Depts Joined Huge Mobilization for City College on Saturday- Now, It’s Your Turn!

Math, Ethnic Studies & Social Justice, and the Business Department joined a massive community mobilization on Saturday in Balboa Park for Prop O & CCSF Trustee candidates Vick Chung, Anita Martinez, Susan Solomon, and Adolfo Velasquez. Thank you Coleman Advocates, SF Rising, & SF DSA for making Saturday’s mobilization a success. Your next mobilization is this Saturday, Oct 1, at 11am in McLaren Park, & it’s urgent that you as faculty show up.

In just 2 weeks, the Real Estate industry has raised $170 million to defeat Prop O & other measures in November. And it’s now less than 2 weeks until voters receive their ballots in the mail, and remember, at least 30-40% of voters will be voting by mail well before election day.

That means now is the moment for everyone to show up & join this fight to regain control of your college. If you want support for your department, if you want better leadership at the college, if you want higher salaries & job security, if you want to better serve your students, then now is the moment to act.

Email Alan D’Souza to schedule your Department Campaign Day now: adsouza@aft2121.org & view this site for the days to claim & other opportunities to engage.

Join Supervisor Mar & AFT 2121 for a Citizenship Day Press Conference at CCSF Chinatown Campus- Thurs 9/29 @ 9:30am

On Thursday, City College will be, for the first time since COVID, hosting its annual Citizen Day to celebrate English as Second Language (ESL) students who have recently passed their citizenship exams. For generations, CCSF’s ESL programs have been a first stop for San Francisco’s immigrant community, providing accessible language classes, citizenship courses, and vocational training in healthcare, custodial, & tech.  

But right now, City College ESL is suffering–hundreds of students have been locked out of the classes they need this fall due to unnecessary layoffs and course cuts. 39 ESL faculty members were laid off last May, and the result is 32% fewer courses this fall, a dramatic cut that is causing real harm to SF’s immigrant community.

In response, Supervisor Gordon Mar & CCSF’s faculty union AFT 2121 are holding a Press Conference before Thursday’s Citizenship Event to broadcast the stories of City College’s immigrant students & deliver a call to action to defend the college at the ballot in November by passing Proposition O & electing CCSF Trustee Candidates Anita Martinez, Susan Solomon, Vick Chung, & Adolfo Velasquez. RSVP: https://bit.ly/ImmigrantCCSF

Join Supervisor Mar & AFT 2121 for a Citizenship Day Press Conference at CCSF Chinatown Campus- Thurs 9/29 @ 9:30am

Next Thursday, Sept 29, City College of San Francisco will be again hosting, for the first time since COVID, its annual Citizen Day to celebrate English as Second Language (ESL) students who have recently passed their citizenship exams. For generations, CCSF’s ESL programs have been a first stop for San Francisco’s immigrant community, providing accessible language classes, citizenship courses, and vocational training in healthcare, custodial, & tech. City College ESL is an essential pathway to better jobs, degrees, & community for SF immigrants.

But right now, City College ESL is suffering: hundreds of students have been locked out of the classes they need this fall due to unnecessary layoffs and course cuts. 39 ESL faculty members were laid off last May, and the result is 32% fewer courses this fall, a dramatic cut that is causing real harm to SF’s immigrant community.

In response, Supervisor Gordon Mar & CCSF’s faculty union AFT 2121 are holding a Press Conference before Thursday’s Citizenship Event to broadcast the stories of City College’s immigrant students & deliver a call to action to defend the college at the ballot in November by passing Proposition O & electing CCSF Trustee Candidates Anita Martinez, Susan Solomon, & Vick Chung.

City College needs increased local investment & better leadership to sustainably meet the needs of San Francisco for new job skills & advanced degrees. That means passing Prop O & electing Trustees with the leadership & independence necessary to put students first.

Join us Thursday, Sept 29, at 9:30am at CCSF’s Chinatown Campus to learn more. RSVP & share widely: bit.ly/ImmigrantCCSF

Join Special Guest Tom Ammiano for a Prop O & Trustee Candidate Mobilization Saturday 9/24 at 11am at Balboa Park (San Jose & Santa Ynez)

RSVP now for your Trustee Candidate & Prop O Campaign Day tomorrow Saturday, Sep 24, at Balboa Park (San Jose & Santa Ynez) at 11am. Math, Business, and Ethnic Studies & Social Justice (ESSJ) are sponsoring this day, so if you’re in those departments make sure you show up for your day, and all other faculty are encouraged to join as well! At the launch, you will have a chance to meet your candidates & then head out and help them win by hanging campaign literature on doors & talking to any voters you meet along the way. This may seem like not a big deal, but it is–bringing visibility & awareness to voters about City College, your candidates, & Prop O is essential to winning in November. Ballots go out in just 2 weeks.

Raffle Prizes Needed for Heartbeat Premiere Prop O Fundraiser

Do you bake an out of this world delicious 5 layer chocolate cake that friends and relatives beg you to make for every holiday or family get together? Are you a woodworker who makes beautiful jewelry boxes or wooden toys for children?

If you have a skill, gift certificate, vacation spot, or anything else to give, then you can make an important contribution towards the passage of Proposition O, a San Francisco ballot measure that will bring up to $45 million annually to our beloved but financially challenged City College. Some big money interests in San Francisco’s real estate industry want to see Prop O defeated—and they have lots of money to put towards that effort.

To make sure we reach every San Francisco voter with a positive message about the benefits that up to $45 million annually will bring to our college, and ultimately the community, we are holding an outdoor fundraiser on Thursday, October 13th from 6:00 – 8:00pm, at Kapwa Gardens in the SOMA district. You can buy a ticket by making a donation of $50 or more here. The event will be centered around the premiere of “The Heartbeat of City College,” a film featuring CCSF students, staff, and faculty reciting stanzas from a powerful poem about the value of our school, written by English instructor Tehmina Khan.

As part of our effort to raise vitally needed funds for Prop O, we are also planning a raffle at the event. Sure, it might be nice if any of you had a brand-new Lexus or maybe a cruise for two around the world that we could raffle off. But few of us working at CCSF have those kinds of gifts to offer. But what you do have are talents and skills–and perhaps that nice case of wine–that would make wonderful prizes for our fundraising raffle.

So, put your thinking caps on and let us know what you might be able to offer up to help make our fundraiser the success it needs to be! Please email Classified Staff SEIU 1021 member Arnie Warshaw at arnieccsf@yahoo.com by next Tuesday, Sep 22, to let us know what you can give. CCSF unions, employees, students, & community together–we can keep City College a strong and vital public resource for our city. #HeartbeatofCCSF

Mobilization for Trustee Candidates & Prop O this Saturday 9/24 at 11am at Balboa Park (San Jose & Santa Ynez)

RSVP now for a Trustee Candidate & Prop O Campaign Day on Saturday, Sep 24, at Balboa Park (San Jose & Santa Ynez). Math, Business, & Ethnic Studies & Social Justice are sponsoring this day, so if you’re in those departments make sure you show up for your day, and all other faculty are encouraged to join as well! At the launch, you will have a chance to meet your candidates & then head out and help them win by hanging campaign literature on doors & talking to any voters you meet along the way. This may seem like not a big deal, but it is–bringing visibility & awareness to voters about City College, your candidates, & Prop O is essential to ensuring you win in November.

Depts Taking Action to Defend & Grow City College–Now It’s Your Turn

Library and English were two departments decimated by Chancellor Martin & the current Trustees layoffs last semester. 6 tenured or tenure-track English faculty, and 2 tenured or tenure-track Library faculty were fired last May in a historic violation of tenure rights that entailed the lay off of 18 part-time English faculty & 15 part-time librarians. English lost nearly 40% of its faculty, and the result? They’ve been turning away students by the hundreds this semester–this is a travesty.

In response, Library and English joined Social Sciences in taking action this past weekend–they organized their colleagues to show up and distribute literature for Prop O & your Trustee candidates Vick Chung, Anita Martinez, Susan Solomon, and Adolfo Velasquez.  

Now it’s your turn. If you want a dept & college that is capable of truly serving our students, if you want higher salaries, job security, & tenure rights, then it’s time to do your part to bring visibility to your fight for more revenue & better leadership at City College. Let’s stop playing defense, & start playing offense. We have 20 short days to make an impact before voters receive their ballots in the mail, so the time to blanket the city in your message is now.

Email Alan D’Souza to schedule your Department Campaign Day now: adsouza@aft2121.org & view this site for the days to claim & opportunities to engage: https://bit.ly/ccsfWINS

Fall Evaluations Agreement

Our bargaining team has settled an evaluation agreement for Fall 2022 – and just in time. The agreement keeps some of our important wins for remote classes, protects our safety during this continuing COVID epidemic. Highlights below, and you can read the full agreement here.

• Committees can be one or two members to evaluate PT faculty, and two or three members to evaluate FT faculty. Where possible, committees should be made up of members working in the same modality as the evaluatee.

• Committee members who are working only online/remote cannot be forced to observe in-person.

• All evaluatees can choose self-evaluation, if their previous eval was peer or peer-management with an overall satisfactory rating.

• Evaluations of classroom instructors shall use student surveys, with some exceptions such as low-level ESL.

• Evaluatees choose which classes are surveyed. They can choose to limit that to one class, or they can request more than one class be surveyed. The exception is for tenure review evaluations, where all classes should be surveyed.

• When in-person or IOTL classes are surveyed, use the student surveys in our contract.

• When remote classes are surveyed, use the shorter surveys from our COVID agreement.

• Evaluation criteria return to our regular pre-COVID contract criteria as listed in our contract, with one exception. For faculty who are working exclusively in remote mode, committees shall give one overall ranking per section rather than rank each line.

Dear City College Community,

We would like to invite you to a very special event: ‘The Heartbeat of City College Film Premiere & Prop O Fundraiser’ on Thursday, October 13, at Kapwa Gardens (967 Mission St). Bringing students, staff, faculty, local leaders, & community together, this event will be a full-throated celebration of City College and its essential place in San Francisco’s communities. Please share this invite with your own communities, including community organizations, businesses, friends, & more.

City College is the largest & most accessible source for workforce training & degrees in SF. But right now, City College is suffering. We’ve lost 40% of our programs over the past 3 years and are turning away students in droves. Immigrants, veterans, black, brown, working-class, the disabled, survivors–these are our students, and they need your support.

Prop O is a historic funding measure that would allow City College to sustainably meet community demand for generations to come. But it’s facing opposition from powerful forces in the real estate industry, so we’re counting on your support.

Make a donation of $50 or more, and join us for an evening of music, drinks, small bites, and more: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/sfwercs. All proceeds will go to funding Prop O, and donations above $500 will receive special acknowledgement at the event.

Thank you in advance for your support. Together, we will build a stronger college & a more just San Francisco.

AFT 2121