President's Welcome
APRIL UPDATE & PRESIDENT’S LETTER
April 15, 2010
Dear Delegates and Association Presidents,
As a result of combining the APRIL UPDATE and President’s Letter, this communication will be longer than one page. As always there have been many changes since our February meeting and they will be dispersed through this document.
All the delegates and their Presidents of our member association are welcome to attend our May 14th meeting. Please make arrangements to stay for the whole meeting. In the morning we will start off with NYSCEA business which will include: vote on adding a new member, wiki and website updates, recognitions, budget and opening up for nominations for Treasurer.
The forms for the position of Treasurer are found on the website home page www.nyscea.com.
One part of my presidential platform was to invite as many people to the meeting that meet the NYSCEA requirements as possible. Our constitutional membership requirements under NYSCEA BYLAWS are:
ARTICLE I. MEMBERSHIP REQUIREMENTS
Section 1. To be eligible for consideration as a member of the Council, a professional organization must provide evidence that it sustains a major interest in statewide policy for strengthening the quality of education, and, that a majority of its members are teachers, supervisors, administrators, and other professionals in the schools and colleges of New York State.
Section 2. Any organization seeking membership on the Council shall give evidence that it is not an umbrella group consisting of any current member organizations currently represented in NYSCEA
Section 3. Application for membership shall include a copy of the constitution of the organization seeking membership, a roster of itsleadership, and a breakdown of its membership by numbers on the application form.
Section 4. Members of the Delegate Assembly shall have the opportunity to study the membership application prior to its consideration on the formal agenda of the business meeting.
Jeremy Johannesen, Executive Director of New York State Alliance for Arts Education was invited as a guest in February. He liked what he saw and submitted a membership application. The NYSAAE membership application is attached. Our NYSCEA Constitution states:
Section 2, New Membership: Any statewide professional organization whose interests are wholly educational may be admitted to membership by two-thirds vote of the members providing such an organization has met the requirements of Article 1 of the Bylaws.
The next step is for a vote at the May meeting.
Member Carol Geddis thanks for giving us another lead on a potential member. If there are any other professional organizations that meet our criteria please let me or Dennis Tosetto, Past President, know so we can invite them to one of our meetings.
Continuing our morning session, we are excited to have Commissioner Steiner, Ira Schwartz and Alysan Slighter. In the afternoon we will have associations interacting with each other on your requested interest areas. The May, 2010 Agenda, is attached. Please bring the agenda to the meeting.
Another part of my presidential platform was to have NYSCEA and our member associations recognized as viable educational partners. On April 4, 2010, I had a phone conversation with the Commissioner. He said “I am always delighted to recognize efforts on behalf of improving education for our NYS students in ways that are appropriate and meaningful.” Furthermore he said that I could always contact him by e mail and that he would get back to me. What a nice way to start our working relationship with the Commissioner. Thanks, Commissioner.
After sharing our website, www.nyscea.org, the Commissioner said he would look into having a link from SED to our NYSCEA website. Under the Members tab there is a list of the websites of all the member associations and under the Member Events there is list of member conferences and dates. I discussed how our pre-service teachers and new teachers are unaware of the professional organizations that it would be a tremendous resource for them but that we did not know how to get this information to them. I asked for the Commissioner’s assistance and he said he would look into this for us. Wouldn’t it be great if all our pre-service and new teachers became part of a professional organization where they could get resources, share their successes and failures with others, learn about what is new in their field, receive professional development, and the like????
The Teacher Standards Committee has yet to meet. I have asked Joe Frey, Deputy Commissioner-Office of Higher Education, how can NYSCEA and I help him out and that NYSCEA has 40 organizations that represent a wide variety of professional educational associations. Joe is doing a presentation to the Regents in April on this matter and will let us know how we might assist.
We continue to work on the Governor’s Summit and have had a phone conference call to continue working on the process of having the disconnected youth re-entry into school, community and society a successful venture.
I would like to thank the group under David Payton who generated questions, the members on wiki and those that submitted questions to me directly. I tried my best to consolidate them under topics and to use as many as possible. The 23 questions were listed under – general, teacher preparation, SED personnel, curriculum/instruction/assessment, middle school, high school, charter schools and budget. A sample: a personnel question was generated not only by the group but also by the winter 2010 survey is:
10. Some of our associations have reported on the lack of knowledgeable SED resource people and associates within their field. What can the New York State Education Department do to facilitate the hiring of associates so that each standards area has the appropriate resource personnel available to the teachers and their associations? In addition, due to budget constraints, there are concerns about the subject area and assessment associates attending the annual professional organizations conferences. How might this concern be resolved?
The Commissioner has not only agreed to answer these questions before the May 14th meeting but also will answer any questions you have at the meeting. I will post these questions and answers before we meet so as to avoid duplicating questions.
Based upon the delegate comments and the success of the delegates interacting, there will be a time for you to meet in five distinct groups addressing topics of the associations working together, professional development, the disconnected youth, mathematics and ELA. Through the good effort of Anne Schiano and her office, we will be the first to hear about the Core Standards in math and ELA. NYSCEA appreciates Anne Schaino and wish her well in her retirement.
I ask you to pick one group. There will be a limit of how many members per group. Please identify your first, second and third choice by e mailing me at grace.wilkie@gmail.com. Do not use the NYSCEA list serv to give your choices.
You will meet and discuss the issue with the group leader. The group leader will come back to the group and report what occurred during your session. Thanks to effort of Pat Barbanell, the wikis are up and working and group discussions can continue after the meeting. I need a group leader for the Group G – ELA. If interested please let me know. The groups are:
Group A: ASSOCIATIONS SHARING INFORMATION
Continue the conversation about the most effective ways for our associations to share information regarding keynote speakers, attendance at conferences, conference contracts, and what works with your association (group leader: Eleanor Sicluna)Group C: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Associations tackle this task to be inclusive of the whole learner and the connection to the PD for teachers and administrators and continue their discussion from February 2010 (group leader: Elizabeth Sheffer)Group D: DISCONNECTED YOUTH
How are educational organizations sharing information about the instructional opportunities and challenges of working with the disconnected youths?
(group leader: Jim Viola)NYSCEA will assist SED with rolling out theCommon Core Standards for mathematics and ELA.
Group F: MATHEMATICS
John Svendsen, SED mathematics subject specialist
This session will include an overview of the Board of Regents Common Core State Standards review and adoption process, including an update on recommendations for an additional 15%. During this session, we will discuss tools that are needed to support implementation of the new standards and gather feedback from the NYSCEA delegates. (group leader: Mary Altieri)Group G: ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS
Erik Sweet, SED ELA subject specialist:
This session will include an overview of the Board of Regents Common Core State Standards review and adoption process, including an update on recommendations for an additional 15%. During this session, we will discuss tools that are needed to support implementation of the new standards and gather feedback from the NYSCEA delegates.
David Payton’s group suggested that we compile information regarding each association within one page which included contact information, mission, description of the organization, and the major initiatives. The following associations have given me their association paper: CAES, CSAANYS, NYSAFLT, NYSASCD, NYSASN, NYSATA, NYSAHPERD, NYSCATE, NYSEMTA, NYSMSA, NYSSMA, NYSTEA, NYSWECA, SAANYS, and STANYS. If you are not on the list please submit to me before April 30th at grace.wilkie@gmail.com. I have attached the Association Template and a sample from NYSASN. The Commissioner will receive a compilation at the May meeting.
As many of you know next year we will be celebrating our 40th Anniversary. Regretfully many of the documents have not been found. If anyone knows where the charter is, any past presidents names/years served/how to contact them and any old minutes I would appreciate you forwarding them to me.
Some favors:
NYSCEA’s Constitution makes no note of a handbook but there has been a suggestion to have one. There are some areas are easy to do (i.e. descriptions of peoples’ jobs) that but others areas are not. One area deals with you the delegates and I would appreciate your input – tell me if it is fine, if not what you feel would make it better. The topic, NYSCEA Taking a Position, is attached. Remember is it only a draft at this time. The Board will review your input over the summer. We hope to distribute the first NYSCEA Handbook in the fall.
A new and better website is coming soon. As I was looking over everything that would move to the new website I read a document called Motion to Adopt Resolution. I would also like for you to review it. Regrettably I do not have any past minutes showing this motion so I think it would be best to reaffirm the motion or reword it. The topic, Motion to Adopt Resolution, is attached.
I hope you and your family are well and that the school year is going well.
Looking forward to see you on May 14th,
Sincerely
Grace Wilkie
President of NYSCEA 2009-2010