The Meeting Was Called to Order at 1:10Pm

AFT Chapter minutes, November 20th, 2014 West Los Angeles College

The meeting was called to order at 1:10pm.

The following were in attendance: Kenneth Taira, Matthew Harrison, Jennifer McIntosh, Anne Winter, Mark Rose, Katy Kelley, Matt Robertson, Bonnie Bluestein, Rudy Triviso, Jack Moy, Casey Hunter, Anthony Battle, Faz Elahi, Tim Gilmore, Rebecca Tillberg, Bernice Filerman, Tim Russell, Grace Chee, Lorenzo Ybarra.

The September and October meeting minutes were approved as written and amended.

CBA: The new contract was approved by the BoT on November 19th guaranteeing a 4.04% wage increase retroactive to July 2014 which should be reflected in the December payroll. The contract was 1 year in the making.

Politics 3e: The first week in December is a week of action. December 3rd is a "Theft of Wages" forum at Valley College and on December 4th there will be a worker's one day strike planned around the minimum wage issue. On December 5th there will be a rally to support workers who went out on strike.

On October 30th, there was a rally at West around the issue of the minimum wage battle within the City of Los Angeles. The interns were also involved in phone banking activity in support of the current Superintendent of Public Instruction, Torlakson , and conducted a voter registration at West where they were able to sign up 75+ new student registrations.

Olga Shewfelt, AFT President, encouraged AFT members to recruit and sign up new members to our Union. The Guild can only be as effective as its membership builds. Faculty members both full and adjunct already pay dues, so why not join.

We then moved off the President's Report to a: 3. ACTION ITEM: Approval of the Accreditation Progress Report. Alice Taylor passed out a DRAFT summery of West's mid-term report. A motion, by the Chapter President, was made to recommend i.e. endorse the 2015 report by the AFT Guild membership. The motion carried with no NO votes, and One abstention, the Yes votes carried.

In a previous discussion before taking action on the motion. There was an objection to the up-beat tone of the District response to the recommendation (District #1) on the building program. Alice responded that this section of the report lists the steps taken by the District (via BuildLACCD) at the advice of its "Independent Review Panel," and does not comment on local college support (or lack of support) of these steps. The Midterm Report would not be a good place to present our objections, even if there were time for a rewrite.

There were other objections regarding the College's as well as the District's building program reference. There is still a lingering concerns that the problems have not been fixed and that a white-wash attitude is reflected in the Accreditation Progress Report. Alice answered the concerns of those present in that there are three other colleges within the District who are also responding to the District issues of centralization within the building program (BuildLA) and to specific campus related problems. If colleges raise concerns regarding the building programs, the issues raised will be in writing but not as part of the accreditation report. After Guild action, the Academic Senate will review and be called upon to endorse the Report followed by the College Council. On Tuesday, of the next week, the Institutional Effectiveness Committee will discuss the mid-term report. It was requested that Olga be present in order to speak for the AFT at this meeting if the need arose.

Item 5 o the agenda: SLOs Luis Cordova spoke on SLO numbers. In Fall '13 there was a 51% College-wide completion rate. AND in September '14 there was a dramatically lower 38% completion rate. This current figure would definitely raise concern by the Accreditation Committee. They need to be bumped up.

Mr Cordoba made an impassioned request for more support among colleagues within Divisions since this does in fact tie into student success. The College needs a higher percentage rate of completion.

By the ned of Fall '14, SLO assessments would involve one or all of the following steps: 1. actual SLO assessment 2. dialogue among faculty within the same discipline teaching the same class/es 3. implementation of an agreed teaching methodology once points 1 and 2 have been completed.

Division Chairs have been given specific follow up calendars for their Division and the specific courses and phases for the Departments within that Division. There have been on-going Divisional workshops and or one-on-one sessions for faculty. The course SLO is due when final grades are due. IF that applies to the phase that you are in.

#6 West's Enrollment Report - - Rebecca Tillberg Enrollment revolved around FTES - - this is what the College is funded upon with credit courses getting more money than non-credit courses. The state sets enrollment targets for each college. If you are under enrolled you will get less money the following year. If you are over enrolled you will not be compensated for going over your FTES.

This year the District has agreed to fund over a campus's FTES ($2,324/FTES) in order to encourage growth. With more growth, the state will reward those Districts with more growth funding. For West's specific you can refer to page 10 and the supplemental pages that follow in the packet that was distributed at the Chapter meeting. In a very short version, West has a current FTES number base at 6899 which is reflected in a 2.75+ increase by the state. The District has asked colleges to plan for 4.75 % growth. This is good - - however, Fall '14 head count is down. FTESs are therefore down. Possible solution - -play with the summer session. The Summer '15 session can be split. Some can be applied to Spring '15 and some can be used toward Summer '15. This could achieve some sort of budget balance.

Some overriding concerns is the average class size which is declining again. Currently, there are more classes that have a lower class size and those that have a higher average class size. Solution, take more students into your classes esp. during the first week of the semester.

The meeting then returned to the President's Report and 3d Pensions- Members were encouraged to read Sharon Hendrick's report and to sign the circulated petition to endorse her candidacy for the CALSTRS Board. She would be an incumbent. 3c Budget Report- Refer to pages 5-9 in the packet. AND to the FON handout on page 11. The first quarter financial status for 2014-2015 are as follows: With no salary increase the projected balance would of been $73.7 million. With the 4% salary increase the projected balance is estimated to be at $57.71 million. New revenue became available primarily from increase in COLA at $4.14 million and Funded Enrollment Growth projected from the state at $12.59 million.

The ongoing concern is that the District is holding onto too much in the reserves and not giving some of that revenue money back to the Colleges especially those that are struggling with budget's in the red.

On the issue of faculty hiring (FONs) referenced on page 11 There will be 72 replacements/line 5 that will be hired this year within the District and another 73 new positions/line 7a bring a total to 145 new faculty hires in 2015. 2015 is looking like a banner year for new hires within the LACCD. For West this would break down to 12 new hires for the next academic year.

In reference to additional hires 7b, there is a funding incentive to fill positions above those that are required to be filled under FON. For West that could be another 3 more positions. Funding incentives for these positions would break down to District's contribution of $35,000 for the first year, $25,000 for the second year of the new hire and $15,000 for the third year. This would be an incentive to hire more faculty with supplemental payroll offered by the District.

7c Is an additional incentive which is still questionable if it will go forward...however, West could gain an additional 2 positions for a total of 17 potential full time hires, if the District's financial incentive is approved.

It is now the time to hire. By Spring '15, the search, application reviews, establishment of hiring committees, and interviewing needs to be conducted AND completed in oder to have the best candidates selected before the Fall '15 semester begins

UPDATES AND NOTES On December 11th, the BofT potential candidates endorsed by the AFT will be at West in a forum to meet and to hear what they want to bring to the job as Trustee. So bring your questions esp. one that addresses the issue of District financial reserves and colleges' needs.

The AFT adjunct meeting will need to be rescheduled due to a scheduling conflict.

COMMITTEE REPORTS: Work Environment Committee (WEC) Minutes of the October meeting were passed out.

Matt Robertson, Chair of the WEC, mentioned that the bathroom are a biohazard in the MS building and that they are closed for repair. ATB's a/c is completely down. Hope is that this issue is being addressed by Plant Facilities and that the a/c will be up and operational by Spring semester. It was suggested that a flex day be set aside for emergency training in the case of an active shooter on campus, and to address the various other emergencies other than a fire drill.

The next WEC meeting will be on December 5th from 10:30 - 12:30pm in the Child Development Center. All are invited and encouraged to send forward any specific concerns that you would like the WEC to address.

The meeting adjourned at 3:15pm. Minutes submitted by Jack Ruebensaal E-board member West AFT