TVEA Spotlight at TVUSD Governing Board Meeting

Good Evening and Happy New Year to All.

In tonight’s TVEA Spotlight I would like to focus on the theme of communication. Communication is surely the lifeblood of any relationship, whether it be teacher and student, husband and wife, or employer and employee.

I was pleased to see an e-mail from the district early last weekend related to Article 7.5: Medical Benefits for Retirees. It suggested TVEA members considering retirement this year to attend an upcoming drop in informational meeting.

The e-mail contained both essential and timely information well before the new February 15 required deadline to access the Medical Bridge benefit. This is the type of purposeful communication I believe our TVEA members would like to see more often from TVUSD. Regular purposeful information from your employer suggests that the employer is invested in their workforce. This supports a positive climate in which employees feel valued.

Speaking of communication from the TVEA side, I am making a concerted effort this month to seek opportunities to meet with both various TVEA member and non-member subgroups. This type of outreach allows TVEA to share a bit of information ourselves, but more importantly listen and information gather from various stakeholders. I can share what I have learned from

listening to others in my scheduled meetings with the Superintendent, Human Resources, and any Governing Board Members I may meet with.

Finally, I am pleased to be able to share that TVEA has been recognized once again for outstanding communication by our parent group, the California Teacher’s Association (CTA).

We learned last month that TVEA is a “Triple Crown” winner by earning three different CTA statewide Communication Awards for the 2016-17 school year.

First, for the second year in a row we received the CTA Digital Media Award for our website: tveducators.org. We are fortunate to have such a skilled webmaster as our longtime office manager Lisa Sisco.

Second, we received the statewide award in the category of “Newsletters and Newspapers” for our association newsletter the “TVEA Advocate”. We moved up from being acknowledged with a “Certificate of Merit” in 2015-16 so we are pleased with that step up!

Finally, in the category of “Special Membership Communications” we were awarded for our “Year in Review of TVEA”, a six-page end of the year special edition from June 2017 summing up our efforts and activities for the year.

TVEA will continue to strive for continuous improvement in communicating with not only our own members, but all district stakeholders. Thank you for the opportunity to spotlight our employee organization tonight.