AR Training

Just as school started, Duran came to Smith County to host an AR training for his western counties. Macon, Dekalb, Jackson, and Smith County Education Associations were invited to Cornerstone Cafe in Gordonsville for dinner and training. Smith and Dekalb attended the meeting.

We discussed the changes in application forms, new member drives, and membership grants. We did several exercises on ways excite our members. One of the exercises included putting questions in a balloon and letting us pick a balloon to pop. We then had to answer the questions inside the balloon. It was a great way to do a review. All of us thought it would be a good method to repeat in our classrooms, but a little noisy. Elementary and middle school kids would love it!

Hope everyone has had a great school year start.

COAT Training

It seems like we met a lot of times for training this summer. Carol and Tracy went to a COAT training at Cookeville High School. The training involved five uniserv districts - a rarity. Duran and the uniserv coordinators around the Upper Cumberland area have been working overtime to keep us up to date.

This training gave us information about competing organizations. We picked up a lot of great information and were able to talk to surrounding county associations. The networking alone makes it worthwhile to attend a meeting.

Ronnie Clemmons from TEA Headquarters was in attendance at the meeting. He always adds a little sparkle to the meeting.Tracy participated in a skit with Jeff Garrett (PLT Uniserv Coordinator). I was the member of the association being approached by the competition. It was nice to be able to put into practice all of the information they had given us. I think if Jeff had given me a little more time, I would have signed him up. :)

If anyone would like to attend a TEA training, please contact your AR. It is a great experience, a lot of information will be given, door prizes will be handed out (Duran is always good for a gallon of gas $5), and a great meal is always on hand.

The next training is on the Framework for Evaluation, August 21 at Cookeville High School, 4:30 pm. If you would like to attend, RSVP Duran ( dwilliams@tea.nea.org ) Tracy is attending the training. Contact her if you'd like a ride. Email address is on the right of the blog.  

Three District Membership Meeting

Denise and Tracy represented SCEA and joined 25 other association reps at the July Tri-District Membership meeting. Uniserv Districts Seven, Nine and Twelve met at Fairfield Glade's new convention center to discuss new membership opportunities and benefits. 

The members heard from the NEAMB cadre representative from Oak Ridge. Alex gave out NEAMag cards which enables members to receive a free magazine from NEA if you register by mail and two free magazines if you register online. (Contact Tracy for the online website) Representatives from A+ Insurance discussed discounts members receive on home and auto insurance, Horace Mann representatives discussed growing your money, and Wells Fargo described ways to save money on home purchases. It was very informative.

Each uniserv coordinator discussed ways to help members through professional development opportunities and ways to reach new teachers in our counties. Donna Jerden discussed the generational issues that exist and the ways each generation communicates. This blog is a direct result of her discussion.  Duran discussed the new COAT training that was happening in just a few days. Carol and Tracy attended that training and I'll post about that soon. 

The morning was very informative and was capped off with a nice lunch and door prizes. I won a lovely little lunch bag and Denise won a big basket of office supplies. (Can you tell I'm jealous?) It was a great meeting and we'd love to share information with anyone interested.

If you'd like to attend one of these meetings with us, just let us know. We will be having another meeting later in the fall.

NEA RA

Delegates gathered gather July 1 through July 6 at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC for the Association's 146th Annual Meeting and 87th Representative Assembly.

Tracy was among 280 Tennessee delegates. She served as state delegate. Each morning the Tennessee delegation met at their Bethesda, MD from 7 to 9 for their daily caucus. They discussed 83 new business items, 15 new legislative items and numerous resolutions as part of the RA business.
Delegates heard from the Friend of Education award winner Barbara Morgan, NASA's first teacher in space. The assembly also welcome the 2008 Teacher of the Year Michael Geisen and the 2008 ESP of the Year Laura Vernon. Each speaker was very inspiring and made you proud to be a member of the education profession.

This was President Reg Weaver's last Representative Assembly and the delegates elected Dennis Van Roekel as the new President and Lily Eskelsen as Vice President of the NEA. Tennessee's delegation heard from these candidates as well as those running for Secretary-Treasurer, Executive Committee and ESP at Large during the morning caucuses. Candidate elections were exciting and Tracy was the state contact for Donna De Kraai's campaign for Executive Committee.

Tracy also served as the state contact for the Utah delegation and exchanged items from Tennessee with the Utah delegate. The Utah delegation was having a great RA, their candidate for V-P Lily won the election.

Summer Happenings

The Smith County Education Association (SCEA) sponsored a School Board Candidate Forum on July 8, 2008 at the Smith County Chamber of Commerce Building.  All candidates were invited to attend.  Candidates were:  Karen Shoulders, District 1 (opposition not present); Dick Fulton and Chris McCall, District 2;  Sonja Hammonds, District 7 (current board member not present) and Tommy Manning (running unopposed) from District 5.  Each candidate made an opening and closing statement. 

Questions that had been submitted by members of SCEA were presented to the candidates concerning: open meetings, rotating Board of Education (BOE) meetings to different schools, their favorite teacher and subject,  evaluations of the Director of Schools, his job extensions and taking applications for the position, changing board policies and opening board policy up to the public or posting it on line.  Mr. Manning expressed surprise that the board policy was not on line since the BOE had paid the Tenn. School Board Association to do so a couple of years ago.  Several candidates also expressed new ideas to add to the effectiveness of the Smith County Board of Education.  All the candidates present spoke positively about the schools, students and teachers of Smith County.

The Smith County Education Association hopes to continue forums in the future to help promote awareness of education in Smith County .