Dear Colleagues
As you may be aware, there is an election taking place for Senior Vice President of the Teachers Federation. I am a candidate in that election. Ballot papers will arrive shortly at your home address.
I bring 28 years of Federation activism, and classroom teacher experience in city and country, primary and high schools, as a mobile, casual and permanent teacher. I was a Fed Rep for over ten years, and have held numerous Association positions. After teaching social science, I retrained as a teacher-librarian, and worked for 12 years in high schools as a permanent, then, after taking leave, undertook casual work in primary and secondary school libraries.
In the past few years, I undertook research on teacher-librarian working conditions, then consulted widely, organised meetings across the state and a Campaigns Course, developed a Log of Claims, and then led negotiations for the Federation on that log of claims. These negotiations were based on what teacher-librarians had democratically decided were their priorities. This resulted in a breakthrough in recognition for primary teacher-librarians of separate personal RFF and administration time. In secondary, the Department acknowledged for the first time that supervision of un-timetabled students is a whole school responsibility, not just that of the teacher-librarian.
For many years, the Public Education campaign has seen me taking a leadership role. This includes addressing members and the wider community via Sky Channel, doing media interviews, developing and delivering trade union training and negotiating with DET and Government. This campaign is critical, for without additional funding there will be no further progress on issues affecting teacher-librarians, as the DET has thus far refused to agree to any of the claims which involve a monetary cost.
This campaign continues.
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