I am moving to a "life after VEA blog," so if you care to follow my new blog which is far more general in scope, please go to http://kittyboitnott1013.blogspot.com.

Thanks!

Kitty J. Boitnott, Ph.D., NBCT

Time Flies--Whether You're Having Fun or Not

I have come to realize that time has a way of disappearing before you are even aware of it. I started a post a couple of weeks ago intending to reflect on the VEA Convention which was held in Virginia Beach April 26-28, but I got busy and left it unfinished. Here I am, two weeks later, and it seems foolish to write about the convention which is now a distant memory for those who attended and a non-event for those who didn't.

As I sit here, though, it dawns on me that those two weeks got spent doing a number of different things. I spent the week after the convention attending the NEA Super Week in Washington, DC. That week included a round of different meetings with different groups of people who get together to talk about the goals and aspirations of the NEA, the realities that face those who run the NEA and the leaders of the state affiliates, and the members of the NEA Board of Directors who have the responsibility for setting policy and moving a balanced budget to the NEA Representative Assembly which will be convening in July--in just a few weeks, actually.

This past week was spent in meetings, catching up on emails, writing letters, planning other meetings, and just generally being available after being pretty much out of the office for the previous 10 days.

All this activity takes time, and sometimes the time seems to fly by while at other times, it seems to drag. What I have discovered about time is that it flies whether you're having any fun or not which is something I have grown fond of saying as I have gotten toward the end of my term as President of the VEA.

I have also been doing a lot of reflection on the four years since I became President of the VEA. I knew when I took office in August 2008 that four years wasn't a lot of time, and I have worked hard every day of my two terms to do my very best by the VEA and for the membership as well as for the students we all teach. I feel a deep responsibility with regard to wanting to leave the VEA in better shape than I found it, and I am disheartened in many ways as I recognize that that might not be the case even though it is largely through no fault of my own.

When I ran for the position, I knew there were challenges ahead of us professionally and organizationally, but I honestly had no way of knowing the breadth of those challenges and I also had no way of predicting the economic challenges which would exasperate the other challenges including membership challenges. The economic melt down caused by Wall Street and bankers and hedge fund operators with no conscience could not have been foreseen. The resulting contraction of state and local government, the impact on letting go new teachers and driving down personnel at every level has had a profound effect on our organization, and the effects are still being felt and probably will be for the foreseeable future. So, as I prepare to wind up my term as President of the VEA, I do so with a whole host of mixed feelings.

Some of those feelings include extreme fatigue, I will admit. I am so tired, in fact, that I have decided against going back to the classroom, and I will instead begin my retirement after a long and wonderful 37-year career in public education in Virginia. I am going to take a few months for rest and relaxation and then I will decide what next adventure I wish to tackle. I know it will have to do with schools and students in some way...I just don't know exactly how.

In the meantime, I continue to worry about the course that has been set for Virginia by the current policy makers who seem to be forging ahead with anti-teacher friendly policies that will make recruiting and retaining the finest teachers in the country more difficult. We need them for sure, but are we creating an environment that will send the young ones packing to other states where they will have some sort of job security, better pay, and perhaps more welcoming legislators? I wonder what I would have done if I were about to embark on my career now, in 2012, instead of when I began in 1975? Would I make a different career choice? Would I want to move to another state if I wanted to teach? I don't know the answers, but they are worth pondering, I believe.

What I do know is that it doesn't seem possible that the 37 years that I have dedicated to public service have gone by as quickly as they have, and if they flew, you can imagine how the four years at the VEA seem like they have slipped by in the blink of the eye. Most of the time has been well spent and it has been, for the most part, what I would call fun. The best part is that I have no regrets because I know that I have done the best I knew to do with the knowledge, skills, and resources I had at the time. I wouldn't do anything differently. What a blessing that is.

Until next time.

Kitty

An Open Letter to Virginia's Education Policy Makers

The following message was sent yesterday to the Secretary of Education in Virginia and her Deputy as well as the State Superintendent of Instruction in Virginia and all of the members of the Virginia Board of Education. I shared it with VEA Board of Directors members and was asked today to publicize it more broadly. This is one way to do that. Please feel free to share. My request for cooperation in moving forward is heartfelt and sincere. So far, I have not heard back from anyone. I am waiting to see if anyone will respond.

Good Afternoon All:

I am writing this message this afternoon to all those at the state level who are in a position to have a positive impact on public education and the practitioners who are teaching in our classrooms even as I write this message all across Virginia.

I grow increasingly concerned about the level of negative rhetoric that was generated by our legislators and policy leaders regarding "bad teachers" this year. The final insult was offered in last Thursday's debate on the Senate floor when elected officials began to characterize teachers as "lemons" doing the "lemon dance." Having never seen the film, "Waiting for Superman," it was news to me that teachers had ever been characterized as such, and as Senator Puckett so eloquently pointed out, it was an insult to every teacher and every principal in Virginia.

I believe that most of you would agree that the vast majority--by your own accounts, over 95% of our teachers--are doing an outstanding job. If that weren't the case, there would be no way that Virginia would enjoy the ranking we received from Education Week as recently as January. A ranking of 4th in the nation is nothing to take lightly, and in fact, I was there to hear members of the Board of Education speak of it with pride.

That ranking is the result of the hard working teachers who ask for little enough and yet have been targeted for ridicule, disrespect and disregard that has reached untenable heights. I call to your attention the MetLife Survey that came out just last week regarding teacher morale. I am also including links to two blogs that I believe are worth reading if you share my concerns that the morale of our teachers is hitting a new, all-time low. The MetLife survey was national in scope, but I can assure you that it is representative of what I hear every day from those who communicate their concern and their dismay at what is happening to the teaching profession in Virginia.

My concern is two-fold, and I feel compelled to share it with you. First, I suspect that given the open attack on teachers that was evident in this past General Assembly session coupled with the changes that were voted on the dark of night on the VRS issue Saturday, we will begin to see an imminent exodus of teachers. I don't have to tell you the number of teachers who are already eligible to retire. That figure has been public knowledge for some time now. How to replace the number of teachers who are eligible to retire has been an issue that deserves attention, it seems to me, if we hope to be competitive with other states who are paying more (the average teacher salary in Virginia is now $7000 below the national average). Add into the mix that job security remains in jeopardy given that the contract issue hasn't gone away but has simply been delayed along with the decreased retirement benefit and the added burden of having to pay for their own retirement benefit as new employees, and I am very concerned that Virginia will start to have a very tough time of it recruiting the best and brightest talent to our classrooms as our older, more experienced teachers leave.

As we move forward into a period of reflection on what occurred this session, I hope that we can figure out a way to address these very serious issues and concerns with a sense of the importance that they have for the thousands of teachers who are working in our classrooms and
who are feeling really beaten up right now.

This isn't just about representing my membership although I would be remiss in my representation of them if I didn't share these concerns--but beyond that, I am deeply concerned about how all of what has happened this session will play out to negatively impact the quality of Virginia's schools in the future.

I am near the end of my career. I have dedicated 37 years of service to a profession that coming in, I believed was an honored one and I have certainly attempted to serve with honor and dedication. It has been painful for me personally to see what happened this session...and I know that it has hurt the thousands of hard working professionals who have been out in our schools and classrooms observing but not understanding how it has come about that they are the sudden scapegoats for things over which most of them have absolutely no control.

I sincerely and respectfully request that you consider these issues, and I remain, as always, ready to try to figure out how we can move forward positively during the remaining months of my term as VEA president.

Sincerely,

Kitty

Links:

New York Times article regarding new MetLife Survey regarding teacher
morale


Education Week blog written by John Wilson, former ED of the NEA


Education Week blog written by Walt Gardner

A Tough Session for Public School Educators in Virginia

I have been thinking for weeks that I needed to write something for my blog. I have let lapses in posting grow longer and longer because it seems that I have been busier and busier, and this General Assembly session has been a real bear, frankly, leaving little time for reflection or writing. Things are so dynamic that they change dramatically from day to day. Robley Jones, the Director of the VEA Office of Government Relations and Research has said on several occasions that it is the toughest year he has ever experienced, and he has been doing this work for a lot of years.

As if it isn't bad enough that legislators seem to have it in for public school educators, yesterday the Richmond Times Dispatch decided to participate in a little piling on. Ironically, two of the other major newspapers in the state (the Virginian-Pilot and the Roanoke Times) also offered editorials and they took the exact opposite approach from the Dispatch...but then what else is new, right?

I couldn't let the Dispatch op-ed piece stand without an answer from the VEA, so I am using my blog space today to offer what I wrote in response to their attack on our "Black Friday" effort and our call for Virginia's citizens to wake up to what is happening to public education in the commonwealth.

Please feel free to share as you feel necessary.

Letter to the Editor of the Richmond Times Dispatch, February 24, 2012:

With regard to the February 24th editorial on teachers wearing black last week, I am sorry to see that the RTD has chosen to adopt the same air of disrespect, disdain and disregard for Virginia’s hard working teachers that our legislators have recently adopted. When you don’t care for the facts, I suppose the next best tactic is to simply mock those with whom you don’t agree.

Thousand s of teachers and supporters wore black on the VEA designated “Black Friday” because they know that support for schools from officeholders is declining, while disrespect for the work they do is growing.

It is only partly about the money. It is disingenuous on the part of the editorial board to only call attention to this Governor’s K-12 budget while ignoring the fact that SOQ (Standards of Quality) funding for K-12 schools has been reduced by $1.4 billion, and that permanent changes in the formula have undercut teachers’ ability to do their job. The state’s per-pupil support for public education was at $5,277 in 2009. The governor’s budget would bring it to only $4,730 by 2014. That’s a 12% cut.

Class sizes in Virgina, once very low, now rank us 41^st in the nation. This is not the level of support needed to prepare students for a competitive economy.

More than the money issues, however, our teachers and support professionals are upset by the general tone of disrespect, disdain, and disregard that is coming out of Richmond’s legislators and now has been piled upon by the Richmond Times Dispatch editorial board.

Teachers really don’t ask for much, and most of them expect even less. They have, in many cases, dedicated half of their lives to children other than their own because they had a calling and felt a need to make a difference. Most of them struggle to make ends meet, but they never expected to “get rich” doing what they chose to do.

What has shocked and disappointed them, however, is they have now been labeled by some politicians as “greedy, entitled, and lazy.” The last straw was the most recent attack on continuing contract which is not tenure. Teachers in Virginia do not have tenure and never have. The suggestion that teachers have lifetime jobs with “irrevocable life time security” is bogus. This needless and unwarranted attack on their professionalism and dedication to their chosen profession is simply the last straw.

We’ll wear black every Friday if it gets people’s attention and causes the citizens of Virginia to take note of what is happening to our students and those who work in schools.

So, mock if you will, but unlike this editorial board, we know what the real issues are.

Kitty J. Boitnott, President

Virginia Education Association

A Wonderful Conference for Which I am Deeply Thankful

Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day. It was a day to spend with family and friends which I, thankfully, got to do. Beyond getting together with family for great food and fellowship, however, Thanksgiving is also a day intended to help people slow down just a bit and consider for at least part of the day all the various blessings they have for which to be deeply grateful.

This week, I have been basking in the glow and have been feeling deeply grateful for the wonderful Instructional Conference that the Virginia Education Association hosted last weekend (see my last posting for details). That event may well have been the pinnacle of my VEA Presidency, for I truly cannot imagine an event that will represent more fully what I hoped to accomplish when I ran for the office of President of the VEA in 2007-08.

One of my few campaign promises, you see, was to bring back a full time Instruction and Professional Development Department and its accompanying conference. We had eliminated the conference years ago, and at the time that I ran for office, the individual who headed up the IPD Department was only a half-time director.

Now, while we still only have a part-time director of the Office of Teaching and Learning, there is a staff of other individuals who are full time who have taken up the various responsibilities of a division focused on teacher licensure, education policy, and leadership training. And last weekend, we launched what I hope will become the annual Instruction and Professional Development Conference that so many of our members have missed since it was eliminated from our annual calendar.

This particular event was special for me even beyond the fact that we were reinstating the conference, however. We premiered a film that I believe will have deep impact on our membership in a way that may not even be seen yet. The story of the Mitchell 20 (http://www.mitchell20.com) is a powerful one, and the individual at the center of the story, Daniela Robles, was on our panel Friday night. In addition to Daniela, though, we also had on the powerhouse panel of education experts the following individuals: Dr. Mary Futrell, a founding member of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and former President of the NEA, the VEA, and Education International; Dennis Van Roekel, President of the NEA; Governor Bob Wise, Chair of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and President of the Alliance for Excellence in Education; and Nancy Flanagan, a former Teacher of the Year from Michigan, and current blogger and education consultant.

As far as I was concerned, it was a star-studded event and I couldn't have been more pleased with the caliber of the panel or their thoughtful remarks and discussion after the viewing of the film.

Saturday also went well, and I have heard nothing but positive feedback from those in attendance. Everyone wants the conference to be even bigger and better next year with more offerings.

So, this week, while I am grateful for my family and friends and for all of the support I have as I wind down my term as President of the VEA (I am term limited and will therefore leave in July 2012) I am very grateful for all of the contributions that were made toward making this conference happen. They know who they are and I have thanked each and every one of them personally and publicly. It was truly a team effort, and I am very grateful for their individual and collective contributions to what was, for me, a stellar event and one that I will long remember as a highlight of my term as President of the VEA.

Until next time.

Kitty

Upcoming Instructional Conference

It has been too long since I posted anything, I know. I have been busy with traveling, meetings, and the elections. I don't want to talk about the elections, though. Time will tell how everything will shake out and we will do what we can to preserve and protect public education in the coming months should it become a target...let's hope it doesn't.

No, what I want to write about today is my excitement over the upcoming VEA Instructional and Professional Development (IPD) Conference which is being held next weekend, November 18-19, 2011.

Why am I so excited? Because this event represents a long held goal of mine that was part of the reason I ran for president of the VEA four years ago. I, for one, and I don't believe I was alone, missed having an annual instructional conference to attend which was sponsored by the VEA. I view the VEA, after all, as my professional organization...in the same way that the Bar is the professional organization for attorneys and the American Medical Association is for physicians...for me, the VEA is the organization I turn to for advice and information on best practices, professionalism, and professional development.

So, next weekend, with the launch of the VEA IPD Conference in Richmond, I will see the culmination of a long held goal come to fruition...and it's about time since this is my last year in office. I was beginning to feel that I was running out of time.

The focus of the conference is also a subject near and dear to my heart. While it isn't the ONLY thing that we will be focusing on over the course of the Saturday of concurrent sessions that are being offered, Friday night's opening session is ALL about national board certification...something that I feel very strongly about and to which I am passionately committed.

So, on Friday night, we will be one of the first state affiliates in the country to offer a premiere viewing of the documentary, the Mitchell 20. (You may see the trailer for the film at http://www.mitchell20.com.)

The film is about 20 teachers at Mitchell Elementary School in Arizona who joined together to undertake either the national board "Take One" process or the full blown program. The documentary follows the Mitchell teachers during their own individual and collective professional journeys, and it highlights the importance of undertaking meaningful professional development experiences.

Immediately following the film, a power house panel of educational leaders and experts will discuss their reactions to it and they will also take some questions from the audience of over 170 individuals who will be in attendance. The panelists include NEA President, Dennis Van Roekel, Governor Bob Wise, President of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, Dr. Mary Futrell, Past President of the VEA and the NEA and a founding member of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, Nancy Flanagan, a former Michigan Teacher of the Year and blogger and member of the Teacher Leader Network, and Daniela Robles, the teacher from Mitchell Elementary School who sparked the action of her colleagues after having gone through the national board process herself.

This event is a major one for the VEA, and I hope that it will spark a debate among educational practitioners in Virginia regarding the nature of professionalism in the teaching profession. I believe that the National Board process is one way of raising the teaching profession to its appropriate level of respect. For too long, now, we as educators have deferred to non-educational leaders--politicians, well meaning philanthropists (and perhaps some not so well meaning ones as well) and others as they took the lead in the public debate about what it takes to make a great school and what a great teacher looks like. We have gone way off track by accepting the premise that tying a teacher's performance to the arbitrary test scores of their students is a way to determine expertise or professional practice. We as educators must start once and for all to stand up and make our voices heard...and I believe that promoting the national board process is one way to do that.

As a result, I am very excited about our upcoming event, and I hope that if you are reading this, you will take the few minutes that it will take to look at the trailer for the Mitchell 20 and then learn more about the national board process as a possibility for your own professional development if you are currently a teacher. I wouldn't trade my experience for anything...and as a matter of fact, I am preparing to renew my national board certificate this year. It is a designation that means more to me that either of my master's degrees or my Ph.D., frankly. I tell people that if I had to give back all but one of my professionally earned credentials, the one I would keep would be my national board status. It's that important to me.

If you don't don't much about the national board process and would like to learn more, go to http://www.nbpts.org. You can learn what certificates are available, and you can explore the various possibilities that exist for how to pursue this most important program.

Until next time.

Kitty

The Merit Pay Debate

Yesterday, at the invitation of the Richmond Teachers for Social Justice, I participated in a panel discussion of merit pay. It is a hot topic everywhere right now, and there are, certainly, two distinct camps...those for it and those vehemently against it. I fall into the latter group because I believe that while educational reform is needed in a fundamental way, I don't believe that merit pay schemes are the way to accomplish what we need to accomplish. Below, I am posting the remarks I made in my four-minute opening. I tried to put a human face to the issue by telling the true story of a student I had many years ago who would have suffered had he been subjected to today's testing crazy world.

The push for merit pay and pay-for-performance plans for teachers in recent years has been extraordinary in light of the fact that there is no proof that they work or that they have any merit of their own.

Most of you have already heard about the fundamental flaws in the merit pay debate, so let me use my time this morning to put a human face to it by sharing a true story of a little boy that I taught many years ago. This story demonstrates, I believe, all that is wrong with the merit pay debate.

My student’s name was Matthew. It was 1977. Matthew was in my class of heterogeneously assigned 6^th grade students for two weeks before it was decided that all of the 6^th graders needed to be re-grouped homogeneously based on “ability.” While Matthew had been in my class, he had demonstrated himself to be a highly motivated student. He did his homework, kept up with all of his assignments, he participated in class, and he had a solid “B+” average based on quiz scores, weekly spelling tests, and at least one major test that I had already given the class.

When it came time to re-group, I decided to keep Matthew in my class of mid- to upper- level students because he was demonstrating his ability to keep up with the work and he was clearly one of the most motivated students I had. No one was working harder or had a better attitude about his school work than he.

Imagine my surprise and dismay, then, when I started reviewing my students’ standardized test scores from the year before. Matthew had scored in the lower 20 percentile, and that seems to be about where he had always tested over the course of his school career. By rights, there should be no way he was working at the level that he was working, much less making the kinds of grades he was making. I was amazed and somewhat flummoxed. What should I do about it? Should I re-assign him to a lower group?

I decided to keep him and see how he did. A couple months later, on a snowy Parent-Teacher conference day, I met with Matthew’s mom. I shared with her what a great attitude he had. He was maintaining his solid “B+” and he was a model student. I also shared with her that I had had some concerns about him because of his low standardized test scores, but we agreed that he was perhaps one of those kids who just don’t test well.

She shared with me that during the first few weeks of school, Matthew had told her that he was “finally in the class where he belonged.” You see, in elementary school, Matthew had been assigned to classes based on his test results…but in his heart of hearts, he knew his own potential, and he knew he didn’t belong there. He saw that he had a chance to prove himself in my class, and prove himself he did.

What would have happened to Matthew in this modern day of testing craziness? I would not have been allowed the professional judgment to keep him, for one thing. His test scores would have taken care of that. He would have forever been relegated to slower classes where he did not believe he belonged.

Do we really want to communicate to our children that the only important aspect of them that we care about is the test score that they achieve on one day out of an entire year of 180? And I have to wonder…would I have wanted to keep Matthew and give him a chance to prove himself if I had thought that his performance on a standardized test was going to affect my pay for the next year? Would moving him out to protect myself and my own best interests have served him? We all know the answer to that question.

The problem with the whole merit pay proposal is that it just doesn’t work in spite of its enthusiastic fans asserting otherwise. And to top it all off, it is insulting to the millions of hard working, dedicated teachers in our classrooms to imply that they are holding back their “BEST” work because they need to be paid in bonuses instead of being paid professional salaries.

I am not arguing that we don’t need to do everything we can to promote having a great teacher in every classroom. Indeed, I believe to my very core that we owe it to every child regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or economic background to provide the highest quality education we can. It is our moral duty. It is the civil right of every child. If we want to compete globally, of course, we need to provide the best possible education for our young people. But there is absolutely no credence to the argument that merit pay or pay-for-performance plans will get us there. There are other ways to do it, but they are complex and complicated and messy, and they can’t be reduced to a ridiculous mathematical algorithm. Until we get real about what it IS going to take, this debate will simply rage on, and nothing will change... and kids like Matthew, caught in the middle while we adults wage philosophical warfare, will suffer for it.

Commemorating 9/11

Today is a special day in our nation's collective consciousness. For those who were living on September 11, 2001, the world changed forever on and after that date. We no longer felt safe as a nation or as a people. People we did not know set out to deliberately kill people they did not know but hated for some reason. As of September 11, 2001, the United States and its citizens would never be the same. Our sense of safety was forever destroyed.

There have been commemorations and ceremonies that have been held all over the nation this weekend to remember those lost in the devastation of 9-11. The ceremony that I attended was a panel discussion which was held at Washington Lee High School in Arlington, VA. On the panel were Arne Duncan, US Secretary of Education and Laura Fornash, recently appointed Secretary of Education for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Joining them on the panel were educators from Arlington Public Schools who were asked to reflect upon what they were doing and thinking on 9/11/01. Some of the panelists were individuals who are teachers now but were students in Arlington at the time of the event.

Moderating the panel was Superintendent of Arlington Public Schools, Dr. Pat Murphy. The focus of the panel discussion was to talk about what thoughts the panelists had had during the day on 9/11/01 and how it had impacted them. The common theme that came out of the discussion was that for those individuals who had children of their own, their first thoughts went to concern about their own children's safety. But they all quickly shifted to being concerned with the more immediate matter of taking care of the children in their care in their classes. To the person, there was pride in the professional manner that they and their colleagues had behaved and how they had acted collectively to maintain a sense of calm in the midst of chaos and to make sure that their students felt comforted at a time of terror. Many of their students were concerned about their own parents who worked in the Pentagon which had been the target of one of the attacks just a few miles from their respective schools.

Ten years later, upon reflection on the events of that day, there was concern about the loss of innocence of the generation who is growing up in the post 9/11 world. But there was also pride in their collective belief that they have demonstrated a commitment to being ready just in case there is ever another similar event. Everyone prays that we never have to deal with another 9/11 event...but we must be prepared just in case.

So, today was about remembering and offering comfort to those who were directly impacted by 9/11. I offer my deepest respects and regard for all of the First Responders and condolences and sympathy for the families who lost a loved one during that terrible day. I fervently pray that we never have to deal with a similar event ever in our future...but I also want to convey from my heart of hearts that it is important that we remember and honor those who were lost and for those who have lost loved ones.

Until next time.

Kitty

East Coast Earthquake, Hurricane Irene, and School Openings

This past week has been one for the record books in Virginia. Last Tuesday afternoon while I was having a quiet conversation with my assistant, the VEA Headquarters in downtown Richmond began to shake, rattle, and, yes, even roll a little. For a moment, I wondered what kind of furniture they were moving in the office on the floor above me. It was just a coincidence that furniture was being moved, but I couldn't imagine what in the world could be making that much racket. When the sensation of rattling outside the building started, I briefly thought a really big truck was rumbling by, but then that no longer made sense...it sounded more like a train racing by the window, and then it hit me...earthquake!

For those first few seconds, we were at a loss as to what to do. Earthquakes don't happen in central Virginia...at least not earthquakes of any magnitude. I recalled a very slight tremor which I experienced back in 2003, but this was a whole different experience. This felt serious...and of course, it was.

We evacuated the building and stood outside taking comfort in the fact that everyone was okay, the building seemed to be in tact, and the shaking had finally come to a stop. Within minutes of returning to the building, we learned through the Internet and through phone calls that there had been a 5.9 earthquake that had struck at the epicenter in Mineral, Virginia, a little town about 50 miles away. Schools and homes in that little town were damaged. Children and teachers have been displaced. Some of the schools may not be able to re-open because the structural damage is too great. The lives of the entire community have been seriously disrupted.

The next couple of days, aftershocks occurred with just enough frequency to keep people on edge, and almost as soon as the aftershocks settled down, all eyes turned toward Hurricane Irene...a deadly storm which seemed to be heading straight for the North Carolina and Virginia coastline. Ironically, those of us who were here in 2003 remember when Hurricane Isabelle hit during the first weekend of September. Isabelle knocked out trees and power lines and people were inconvenienced for days. Hurricane Irene has had a similar impact. Even as I write this post, many of my neighbors and friends are still without power themselves. I have been one of the lucky ones who lost power briefly on Saturday but had it through most of the storm and continue to say little prayers of thanks every time I turn on a switch and something comes on.

Schools have been closed for the teacher work week so far this week, the week for many when they would be setting up their classrooms and attending faculty meetings and getting their class rosters and preparing for opening next Tuesday. I just got the call from my school division that buildings will remain closed tomorrow because of widespread power outages that continue.

I share all of this because it has occurred to me to wonder how all of these events are impacting our students, and what must we as adults do to make sure that our own nerves and feelings of concern don't get translated to them any more than necessary. Children are extremely intuitive and they pick up on subtle cues. You might tell them that everything is okay, but if you don't really believe it, they are going to know it.

In order for children to learn, however, they need to feel safe, and it is our primary job to create a sense of safety and security so that they can relax enough to want to learn something new. A worried child who is distracted by fears that he or she may or may not be able to articulate is not going to be receptive to learning a new concept or memorize a new fact or create a new work of art.

That brings the effort we as educators make to create a nurturing learning environment to a whole new level, it seems to me. I would offer that we each do whatever we need to do in order to take care of our own needs for a feeling of safety and security so that we can be genuine in communicating those feelings of safety and security to our students.

If earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes don't teach us anything else, it reminds us that we are not in control the way we would like to think we are. But that doesn't mean that we should succumb to despair or depression. It is a fact that we are NOT in control the way we would like to think we are. Nothing more and nothing less than that, and the sooner we accept that simple fact, the better off we all are. In the meantime, however, we need to support one another, and most of all, we need to remember that our children look to us to set the tone and create the learning environment that they need in order to grow and achieve.

Please take care of yourselves so you can take care of the children who are in our care.

Until next time.

Kitty

Back to School Time

I was allowed to speak at the Grayson County Convocation last Friday. They are already getting ready to go back to school as are many of our colleagues out in the far southwestern portion of our Commonwealth.

I delivered the following speech, and it has received so many positive comments and thank you's that I decided perhaps it would make for a good post today. So here goes:

Good Morning:

It is an honor and a privilege for me to be with you this morning.

It is hard for me to believe that you are already getting ready to start school. Time seems to be moving faster and faster, and it is hard to keep track of where it has gone.

For me, back to school time is such an exciting time. We are unusual, I believe, in that as a group we get the chance to start fresh—from scratch, so to speak—every single year. There is no other job that I know of where you get to put a punctuation mark on one year, take a breath and a break, and then start “fresh” like we do. Just think of it. We get a “do over” every year! We get to start with a totally fresh slate. And that goes for our students as well.

You are about to embark on a new year that is going to be unlike any other year you’ve ever had. And for the first day, at least, we all—teachers, administrators, and students alike—have hope that it is going to be our best year ever. We may be disabused of that notion by the end of the first day, but we all start out, don’t we, with extremely high hopes?

I have always loved the first day of school. It didn’t matter if it was the first day as a student or as a teacher. Everyone is so excited. Parents are taking pictures at the bus stop, kids are bouncing off the bus at school fresh faced and ready for a new year. The class rosters are neatly posted on the doors and everyone feels a sense of anticipation. The excitement and energy on campus is palpable. Every new year brings with it a sense of promise and hope and a whole host of possibilities.

And that brings me to something that I would like to share with you. It is a sad story, but it is an important one, so I hope you will bear with me.

I learned this week of the tragic and untimely death of one of our VEA members. Her name was Dawn Reddick and she was only 29 years old. She had been teaching in Charlottesville, VA since 2007, and she taught 3rd grade at Clark Elementary School.

Last Friday night (July 29, 2011), Dawn and three others were shot in a random drive-by shooting in Newark, New Jersey. Dawn died the next morning from her wounds. It has been reported that Dawn attempted to shield a 7 year-old-child who was standing nearby when she was shot. There are no suspects and there is apparently no motive. Dawn was certainly not the target. She was an innocent bystander killed by a senseless act of random violence. An act that is all too common in our country these days and one that has become so commonplace that we rarely take note of it anymore…unless it involves one of our own.

With your permission, I would like to take just a moment of silence to think about Dawn and her family, her students, and her school colleagues in Charlottesville. PAUSE

Thank you.

The reason I wanted to tell you about Dawn is that she was by all accounts, an exemplary teacher. Parents of the students she had this past year reported that their kids had decided that this was the best year they had ever had and they couldn’t imagine ever having a better one…and they were only in third grade!

What a testament to Dawn and the impact she had on her students. What a loss to them and to the teaching profession and the countless students she might have taught in the future. So young and struck down so senselessly.

I wanted to share that with you because I want you to imagine for a moment what kind of year you would need to create for your students this year in order for them to say that it was the BEST YEAR THEY HAD EVER HAD and they couldn’t imagine it GETTING ANY BETTER THAN THAT? What sort of atmosphere would you need to create? What sort of climate and culture and personal relationships would you need to build and foster? What ingredients would you need to bring to the year in order for YOUR students to declare at the end of the year that they couldn’t imagine a better year?

Don’t you want your students to feel that way about you and about the year they are about to have? I know I would. What a legacy for such a young teacher to have created. I am sorry that I won’t ever have a chance to meet Dawn Reddick, but I hope to carry her story around with me. She embodied the best of what we all have to give…and we need to honor her memory by trying to make this our best year ever regardless of what we are teaching or who our students are.

And because we at the VEA want this to be your best year ever, I want to offer the resources and support that the VEA and the GCEA have to offer to provide the kind of help hat you need in order to be successful.

You know, sometimes teaching can be a lonely enterprise. We tend to feel pretty isolated a lot of the time, and recently, we have felt like we are in heated battle, haven’t we? You can’t turn on a TV without hearing some reference some way some how to how public education in this country has gone to the dogs and teachers are responsible. Moreover, we are blamed for being greedy because we have high salaries and rich benefits and a pension that is the envy of everyone. What a load of….bunk!!!

I am sorry, but is there any person in this room who feels that you are being grossly overpaid? That your benefits are totally out of line with the job you perform everyday? That you are going to be so rich off of your Virginia Retirement System that you can retire to an island in the Caribbean and never worry about money again? Well, that’s the picture that is being painted of you, and it is high time that you help start to set the record straight.

Most Virginia educators have not had a raise for 3 to 4 years. Most of us have had to pay MORE for benefits because what our school divisions offer doesn’t cover the full costs. And your VRS benefit? If you go out with full service after a 30 + year career, you will receive about half of your annual salary based on your highest salary average for the last 36 months. I doubt that any of you are going to be taking that and retiring without a care.

What you can do, however, is retire with the knowledge that because you took reduced salaries over the years and because you gave your professional life to public education, your retirement benefit won’t expire before you do. The difference between what we currently have and what the Governor and some pretty powerful legislators in Richmond want to do is that we are currently covered for life. If they have their way, we will be switching from a defined benefit plan—one which offers a lifetime benefit—to a defined contribution plan where you will be expected to put in more of your own money and then when the money runs out…well, good luck to you.

You know, people often say to me that they aren’t members of the VEA because of different and assorted reasons. They don’t understand the benefits of membership. They don’t think they will ever need the liability insurance and there are certainly cheaper ways to get that, and we know that. We also get beaten up a lot because of our political activity. I even once said—before I knew any better—that I didn’t think teachers should be “political.” I thought we should be above the “dirtiness of politics.” And, I know that some of our competitor organizations like to say that they offer the same benefits as VEA without the political component. That’s not necessarily true, by the way, but they like to say it.

The only trouble is that everything you do in your classroom from day one is tied to some sort of political decision. Do you think SOL’s weren’t or aren’t driven by politics? Think again. Textbook and technology adoption? The length of your school day, what is allowed to be taught and who is allowed to teach it? All driven by political considerations. Licensure and evaluation policies? Political. Salaries and benefits? Your pension???? Definitely political and becoming more and more so by the minute.

So, tell me, why WOULDN’T we want to be involved in politics if it drives what we do professionally every single day in every way?

Don’t you want to have some semblance of control over you professional destiny? Then get involved in the GCEA. Learn what is going on. Learn how you can help.

You know, I also often hear the question, “What’s the VEA doing about…” and you can fill in the blank. Salaries, benefits, pensions, testing, accountability, and the list goes on. I always want to say, well, tell me, what are YOU doing because we are all in this together. I take my marching orders from my members when we have our annual meeting every April. Our Delegate Assembly sets VEA policy not me as the president. I simply act on and am the spokesperson for those policy decisions that have been deliberated upon and voted on in those meetings.

So, if you want to have in impact on your profession…if you want to make a difference…it is time for you to get involved! Join the GCEA if you haven’t already. Learn what we are doing to promote our profession, and to advocate for students. Because that is what we do. I get up every morning and ask myself, what am I going to do today to promote the education profession, preserve public education, and advocate for the students of the Commonwealth of Virginia. That is what I am committed to. What are you committed to? I hope that it is to making this the best year you and your students ever had…and to standing strong for your profession for indeed, if you don’t, no one else will.

The VEA is committed to protecting and preserving the VRS benefit that you currently have, but we in Richmond cannot do that alone, and that is not the only battle that looms before us this year. The forces against us have grown more powerful and more vocal. They are convincing the public that the VRS is a burden and it is one they no longer want to be responsible for. The VEA Legislative Committee voted last month to protect and preserve our retirement system even though by all accounts, we are going to be the last hold out. We are about to engage in an ugly battle and it will become uglier because our opponents can smell blood. They are aware of what has happened in Wisconsin and Maryland. They are feeling bolstered by the successes of their colleagues around the country.

Other items on the Governor’s legislative agenda for this year includes discontinuing continuing contracts, pushing through a Florida model voucher and tax credit plan, continue to promote charter schools, push for the 65% plan which is a VERY bad idea…but that isn’t stopping him or his friends in the House of Delegates.

This is a time when we need every teacher and support professional in Virginia to join with the VEA in our battle to protect what is rightfully ours. When legislators—when your Governor—tells you that we are not putting in any money into our retirement system which is what makes it so burdensome, you need to set the record straight. Those of us who were around in the early 1980’s made a deal with their localities and with the state…we won’t take a 5% raise and we will let you put that 5% into our pension funds. Does that sound like it was a freebie to you? Now, all these years later, they want to renege on that agreement and we at the VEA are saying, no. Not just no, but heck no! A deal is a deal. To me, it is more than just a deal…it is a covenant, and it is one that I am committed to protecting and preserving to the best of my ability…but I definitely need your help.

So, let me close by saying, if you are already a member of your local association, thank you. If you aren’t, you are going to need to make a decision…do you turn your back on the one organization that if fighting every day on your behalf, or do you join with us and join the fight? We need you…every single one of you, so please, join with us. You need us as much as we need you, and we have a long battle ahead where every person’s voice counts.

Thank you.

Busy, Busier, Busiest

For anyone who might ever wonder about my schedule in the summer time, let me just say, it is busy. I feel like I have been on the go pretty much non-stop since my last post in mid-June. Even as I write this message on my new iPad, I am sitting in the Boston airport (Logan) waiting to go home from a five day conference for state leaders from around the country. We started off Friday afternoon with a General Session that included NEA President, Dennis Van Roekel, Vice President, Lily Eskelson, and Secretary-Treasurer, Becky Pringle. The topic of that session was "what keeps you going in these challenging times?" And make no mistake, these are challenging times!

All of the officers offered personal stories and anecdotes about what they do to keep themselves energized and motivated even in these tough times, but the thing that resonated with me perhaps the most was Dennis' reminder that it is important to remember who you are at the end of the day and not to confuse yourself about who YOU are as opposed to the office you hold and the position you currently have. That struck me as an important distinction and one that I have tried to practice in the course of my term because at some point, I will no longer have this job or hold the title and I will need to be in touch with who I am as a person as opposed to being the temporary holder of a title.

The rest of the training from Saturday through this morning had to do with building skills that will help to determine how to address upcoming challenges and how to frame a message that will capture the attention and imaginations of our members and the public at large. It was excellent training, but I admit, I am tired and ready to go home.

I haven't really rested up yet from the 10 days in Chicago for the NEA Convention. That was also a busy time, and we accomplished a lot of good work.

Tomorrow I turn my attention to our Legislative Committee meeting, and next week, we re-launch the Reggie Smith Training Academy under its new name: The Reggie Smith Organizing School. Over 200 VEA leaders will be convening at the University of Richmond for 2 1/2 days of training, camaraderie and fun. I am particularly excited about this event because it represents a campaign promise when I ran for president four years ago. It is exciting and gratifying to me that we are getting that training off the ground again at last.

I will also be going to my first NBPTS conference next week for just a couple days, and I am very excited about that.

And then, believe it or not I will be returning to DC for a NEA meeting and then traveling to Grayson County where they will be getting to go back to school already. Summer? What summer?

So, that is a quick summary of what has been going on and what is coming up. I hope anyone reading this is having a great summer yourself and that you are healthy, happy, and well.

Until next time.

Kitty

Graduations and Retirements

Graduations are occurring even as I write this particular message. Generally, high school graduations and college/university graduations are the ones to come to mind first when one thinks of "graduation," but these days, there are graduations from kindergarten, elementary school, and middle school as well.

Graduations are all about transitions. One moves from one point in time and one phase in life to another, and the graduation ceremony--regardless of the level whether it be from kindergarten or a doctoral program--marks the moving from one phase into another. It is an exciting time for both the graduate and his/her family.

This is also the time of year, however, when another type of "graduation" is taking place within the ranks of my VEA colleagues, and that is retirement. In the same way that a graduation marks a transition, so does a retirement from one career into another or from full time work to full time leisure.

As president of the VEA, I often get invited to speak at retirement functions whether they be receptions or banquets, and it is one of my favorite things to do. I get to congratulate my association colleagues on a job well done. Whether they have spent just a few years teaching or working as a support professional in the public schools--or whether they have spent their entire adult lives dedicated to the profession--as they retire, they also transition from one way of life into another.

This message is intended specifically for them--the retirees who are celebrating the end of their school careers and are moving on into the next phase of their lives. Many of them are young enough that by the end of their lives, they may well have been retired from teaching longer than they ever taught.

So, if you are retiring this year, I hope for you that as you enter this new phase of your life--as you transition from the world of school into another new experience--that you do so with joy and anticipation. You have served your students and your colleagues with honor, dedication, and good humor (or you wouldn't have lasted long enough to actually retire) and now it is time to rest. Good luck to each of you. And please, don't be a stranger. Stay active in the VEA through the VEA-Retired group which is an active, vibrant and supportive element of our organization. We need you.

Until later.

Kitty

Town Hall Meeting in Arlington, VA

One of the more official or ceremonial duties that I have been performing since becoming President of the VEA is service on the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Commission Brown v. Board of Education Scholarship Committee and the Special Subcommittee on the 50th Anniversary of Public School Closings in Virginia.

The Subcommittee has been conducting Town Hall meetings in the various locations where schools were closed as the result of Virginia's Massive Resistance efforts during the late 1950's and early 1960's as school boards and communities around Virginia refused to desegregate their schools in spite of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954.

Most Virginians are aware, I believe, of the fact that Prince Edward County Schools closed their doors rather than to integrate, and their schools remained closed for five years. Not as well known is the fact that schools were also closed in Warrenton, Norfolk, Charlottesville, and Arlington, VA.

To draw attention to the past and to attempt to avoid such folly in the future, the Subcommittee on the 50th Anniversary of Public School Closings in Virginia has been conducting Town Hall Meetings in the locations where schools were closed. Those who were impacted--teachers, students, administrators and members of the community--have been invited to each event in order to share their personal story of how the closing and ultimate re-opening of the schools impacted them personally and professionally.

Commission members include Chair, the Honorable Senator Henry L. Marsh, III who has been the driving force behind the important work of the Commission. Other members include folks from community groups, professional organizations like the VEA, and individuals who have a vested interest in making sure that the history of the Civil Rights Movement is not forgotten.

Yesterday's Town Hall Meeting was held at Kenmore Middle School in Arlington, VA. About 75 people turned out for the afternoon event from 2:00-4:00. Invited speakers included a former guidance counselor, former students, a former principal, a former assistant superintendent, a former chairman of the NAACP, and the current pastor of the Mt. Olive Baptist Church.

Special guest speakers included Mrs. Gloria Thompson and Mr. Michael Jones, two of the four Arlington students who first integrated the Arlington Public Schools on February 2, 1959 when they started at Stratford Junior High School with the assistance of heavy guards and state police who were on the school premises to keep the four African American students safe and to ensure that the transition toward integration would be peaceful.

Some may wonder why these Town Hall Meetings have been scheduled and why they are necessary, but as an attendee at two of these events--the one in Charlottesville and now the one in Arlington--I can attest to the value of having people tell their personal stories.

There is great power--and I believe a great necessity--in reminding us that we must be vigilant not to get too complacent about where we are in terms of the history of the Civil Rights Movement. We must remain cognizant of our history so that we never repeat it.

Indeed, I was struck by the irony this morning of the news from a nearby high school where a racially charged incident took place just yesterday. Students of color are still finding themselves harassed because of the color of their skin, and we must do whatever we can to communicate to the larger community that this is simply unacceptable. We may have come a long way since 1954...but we still have much to do and a long way to go.

The next--and last--Town Hall Meeting will be held in Prince Edward County in October.

(The photo at the top of the page is of a band ensemble of Kenmore Middle School students who played a few pieces for those of us who attended the luncheon before the Town Hall Meeting began.)

New York Times Article on Teacher Pay is Right On!

Two of my colleagues sent me a link to an article this morning that I thought was too good to keep to myself. In fact, I have forwarded it to all VEA Board members, local presidents, UniServ and Headquarters staff members, and I just now shared it on my Facebook page. Since I hadn't updated my blog for a while (sorry to those who do actually read it), it made sense to share it here as well. It is an article that came out yesterday in the New York Times.

I am embarrassed that it has taken me so long to write this post. I got busy with preparations for the Convention which was held in Roanoke April 7-9, and then I took some much needed time off. I enjoyed a spring break for the first time since taking office, and while I didn't actually get to take the whole week, it was nice to take a couple of days off. I didn't go anywhere...just enjoyed time at home with my two dachshunds, and I got some things done around the house that I had been putting off for lack of time and opportunity.

The Convention is now "old news" but it went well. This week coming up is the May Super Week in Washington, DC and it promises to be a very busy one. I always chuckle at the name, "Super Week" because it seems that the goal is to cram as many meetings into four days as possible--and they do a very good job of it, indeed.

We are experiencing something of a lull here at the office these few weeks between spring break, Easter, and the end-of-year activities that always accompany the closing of schools for the summer. I am already receiving invitations to retirement dinners and receptions.

Coming up soon is our annual President's Training for local presidents. This year our training is being held in the beautiful setting on Smith Mountain Lake at Mariner's Landing in Bedford County. I look forward to a productive weekend with our local presidents--new and returning--while we network with one another and gather new and tried and true tools on how to build a stronger organization.

We are also gearing up for our annual NEA RA which is going to be held in Chicago this year. and on the heels of our return from Chicago, we will be celebrating the reconstitution of the Reggie Smith Academy under its new name: Reggie Smith Organizing School or RSOS. The dates for RSOS are July 26-28 and it will be held at the University of Richmond in Richmond, VA. We haven't conducted a leadership academy for several years now, and I am excited about getting this training back on our calendar.

That pretty much brings me up to date on what is going on at the moment. Don't forget to read the article above. It will be well worth your time.

Until next time.

Kitty

Another Busy Week Flies By

Wow! This has been one of those weeks that, as I look back over the events that have taken place in the last few days, feels more like a month has passed than just a week.

I started out on Monday morning attending the President's education policy speech which was delivered at Kenmore Middle School in Arlington, VA. (The photo to the left was taken at that event.)

In addition to myself, the following individuals attended the event at Kenmore: VEA Vice President, Meg Gruber; Fairfax Education Association President, Michael Hairston; Arlington Education Association President, Wanda Perkins; Education Association of Alexandria, President, Gina Miller; Prince William Education Association President, Bonnie Klakowicz; Loudoun Education Association President, Sandy Sullivan; Beblon Parks, Director of the Office of Field Services, Staff Development, and Minority Engagement; and UniServ Directors Lisa Staib and Kelly Paine of NOVA UniServ (District 7).

The policy speech was centered around the President's recognition that we need to fix No Child Left Behind which is now being referred to as re-authorization of ESEA. He indicated that there were a number of provisions in NCLB that needed to be addressed and corrected including some of the more punitive measures that have made that legislation so onerous. He also referred to the fact that without correction, most of the schools in the country are going to be labeled as failing, a ridiculous outcome about which we as teachers have been complaining from the beginning. What the President did not expand upon were the specifics of his thoughts or ideas as to how the reauthorized ESEA will look. The most specific thing he mentioned was his desire to having something to sign before school starts in August 2011. Given that it is already mid-March, I am not sure how realistic that goal is, but I certainly join him in his sentiment that we need to fix the problems with NCLB, and the sooner the better.

On Tuesday, I flew into New York City in order to attend the first International Summit on the Teaching Profession. I was invited by the NEA along with a number of other state presidents and members of the NEA Board of Directors to attend this event as an observer. Sixteen countries attended this event including the United States. The team members from the U.S. included Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, NEA President, Dennis Van Roekel, AFT President, Randi Weingarten, and the Executive Director of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), Gene Wilhoit. An overview of the meeting can be found here.

It soon became clear that those countries that are most successful in getting their students to achieve academically are systematically promoting the teaching profession as one that they truly value. Their collective respect for teachers and the work they do came though everything that was said throughout the conference. Leader after leader pointed out the damage being done by the public discourse that is occurring in the U.S. right with regard to teachers and teacher quality. I sure hope that those who are in the position to change the public discourse got that message. I know that it came out and clear for me.

After the International Summit concluded, I stayed over as a participant in the Celebration of Teaching and Learning which is an annual professional development conference sponsored in part by WNET, the public broadcasting station for New York. NEA is also a sponsor of this event, and this is the third conference I have had the privilege of attending. Plenary speakers included news anchors, Reheema Ellis, Cynthia McFadden, and Brian Williams. Dr. Mehmet Oz offered a fascinating presentation on the importance of health and health education. Newark Mayor, Cory Booker was also part of the program, and he offered some thoughtful and insightful commentary on the education reform movement in this country.

This is a great conference for teachers, and many from New York and New Jersey attend annually for professional development opportunities. This year, the conference was attended by individuals from all 50 states and 16 countries, so it had a more international flair than usual, but that was because the participants in the International Summit on the Teacher Profession were all invited to stay over for the Celebration of Teaching and Learning event.

Today, as I write this post, I am sitting in the Richmond Airport getting ready to take off for the next trip which will take up most of this coming week. I didn't even get to go home. I got off the plane from NYC and checked in to head for Chicago.

Busy days, busy weeks, and busy months continue to fly by. Events across the nation continue to create concern but I am especially mindful today of the American troops who are engaged in the combat over Libya and the ongoing crisis that continues in Japan.

We live in difficult times. It reminds me that we need each other more than ever which is why the VEA is so important to our members. Thank you for all you do in your everyday endeavors.

Until next time.

Working Class Join Forces

Wisconsin has become ground zero for the war that is being waged by Conservatives on the teachers who belong to the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) and other union workers.

Yesterday, the VEA was invited to participate in the solidarity rally that was pulled together by leaders of MoveOn.Org in Richmond. I was one of the speakers invited to bring some brief remarks to the crowd of about 300 people who turned out on a Saturday afternoon to show their support of the union workers--and the middle class--in Wisconsin.

Below, please find my remarks:

I am Kitty Boitnott, president of the Virginia Education Association, and I stand with my colleagues in Wisconsin.

Many of you may not know that, by virtue of a 1977 Virginia Supreme Court decision, Commonwealth v. Arlington County Board, and the prohibition, Section 40.1-57.2 in the Code of Virginia, Virginia’s teachers and support personnel are prohibited from the right to collective bargaining.

I stand with my colleagues in Wisconsin, because I know this prohibition has been bad for the children and school employees of Virginia.

Ladies and gentlemen, the working conditions of teachers are the learning conditions of children.

Because we have no collective bargaining, Virginia, the 7^th wealthiest state in the nation ranks 38^th in state funding per pupil.

Because we have no collective bargaining, Virginia, the 7^th wealthiest state in the nation pays its teachers a salary $5351 below the national average.

Because we have no collective bargaining, Virginia’s teachers pay up to $13,809 out of pocket for family health insurance.

Because we have no collective bargaining, we cannot protect our children from large class sizes and inadequate learning materials.

The lack of collective bargaining weakens my association, making us less effective in our advocacy for children and public education.

Sometimes, I am proud to champion the Virginia way. In regard to collective bargaining, it is clear that Wisconsin should not go the Virginia way.

Workers in Wisconsin and, yes, workers in Virginia deserve the dignity and respect they gain when they sit across the table from management to discuss wages, benefits and working conditions.

I stand with the teachers of Wisconsin, and I stand against the billionaires driving Scott Walker and his buddies who are trying to destroy America’s middle class, America’s public servants, and America’s public schools.

2011 General Assembly Update

It has been a long time since I last posted anything. Indeed, the times between postings seem to grow longer and longer. I think it is the result of my busy travel schedule and my not being sure these days exactly what I should report.

As tomorrow is Crossover Day at the General Assembly, however, it seems appropriate to touch on some of what is happening in that august body during this 2011 session. For more detailed information, however, you should check out Rob Jones' daily blog at http://www.veadailyreports.com. Rob keeps a daily update on that site, and it is the place to go to find out what has happened each day along the way.

For those who are not familiar with the term "Crossover Day" with regard to the operation of the General Assembly, it means that we are half way through this session, and all of the bills that have survived the subcommittee, committee, and House or Senate votes in their respective houses now go to the "other house" to be dealt with. The bills that have made it through the entire process in the House will go to the Senate and vice versa.

By the end of the session, those bills that have made it through each respective House successfully and are ultimately signed by the Governor go into law.

I have to say that what I have been struck by so far in this session is the fact that the House of Delegates, in particular, have been working hard to bring about new legislation that impact K-12 education, but they have been equally determined not to attach any money to any of the bills that they have proposed or passed. As a result, someone told me the other day that there are 15 unfunded mandates that have been passed though the House so far. Should they all survive the Senate, they will create any number of hardships on local school divisions as they scramble to implement them without any resources for doing so.

One perfect example is a well-intentioned but deeply flawed bill that would mandate that every school division offer an average 150 minutes of physical education every week. The intent is laudable. No one argues the logic that our kids need to be more active and more physically fit. Childhood obesity is a huge health concern and everyone shares that concern from First Lady Michelle Obama to this writer. But this writer is also familiar with the intricacies of the school day and the problems that such a law will create for superintendents and principals if it is signed into law which it seems bound to do so far.

First, because it requires "physical education" and not just "recess" there is an implied need, at least, that more physical education teachers may need to be hired--but there is no money for that. There is also the concern about the impact on the school day and the negative--and presumably unintended--consequence that it may hurt art and music programs since the school day will not be lengthened...there is certainly no money for that!

Small school divisions are already struggling trying to make ends meet. This well intended but flawed legislation just makes it that much harder.

And this is just one of a dozen or more examples of well-intentioned legislation that may become the law of the land but will not be funded in any way. Personally, I think there should be a moratorium on laws impacting K-12 education until funding is fully restored...but that's just me.

This session has been fraught with concerns about legislation that has been proposed and is being passed, with the Governor's initiatives as he continues to push for charter schools, virtual schools, lab schools, and pay-for-performance plans that have no grounding in research. If I sound discouraged, I guess I am. (Maybe that is why I haven't posted much since the session began.)

The good news is that our Government Relations staff and Lobby Cadre are working tirelessly as always on behalf of our members, and while we are not always happy with what is going on, at least we KNOW what is going on, and we are the ONLY group advocating on behalf of the public school employees and students who work in and attemd our public schools every single day.

So, if you are a member of the VEA, thank you and rest assured that you are being well represented.

If you are a yet-to-be member of the VEA, please join with us. We need every public school employee to join with us in the fight for public education. We are, in fact, in a fight for the very survival of public education in Virginia and in this country, and we cannot afford to lose.

Until next time,

Kitty

3% Now Initiative is Kicked Off

(This article may also be found on the VEA website at http://www.veanea.org.)

VEA Will Fight for 3-Percent Pay Increase

Flanked by presidents of six local Associations and VEA Vice-President Meg Gruber, VEA President Dr. Kitty Boitnott Wednesday told reporters that VEA will seek a 3-percent salary increase for public school employees in the upcoming session of the General Assembly.

"It is time for the Commonwealth of Virginia to step up and provide state funds for a modest salary increase for Virginia's hardworking school employees," Boitnott told reporters at a press conference in Richmond.

VEA is calling on the General Assembly to budget the state's share of a salary increase for every public school employee covered under the Standards of Quality (SOQ). That includes teachers and other education professionals as well as hourly workers.

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Take a Look! Make sure to check out VEA's video and photo coverage of the news conference.

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During the news conference, Boitnott pointed out that many school employees are working their third consecutive year without a pay increase, and some, due to furloughs or increases in health insurance premiums, are earning less.

"As I travel the state, I meet educators every day who share their stories of hardships," she said. "They are doing exactly what the Governor and the Secretary of Education asked them to do last year at the end of the General Assembly session. They are doing more with less. But they are fast reaching the point of diminishing returns."

In response to a reporter's question, Boitnott said low pay and a lack of respect are making teaching a less attractive profession. That's especially alarming given that the Virginia Retirement System reported that the number of school employees opting to retire this year went up 43 percent. "Teaching is becoming less and less attractive as a career," she said. "We need to address that and address it fast." A 3-percent pay increase is a necessary step, but more steps will be required to move Virginia teachers toward the national average in pay, she said. Virginia teachers now lag the national average in teacher pay by $5,351.

The next session of the General Assembly kicks off January 12, 2011. To see VEA's complete Legislative Agenda, click here. And if you have not already done so, be sure to send your message to your state representatives supporting our 3-percent pay initiative. Click here to get started. It only takes a few minutes, and your support is critical!

Read Boitnott's full statement here.

Photo: Dr. Kitty Boitnott is joined by Vice President Meg Gruber and local Association presidents at Dec. 8 news briefing. From left: Dominic Melito (Virginia Beach), Wanda Perkins (Arlington), Angela Dews (Richmond), Boitnott, Gruber, Michael Hairston (Fairfax), Bonnie Klakowicz (Prince William), and Frank Cardella (Chesterfield).

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is just two days away, and I felt the need to post and wish everyone who happens to read this a happy, safe, and heartwarming Thanksgiving Day and weekend. I will be traveling to visit with family and friends on Turkey Day, but I will have a chance to rest up and rejuvenate a bit over the weekend before heading off to Washington, DC for a meeting and then getting ready for the December NEA Super Week.

November has been another busy month--but they are all busy with a rhythm that varies depending on the time of year. The month of November is the month during which state leaders gather for a national meeting of the National Council of State Education Affiliates (NCSEA). This year's NCSEA fall leadership conference was held in Miami Beach, and from Virginia, I was joined by Vice President, Meg Gruber, NEA Senior Director, Lee Dorman, and Executive Director, Philip Forgit.

The focus of this year's conference was what to expect in light of the November 2 elections and the political landscape that is likely to emerge as a result of those elections.

This is also the month that the Board of Directors meets for their second annual meeting of the year, and we gathered this past weekend at the Wyndham Virginia Center Crossings. We dealt with a number of important issues, not the least of which was the upcoming budget and our current fiscal condition. We had a great discussion and made some important recommendations that will be taken under review for discussion at our next meeting in January.

As November winds down and December starts, we enter the holiday season and lots of us will be taking time to reflect on the current year which will be passing away and starting another new year.

There is no doubt that our members are feeling less than cheerful about a variety of things that are taking place in the public arena. This fall's release of the so-called documentary, "Waiting for Superman" added to by Oprah's somewhat thoughtless embrace of the anti-teacher rhetoric made this fall a tough time for dedicated teachers who feel that no one is mindful of the sacrifices that they are making.

Our teachers and support personnel are feeling the crunch of less pay and more work. They are, in fact, doing just what the Governor and the Secretary of Education asked them to do last year...doing more with less. As I travel the state and talk to our members and leaders, I am mindful, however, of the toll that this mammoth effort is taking on them.

For the next few days and weeks, I hope that you will be able to find comfort and solace in knowing that you ARE appreciated for your sacrifices, and it is during this time that we need one another more than ever. If the general public doesn't support us, at least we can support each other...and that is what our organization is all about any way, isn't it? We have joined with one another because we believe in public education, and we wish to offer support to one another in a way that we cannot experience when we are not part of a collective whole.

As I sign off, please know that as your president, I am grateful for every single member--and I feel proud and privileged to serve you in this capacity during this difficult period in history.

As you celebrate Thursday's day of gratitude, please remember, "Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart." ~Seneca

Until next time.

Kitty

P. S.

The photograph above is of a new sign that was just installed in front of the VEA Headquarters at 116 South 3rd Street this week. It is BEAUTIFUL!