New pact with some employees approved unanimously, as well

Benicia Unified School District trustees last week approved the school year calendar for 2015-16 as well as a proposed contract for confidential and management employees, a group mostly comprised of principals, vice principals, directors, counselors and some support staff.

Superintendent of Benicia Schools Janice Adams said Thursday that a calendar committee originally proposed that the school year begin earlier this fall, but backed off that plan after gathering input and staff recommendations.

“We did surveys of our classified workers, our teachers, our parent committee and our administrators, and you can see that with every group, not by big margins but by a margin, a later start date was recommended,” Adams said.

The committee settled on a start date of Aug. 26. The year will end June 10.

Adams said one of the problems with moving the start date up was the amount of work that already goes into opening up the schools for instruction.

“You might have no idea what goes in to opening schools, to hire staff, to get facilities taken care of, to make sure that we are ready to go with the training that needs to be done,” she said. “As we moved it forward, we found that we were asking folks to come back earlier and earlier.”

That meant possibly cutting into family vacations, she said.

“We had a lot of complaints from parents because when you open schools, to do registration you have to do it a week earlier, so we were now at the beginning of the second week of August (when) parents needed to be back for registration. … So they are saying, ‘When are we supposed to go on vacation?’”

Other key dates for 2015-16 are Thanksgiving break, which this year will feature a whole week off (Nov. 23-27); Christmas break, which will be two weeks (Dec. 21-25 and Dec. 28 through Jan. 1, with students returning Jan. 4, 2016); and spring break (March 25 through April 1, 2016).

The calendar was unanimously approved, 3-0, with Trustees Peter Morgan and Andre Stewart absent.

The board also approved unanimously the new contract between the district and the Confidential/Management Association, which includes a 2 1/2-percent increase to both confidential and management salary schedules retroactive to July 1, 2014.

The contract also includes a $58 increase to the district’s contribution to health and welfare benefits, also retroactive to July 1, 2014, increasing the district’s contribution to $509.

For vision, beginning with the 2014-15 school year the district will provide a $175 reimbursement, which is the current Kaiser rate, for eyewear purchased through Kaiser optical services once every two years. Members of any medical plan that does not include a contribution toward the purchase of corrective eyewear do not need to purchase their eyewear from Kaiser optical services to qualify for reimbursement.

Also beginning with the 2014-15 school year, the district will increase its contribution of 50 percent of actual cost of annual membership in one professional organization, to 100 percent of actual cost. Examples of such organizations are the Association of California Administrators, National Association of School Psychologists, California Association of School Psychologists and the California School Nursing Organization.

During public comment, Suzanne Antone and Eleanor Prouty spoke on behalf of Benicia High and Benicia Middle school band and performing arts students, saying those programs deserved strong support when it comes to allocating Measure S funds.

Measure S was the $49.5 million school bond measure passed by Benicia voters last June.

“Our parents have done a lot of work to support the performing arts. It’s important that people, as the bond committee and the board considers how this money should be spent, our group should be taken into account,” Prouty said.

“Nobody is going to get everything that they want and we completely understand that, but I think it is fair to look at making sure that all groups get some key support that they really need as much as possible in context of Measure S.”

Adams made a general comment, saying she could not directly respond to the comments.

“The bond language is what determines what the bond money can be spent on,” she said. “It is perfectly legal for the board to take a look at that bond language and make determinations about priorities.

“What governs the bond is what is written in the bond language. As long as things are in the bond language, then we can change the allocations, we can change the timeline.

“Also, the bond language was carefully written so that it was not so restrictive that it didn’t allow us to identify those needs as we do our plan, because we couldn’t exactly foretell everything we needed. The language was broad enough to allow for flexibility,” Adams said.