school begins.

At this point I wouldn’t make any changes to my plan of action, it has been successful so far.