We started off this morning with reports from various community colleges. Some have managed to avoid striking; others still struggle with bargaining, RIFs, mediations, etcetera. We are all very proud of klammath community college's succesful fight to form a bargaining unit!
Next we had a conference call regarding higher education issues- some highlights:
The Dream Act: the goal is to increase the number of young adults get access to higher education (HE). In this act, immigrants can resolve their status, and work towards citizenship.
For-profit schools: must lead to a degree, prepare students for gainful employment, be eligible for federal financial aid, and not have a huge debt.
Next was a legislative update:
**40 million cut to community colleges / huge cuts to k-12 also
**OEA prevailed on 68 major pieces of legislation
**8 bills passed that OEA strongly opposed / one such bill is HB 3645: HE Charter (school) Sponsorship, in which a community college has to sponsor a charter school if the school is denied charter. Charter schools are not our forte or responsibility.
Good bills:
**HB 3543: kicker as tax credit, not check
**HB 362: career technical education
**SB %418: task force on HE success
**HB 3521: student transfer rights
OEA stopped some bad bills:
**Oregon Opportunity Grant for for-profit schools
**a capital gains tax cut
**merit pay
**some PERS & collective bargaining rollback proposals
Languishing bills
**SB 742: tuition equity (Oregon's version of the Dream Act)
**HB 3320 & SB 35: unemployment benefits for summer term
**SB 931: PT faculty re-employment (based on a California law)
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