NTA EBulletin: December 21 2025

Dear Colleagues,

First of all, I apologize for getting last week's eBulletin into your inboxed so late.

Second, this is the last eBulletin that will be going out until the new year on January 11th. 

Finally, I hope you all enjoy a restful break. You deserve it! This has been a particularly exhausting year!

Anti-Union Mailer

(new)

I've seen anti-union mailers (or emails) before, but this is one of the more insidious that has come across my desk. What makes this mailer so bad? There is, of course, the messaging. Give yourself "a little extra cheer in your wallet" by canceling your membership with your union.

But then look at how "Santa" wants you to do this:

Santa says just fill out the above postcard and "drop it in the mail" to MTA President, C/O The Freedom Foundation. Last I heard, MTA President Max Page did not work for the Freedom Foundation in Olympia, Washington. Nor does Max Page sign up members nor cancel their membership. We do that here in the NTA office, as does every local in Massachusetts.

So what's up with that? Looks to me like the Freedom Foundation is trying to build their email and mailing lists to recruit people to their anti-union cause. 

During these precarious times, when working people are under constant assault, withdrawing from the union and giving up the protections union membership provides is just about the last thing anyone should be doing. Nor should anyone put themselves on a union busters' mailing list to make it easier for them to recruit you to do their dirty work.

If you haven't already thrown this mailer in the trash, maybe you might want to do this with the postcard:

• Where the card has a little check box followed by "I am already not paying union dues," check the box and black out the words 'already' and 'not'. Result: "I am paying union dues." 

• Write over the text of the card: "Solidarity Forever! The Union Makes us Strong!"

• Then, without providing any identifying information, drop the card in the mail and send it back to the Freedom Foundation .

Let's make them pay the postage for us to send them a message!

MTA Officer Candidate Forum: Hold the Date

What: Candidate Forum for MTA Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates

When: Wednesday, February 4, at 4:15 PM

Where: TBD

This year at MTA annual meeting, Delegates will vote for a new President and Vice President of the MTA to two year terms. 

This will be a very consequential vote. Educators for a Democratic Union, endorsed candidates currently hold the presidency and vice presidency and a majority of Board and Executive Committee seats in the MTA governance structure. (EDU is a caucus of the MTA, and is currently the only formal group that follows a nomination and endorsement process for candidates and issues.) This will be first time EDU's presidential and vice presidential candidates have been seriously challenged, with two exceptions, since Barbara Madeloni became President in 2014, and the first time they have faced off against two other slates of candidates. For these reasons and others, this will be a decisive election for the determining the future direction of the MTA. 

I urge members to attend the forum and to consider running to be a delegate to the MTA Annual Meeting, which will be held this year in Boston, at the Hynes Center, on Friday May 8 and Saturday, May 9. The Newton Teachers Association can send approximately 42 members to the meeting. It is important that we fill all of our seats. This is our opportunity as a local to weigh in on the current direction, priorities and policy decisions of the MTA.

There are three candidates running for President, and three running for Vice President, and they are running on slates:

• Educators for a Democratic Union (EDU), a caucus within the MTA, endorsed candidate Matt Bach, President of the Andover Educators Association and MTA Board member representing District 22F, for MTA President and Deb Gesualdo, President of the Malden Educators Association for MTA Vice President.*

• Deb McCarthy, the current MTA Vice President, is running for President on a slate with Dean Robinson, a professor at UMass Amherst, who is running for MTA Vice President.

• John Sullivan, President of the Belmont Educators Association and current Executive Committee member for Region G (our region) is running for MTA President on a slate with Gayle Carvalho, President of the Quincy Educators Association and MTA Executive Committee member.

In addition, there will be elections to replace John Sullivan as Region G Executive Committee Member, and for Director for Region G, District 18, to the Board. Jamie Rinaldi, the incumbent from Newton South High School, is running again for the seat. We do not know yet if anyone else will be a candidate for that seat. 

Joint Labor Management Committees (JLMCs)

This week, I give an overview of the work of two (per our contracts) standing JLMCs; next week I will follow up with an overview of the JLMCs that were created in the 2023-2027 Memorandum of Agreement.

Middle School Joint Oversight Committee (MSJOC)

Mike Burtch, Bigelow Unit A, and Gene Roundtree are the co-chairs of this committee. The committee comprises a building representative from each middle school, the principal from each middle school, Gene Roundtree, Ryan Normandin and me. 

The committee met on Monday, December 8th and Tuesday, November 18. 

December 8th. The committee invited Maria Kolbe to participate, and to discuss plans for middle school implementation of MTSS.

The key takeaways were that change will not happen without additional funding and staffing, that when it does happen, it will happen slowly (no change this year), that the MSJOC will be one of many places where educator voice will be sought, and that there are no current plans to change the middle school schedule.

Tuesday 11/18. MSJOC members voted to recommend for the school year 2025-2026 that each building maintain the schedules used in the school year 2024-2025 for parent teacher conferences. 

The central administrative team took the recommendation into consideration and agreed to retain the same number of parent conference dates, but with modified schedules to allow teachers to have common planning time to review mid-year assessment results and plan accordingly. 

Joint Instructional Council (JIC)

The purpose of the JIC is set out in Article 37 of the Unit A contract: To “advise in facilitating professional development and curriculum development and to hear and review the instructional concerns of the teaching staff. The Council is not designed to serve as a replacement for either the Office of Curriculum and Instruction or the efforts of teachers’ instructional interest groups. The Council shall promote the broadest possible teacher representation and involvement in the decision-making process regarding professional development and instructional planning and design.”

Ryan Normandin and Gina Flanagan are the co-chairs of the JIC.

Ryan invited NTA members to participate in the JIC based on two criteria: (1) to have a representative from each of the curriculum review committees and  (2) to have representatives from different levels and schools.

The NTA members who agreed to participate on the committee are:

• Mike Zilles, NTA President

• Linda Kincaid, Day Middle, ELA

• Mandy Bastien, Newton South, Math

• Gabrielle Mulrean, Mason-Rice Elementary, special education teacher on the Social Studies curriculum review committee

• Sarah Kieval, NNHS, ELA

• We need a member from PE Health and Wellness

The NPS administration members on the committee are:

• Anna Nolin, Superintendent of Schools

• Liz Butler, Director, pre-K - 12, Science

• Matt Coleman, Director, pre-K - 12, Professional Development

• Jennifer Shore, Director, pre-K - 12, Math

• Maria Kolbe, Director, Multi-tiered Systems of Support

• Tracy Sockalosky, Director, pre-K - 12, PE, Health, and Wellness and World Languages

Matt Coleman requested that the JIC provide feedback on our mentoring program and ways it could be strengthened. We agreed this was an important issue for the JIC to weigh in on.

The primary issue that Unit A members brought to the table was teacher autonomy, specifically, that many, if not most, Unit A members feel that they are losing their autonomy to top down initiatives. We also discussed our special education students, and whether they are receiving the supports they need in the curricular review process. While we agreed that these, among others, were certainly topics we hope the committee can address, we did not reach a common understanding of these issues, nor agree on a joint statement.

In solidarity,

Mike Zilles, President

NewtonTeachers Association