Welcome back, educators! I hope this letter finds you in good health for the upcoming school year with a feeling of renewal. Speaking of renewal, this year HEA will be negotiating for a new licensed professional agreement with HSD.
HEA is working to complete our bargaining team roster and we are planning to send a survey this Fall to collect member’s input on what issues we want to include in our bargaining for our upcoming contract negotiations. Only members will have the privilege to provide this information to our bargaining team. If you’re not a member and want to provide your valuable input, JOIN US!!!
HEA finished the last school year with 96.1% membership!!! On August 22nd, HEA hosted our annual new hire breakfast followed by our HEA orientation for 106 new hires. We are pleased to announce that a total of 98 new hires are now members of our union!!! We are thrilled to welcome the class of 2023-2024 as our newest HEA members!!!
Together, we have the collective ability to improve education for the better. None of us can do this work on our own. As a union, we make a difference for our working conditions, which are our student’s learning conditions. Together we can address our workload issues so we can better serve our student’s needs. Together we can constantly push for better salaries and a work-life balance so our educators can give their best to our students. Together, the U and I in our UNION,
we, our members can make a difference for our working conditions, workload protections, and wages.
As I continue year two as your HEA President, it is important to me that we work in solidarity with one another to protect our working conditions in order to better serve all of our students. To make this possible, we must share the responsibility of this collective work. Please get to know your building rep(s), your contract, and your executive board (EB) members. Please note the list of contact information on the left side of this page. We want to support you as agreed in our contract. Here’s to a great school year and remember, it’s the U and I in Union that makes us STRONG!
In Solidarity,
Mary Kay Babcock,
HEA President | she/her/ella