Watch Dr. Sheila Simmons, Director of , talk about collaboration and engaging educators, administrations and the community to achieve results during her testimony to the West Contra Costa School Board in Richmond, California.
The National Education Association hosted a National Summit on Family, School, and Community Engagement last week in Alexandria, Va where educators, education leaders, parents, family and community activists, business leaders and representatives of the faith community met for two days of small group and panel discussions.
Participants shared success stories and discussed the challenges faced with strengthening the bonds between families, communities and their public schools. Parents work hard and don’t have much time to visit their childrens’ classrooms. Sometimes there are language barriers between educators and families. Legislators don’t prioritize family and community involvement as highly as they should. Some educators could use more training in reaching out to parents. In other cases, the education system has changed so much since the parents were in school, they simply don’t understand it anymore. read more »
By Cynthia Kain
We rarely miss/pass up an opportunity to network with other public education advocates. And this week, dozens of educators, school board members, after school program directors, administrators, foundation officers, etc etc attending the Congressional Black Caucus annual legislative conference came together to share ideas and strategies around Transforming Public Education for African-American Youth.
The challenges facing African American students and in particular black male youth is. At we received yet another reminder this summer. The Schott Foundation said out of 50 states one half have grad rates below the national average. No one at the gathering needed to be reminded of the
Instead the focus was what’s working that could be scaled up? What are the right policies states/school districts should adopt. What needs to happen at individual schools? What role do parents play? What can students do to take charge of their own education?
The central question for the Priority Schools campaign? Can our work in Priority Schools make an impact with black youth? Can what educators in schools that some would rather write off turn things around for black youth? Big question. What do you think?
The average teacher spends $356 a year out of his or her own pocket on classroom supplies. The items run the gamut from hands-on activities to improve learning to school supplies for students.
The spending can be particularly heavy for teachers at lower-income priority schools, where students often show up for school without the most basic supplies, such as pens and paper.
NEA’s Priority Schools Campaign is rewarding the generosity of teachers everywhere with a new contest designed to help five lucky teachers recover some of the money they spent this year on classroom supplies.
How can you participate? Just visit the and post some of the things you purchased for your classroom this year. You can post a list or even a photo.
Then, from Monday, September 13, through Friday, September 17, each day at 5:00 p.m. EST the Priority Schools Campaign will randomly draw a winner for a $100 Staples gift card.
To participate in the contest now, just visit the .
Participation is not required. To be eligible for the prize drawing without participating in the contest, e-mail priorityschools@nea.org
A nice piece on PSC in the September edition of , the magazine of Education International, based in Brussels. EI is a global union federation, including NEA, of 348 member organizations in 169 countries. One of the largest labor organizations in the world, EI advocates for quality public education for all, defends international human rights standards with a focus on labor rights, and helps generate understanding and action regarding the lives and working conditions of more than 30 million teachers and other education employees around the world. The piece was written by Tim Walker, a staffer with NEA Interactive Media, who has covered international affairs extensively for NEA, including reporting on the ground in Morocco covering educator efforts to rescue students from child labor situations. read more »