Be Very, Very Careful
in Cyberspace
As an educator, you are entitled to enjoy a personal life outside of school and to express your opinions in person and online. That said, because you work with children and young adults and are seen as a role model in the community, you are held to high standards regarding your public behavior and online activities. Here’s a little advice:

Social networking websites. The opportunity for self-expression on the Internet is limitless. Countless websites, including MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and Live Journal, provide interactive networks complete with user profiles, photos, blogs, chat rooms, videos, e-mail, bulletin boards, text messaging and even voice telephony (i.e., live talk).

What you say in cyberspace – about yourself, about your job, about your beliefs, about your activities – is easy for others to find and read. In an increasingly digital world, the line between what is public and what is private, between your professional life and your personal life, is no longer clear.

If you create your own Web page or post comments in cyberspace, remember your role as a teacher or school staff member. Yes, you are entitled to have a private life away from school. Still, your off-duty conduct can affect your job security. Anyone can browse your personal Web page or your blog. Websites such as MySpace.com cannot guarantee your privacy or your anonymity. Posted comments are public comments. You may intend your posts to be for your own personal community of friends, but you are also speaking, in effect, to everyone in the school community, including administrators, parents and students. Even if you have set your page to “private,” people with access to it can download pictures or comments and forward them to others via e-mail. Stay in bounds!

Remember: You are speaking publicly when you enter your viewpoints into the digital world. Many employers search the Internet for employee postings. Students can find your statements. On the Internet, the line between your professional world and your private world can be hard to draw. Think before you post!

E-mail tips. Electronic communication with students and parents is increasingly a part of the educator’s job. Whether you are e-mailing during the day on the school network or from home after the school day, your e-mail correspondence should remain respectful, courteous, professional, to-the-point, clear and unambiguous.

Think before you send—e-mail is permanent (once sent, it’s not easily deleted); easily duplicated; and not private (on a school network, your e-mail is easy to access).

Internet use. Most educators have Internet access on the job, so your online activities must always be above reproach and appropriate to your role at school. The computer as an instructional tool has vast application and potential. By contrast, using a school computer to pursue personal interests may or may not be permitted in your school division. If it is, do so wisely and cautiously.

Where We Need Help
Each year, Virginia’s General Assembly requires the state’s Department of Education to file a report on critical teaching shortage areas in Virginia. Here are the 10 areas that were of greatest need for the 2007-08 school year:

1. Special education (speech and language disorders; learning disabilities; emotional disturbance; mental retardation; early childhood special education; visual impairment; hearing impairment; severe disabilities)
2. Elementary education, preK-6
3. Mathematics, 6-12
4. Middle grades, 6-8
5. Career and technical education
6. Foreign languages (Spanish and French, preK-12)
7. Health and physical education, preK-12
8. English, 6-12
9. English as a second language, preK-12
10.  School counselor, preK-12

See the World on a
Fulbright Exchange
The U.S. Department of State-sponsored Fulbright Teacher Exchange arranges direct, one-to-one international exchanges to numerous countries for K-12 teachers in all subject areas. The program involves a year, semester or six-week exchange with a counterpart in another country who teaches the same subject at the same level. The application deadline for the 2009-10 school year is October 15, 2008. For more information, visit www.fulbrightexchanges.org.

Contest Gives Students
Chance to Honor Veterans
To honor the service of our nation’s men and women in uniform, the Paralyzed Veterans of America is holding its fifth annual national poster and essay contest for students in grades 1-8. This year’s theme is “Veterans: Thank You for Your Service,” and offers young people an opportunity to hone their skills while expressing their thanks for the contributions of our veterans.

The poster contest is for students in grades 1-4 and will be separated into two categories for judging: 1-2 and 3-4. Likewise, the essay contest is open to students in grades 5-8 and will be divided into 5-6 and 7-8.

Grand prize winners will receive an expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C. for Veterans Day. For details, visit www.pva.org.

Parent Center Offers
Help for Families
Since 1978, the Parent Educational Advocacy Training Center (PEATC) has offered a variety of resources, primarily but not exclusively, for families in Virginia with children with disabilities. PEATC’s mission is to help families find their way through the education and social service systems, effectively communicate their child’s needs, manage the many tasks facing families, and hone advocacy skills.

To find guidance for families on such topics as special education, No Child Left Behind, school-to-adult transitions, literacy, parent/school communication, inclusion and cultural competency, visit the Center’s website at www.peatc.org.

PEATC offers training and has offices in Northern Virginia and Richmond, along with teams around the state.

Contest Encourages Students to ‘Think
Outside the Bubble’
The National Museum of Education and the Sealed Air Corporation are looking for America’s next great young inventor—and interested students will get to try to invent something using a material they’ll enjoy tinkering with: bubble wrap. It’s the Bubble Wrap Competition for Young Inventors and it’s a chance for students in grades 5-8 to show how creative they can be in coming up with an invention that incorporates the use of bubble wrap.

Prizes, including a tip to New York City and U.S. savings bonds, are up for grabs, and the sponsoring teacher can also win a $500 gift card.

For more information on the contest, visit the National Museum of Education’s website at www.nmoe.org. Deadline for entries is November 3, 2008.

Educators Receive VEA Mini-Grants
VEA’s Division of Instruction and Professional Development has announced the winners of the 2008-09 Mini-Grants. The following members have earned grants ranging from $500 to $1,000 to fund classroom projects:

Jennifer Whitenack of the Albemarle Education Association and Baker-Butler Elementary School, for “Hardtack and Hardee's Tactics: Life as a Civil War Soldier.”

Elisa Alexander of the Fairfax Education Association and Mt. Eagle Elementary School, for “Got Books?”

Alma Haygood of the Fairfax Education Association and Mt. Vernon Woods Elementary School, for “Supporting the School-Home Literacy Connection: Learning to Read with KEEP Books.”

Jackie Sipple of the Fredericksburg Education Association and Hugh Mercer Elementary School, for “Blazing a Trail to Investigate Math & Science.”

Julie Foster of the Harrisonburg Education Association and Harrisonburg Public Schools, for “Mugs and More”

Jesse Senechal of the Richmond Education Association and Armstrong High School, for  “Community Action Research Project.”

Lisa Johnson of the Russell County Education Association and Honaker Elementary/Middle School, for “Board Book Collection.”

Sue McCloud of the Stafford Education Association and Colonial Forge High School, for “Ready, Set, Speak!”

Regional Legislative
Workshops Coming
In preparation for some of the key issues that will be debated during the 2009 session of the General Assembly, VEA’s Division of Government Relations is holding nine regional pre-legislative workshops in October and November. Here are the dates and locations—for specifics, contact your local UniServ office.
     Oct. 6       Hampton
     Oct. 7       Norfolk
     Oct. 9       Fairfax
     Oct. 20     Abingdon
     Oct. 21     Roanoke/Salem
     Oct. 22     Staunton
     Nov. 10    Brunswick
     Nov. 12    Richmond
     Nov. 17    Danville

NEA Grants
Available on Rolling Basis
The NEA Foundation offers two primary grants to Association members: Student Achievement Grants and Learning & Leadership Grants. Here’s some information on the grants and how to get them.

Student Achievement Grants:
• Fund projects that promote innovation and engage students in critical thinking, inquiry and self-directed learning.
• Consist of $5,000; about 75 are awarded annually.
Learning & Leadership Grants:
• Support high-quality professional development opportunities, such as summer institutes and action research.
• Consist of $2,000 for individuals and $5,000 for groups; about 75 are awarded annually.

PreK-12 teachers and education support professionals are eligible for NEA Foundation grants; applications are accepted throughout the year and are reviewed three times annually—beginning February 1, June 1 and October 15.

Tips for writing effective grant applications and further information are available on the NEA Foundation’s website at www.neafoundation.org. You’ll also find brief descriptions of previous grant-winners’ projects there.

Hampton Honored
for Partnership
Together, we can: In a program called “Teachers Helping Teachers,” the Hampton Education Association joined forces with Hampton Public Schools to help the city attract and retain high-quality teachers. Their efforts have been so successful that the program was one of only six nationally to earn a 2008 NEA-Saturn/UAW Partnership Award, which recognizes exemplary partnerships between local education associations and school districts.

When “Teachers Helping Teachers” began, Hampton was facing the challenge of bringing large numbers of new teachers on board. The program eased their way by providing a retired teacher to serve as a mentor, and offered an on-site mentor as well. For their work in helping new teachers, building mentors received a stipend and points toward relicensure, and retired teachers received a stipend. The results were impossible to ignore, as the teacher retention rate at the city’s “hard-to-staff” schools climbed to 97 percent and the achievement levels of new teachers’ students equaled those of the veterans.

The award was presented just prior to the NEA convention in Washington, D.C. last summer.

Materials from NBC News

Teachers Get Some Good Ink
TeachersCount has launched a poster campaign pairing celebrities and their favorite teachers, using the tagline “Behind Every Famous Person Is a Fabulous Teacher.” Over 20 notable people from the fields of film, television, music, sports, business and public service were photographed with a teacher they identified as having most affected their growth and development. Among those featured are actor Tony Shalhoub, weatherman Al Roker, singer Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, First Lady Laura Bush, and actress America Ferrara.

To check out the posters, visit www.teacherscount.org/campaign. For information on how you can get some copies for free, e-mail info@teacherscount.org.

Curriculum Looks
at Global Warming
In the media, in the election campaigns, in the classroom—the topic of global warming is a hot one in lots of places. The National Wildlife Federation, in an effort to provide sound information on the subject, has created a new climate change curriculum for educators and students in grades 4-12 that is designed to help them not only gather information, but to take action.

The curriculum, called Climate Classroom, offers:
• Lesson plans and cooperative community projects
• Alignment with science teaching standards
• Adaptable classroom activities
• Tips on where to find further resources and strategies for involving others in solving the problem.

To see Climate Classroom, which is available for free, visit www.climateclassroom.org.

NBC News Materials
Available Online
You may have seen it on the news, now you can see it in your classroom. NBC News Archives on Demand is a collection of thousands of primary source digital media resources created and organized to be used in instruction. And it’s free to teachers and students.

Materials cover decades, and can be used in history, government, civics, journalism, English, writing and science classes. The archive is searchable, and materials are added daily to keep the compilation current. Special sections include Decision 08, Black History Month, Women’s Studies, Global Studies, Forensic Science and more.

To learn more, visit www.hotchalk.com/nbc.html.

Freebies from the Feds
The federal government offers a wide range of teaching and learning resources at no cost through a special website, www.free.ed.gov.

The site organizes more than 1,500 lesson plans and other items from sources such as the Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution, NASA, National Archives, National Gallery of Art, National Endowment for the Humanities, U.S. Geological Survey, National Park Service, National Institutes of Health and others.

Materials at the site can be searched by topic or by academic subject.

What we value, motivation and more

“There’s another person who should be added to this exclusive club [of people who’ve influenced us]. If we’re lucky—and many of us are—there’s at least one teacher in our lives who was able to reach us, to kindle our spark of imagination, to provide us with the tools to succeed.”
from an editorial in the Gloucester-Mathews (VA) Gazette-Journal

“The increasingly massive and far-reaching use of standardized testing is one of the most effective, if unintentional ways we have created for suppressing creativity.”
Robert Sternberg, dean, College of Arts and Sciences, Tufts University

“Learning can be brought to the levels now needed only by basically changed relationships among students, teachers and families, in which each participant first holds himself accountable for quality performance and then the others for collaborating and support in nonbureaucratic ways.”
David S. Seeley, professor, City University of New York

“I think humans will reach Mars, and I would like to see it happen in my lifetime.”
U.S. astronaut Buzz Aldrin

“If kids are worried that somebody's going to tease them or put them down or humiliate them in some way, or if they're afraid of getting beat up by somebody, they can't focus on their studies. . .Your mental state has a lot to do with how well you can concentrate."
Tom Roderick, executive director, Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility

“Schools fail not because they lack resources, or quality teachers. School influences are overwhelmed because so many children are molded by highly vulnerable and dysfunctional environments. The rhetoric of leaving no child behind has trumped reality.”
Susan B. Neuman, former assistant secretary of education for elementary and secondary education at the U.S. Department of Education

"Everybody is motivated by challenge and solving problems, and we don't make use of that in schools enough. Project-based learning gives everybody a chance to sort of mimic what scientists do, and that's exciting. And it's fun if it's done well."
Bruce Alberts, president, National Academy of Sciences

“We have to market ourselves as the professionals we are. Some folks have the idea that teachers are still Charlie Brown's wa-wa-wa-ing lecturers, whacking kids with yard sticks if they misbehave. But we know real teachers are committed professionals who believe in purposeful instruction and who have our students' best interests at heart. As we speak to others, in the grocery store or by the neighborhood pool, we must embody that professionalism.”
Cindi Rigsbee, North Carolina’s 2008 Teacher of the Year

by Gary Orfield

We have become a nation that accepts separate and unequal schools as if nothing can be done about segregation. As a nation, we expect our schools to create equal outcomes for students who leave their homes severely disadvantaged by family and community poverty, who arrive at their schools to find sometimes unqualified or inexperienced teachers, and who leave those schools as soon as they can. This double and triple segregation has become far worse since the U.S. Supreme Court began dissolving desegregation plans 16 years ago—a dissolution that continues to deepen and intensify segregation. Across 21st-¬century America, segregation has reached levels for millions of students once found only in the Old South. It has produced schools that require massive resources to offer the kinds of opportunities and instruction routinely available to students in privileged schools and communities.

In our cities we now have many schools with black and Latino students who are almost entirely poor and teachers who have little or no help in addressing the consequences of deep tensions that often exist in neighborhoods heavily affected by immigration, gangs and other issues. We are currently in the midst of a vast migration of the black and Latino middle class to suburban school districts, districts that have very little diversity in their staffs and little or no preparation to avoid the polarization, inequality and resegregation so many urban neighborhoods and schools experienced in years past. We have to work on issues of race in a nation that will soon have no majority race and where the most dramatic growth is among the population with the lowest educational levels.
 
Time to Get Serious
In a nation with 44 percent non-white students and extreme inequality in educational attainment, it’s time we address these issues as seriously as we did during the Civil Rights era. If we don’t have a plan for racial equity everywhere, and for integration where possible, we are all too likely to replicate the failures of the past. Although education policy has basically ignored the issues of racial change and integration since the Civil Rights era, no one has figured out how to make school systems separate but equal and no one has figured out how white, suburban, middle ¬class teachers are to work effectively with students of color and linguistic minority students in complex, changing, interracial settings without good profes¬sional training. Doing educational reform while ignoring the fundamental cleavages in society is profoundly counterproductive. We need a new civil rights agenda for our schools.

A first step is for educators to recognize and demand changes in the racial conditions outside the schools that make their work so much harder. Housing policy, wages policy, health care and day care are among the most urgent issues. A second is to demand that there be a civil rights agenda for our schools. A third is to develop and implement training and support plans to give the nation’s teachers the skills they need to better work with students of all backgrounds.

Educators are well aware of two things. First is that President George W. Bush was fundamentally right when he highlighted massive inequalities in education for minority students. Second was that he was fundamentally wrong in thinking it can be solved by high-¬stakes testing of children and sanctioning of schools. The NCLB law is a classic example of this latter problem.

Punishing schools serving students with the least preparation and the most negative outside influ¬ences for not having accomplished rates of gain never achieved on any scale anywhere punishes the vic¬tims of multiple segregation and encourages their staff members to leave even faster than they might normally do. But even ending or drastically modifying NCLB won’t make our schools’ racial inequality go away or create positive race relations in schools and communities. In fact, many causal state policies would remain in place. We need different, positive policies that address our racial issues, policies that respect and employ the talents of our teachers. But such policies can’t be simply about more money, nor should they lose NCLB’s good parts—such as, for example, collecting much needed data on all groups within all schools.

There is far too much evidence that simply increasing funds without using the money very carefully doesn’t change outcomes much, though money is certainly necessary to do what needs to be done. The three things that most powerfully influence educational outcomes are families, teachers and other stu¬dents who create a climate and level of competition. Curriculum, materials and many other things can, of course, make a difference, but families, teachers and other students are at the core.

Teachers Segregated, Too
A recent survey of a national sample of NEA teachers, done in collaboration with the Southern Poverty Law Center, shows that teachers are segregated, that a great many are in racially changing schools (particularly in the suburbs), that teachers believe they can and should treat all students the same, and that those in geographic areas that still have significant white populations are least prepared for the changes that are coming. Teachers sincerely want to serve all students well, but they have little support and are constantly blamed. We now know that, while more than half of Latino children in large metropolitan areas and nearly half of blacks already live outside central cities, serious segregation and inequality follow migrations of the non-white middle class. We also know that many suburban schools are ill-¬prepared for the changes currently in motion.

Treating all children the same sounds good, but it’s very problematic. Consider your own children. How effective would you think a school is where all the teachers had cultural and racial backgrounds dif¬ferent from you? Where classmates who understood your children’s background and heritage were few? Where your children faced incidents of harassment, prejudice, misunderstanding and hostility? Where no teaching took place about the positive contributions of your race or culture to the common society? Where the school passively accepted various forms of in-¬school segregation? Where your children ended up in dead¬-end classes or special education? What if your children’s school only taught classes in a lan¬guage they couldn’t understand and they had no teachers to talk to in their own tongue? I think that al¬most any parent facing such a situation would think that positive ways to address these issues were urgently important. And so they are, no matter whose children are involved.

There have been no significant federal funds to address issues of race in the schools since the Rea¬gan Administration eliminated the popular federal desegregation aid program 27 years ago. That law funded programs that involved training teachers, working on curriculum, helping students address racial divisions within schools, and other related issues. It had demonstrated success in both improving school race relations and raising achievement. Relatively simple techniques such as Student Team Learning had clear, significant, positive effects on both relationships and achievement. The program’s funding helped create many new magnet schools that were both effective and integrated, public schools with autonomy to innovate, and faculties composed of teachers committed to their special mission. These were schools with the obviously necessary civil rights provisions, including extensive outreach and recruitment tar¬geting underrepresented groups, clear desegregation standards, free transportation for all students who wanted to attend, and no rejection of students with disabilities or language issues—much better in these respects than many contemporary charter schools, which typically have no civil rights provisions and are, on average, even more segregated than public schools.

Avoiding Disaster
Yet we have used federal and state funds to expand charters, and the Supreme Court decided in 2007 to undermine key parts of the civil rights policies of hundreds of magnet schools. Teacher organi¬zations need to encourage school districts to carefully examine legal ways to pursue integrated schools, and they need to ask Congress to restore support urgently needed for managing the vast racial transition our country is currently undergoing. If we don’t figure out how to increase the graduation rates and col¬lege success of black and Latino students, major portions of America will soon experience declines in average educational levels—an economic disaster.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided in the l990s to end most desegregation orders, but many communi¬ties wanted to voluntarily maintain successful elements like magnet schools. Some, such as Louisville-¬Jefferson County, Kentucky, fought long court battles to maintain ¬successful, district-¬wide plans. Unfortunately, in a 5–4 decision in summer 2007, the Supreme Court undermined most of those plans. This forces hundreds of communities to either give up their efforts and accept much greater segregation or find the best available alternative to keeping diversity in their schools. The decision permits some lim¬ited direct use of race and it leaves other criteria for assignment—poverty, test scores, geographic diver¬sity, linguistic diversity, and many others—perfectly legal. It is important for education organizations to encourage local school boards to do the necessary work to maintain as much as possible of their success¬ful plans.

There are also provisions in federal law that could serve as a basis for positive action, such as the now empty promise of a right to transfer from a school being sanctioned under NCLB. Although this right is defined poorly and unfairly in NCLB, and good schools are often sanctioned, the idea that a stu¬dent in a persistently weak public school should be given a chance to transfer to another, stronger public school could be part of a good plan. The problem is that there are very few opportunities to transfer to better schools because the right is limited by school district lines and spaces. Many existing transfers are from one weak school to another weak school, sometimes to a weaker school from one that failed on one of NCLB’s many technicalities. This needs to be changed to stop transfers that produce no real gain and to open up transfers to definitely stronger schools, often across district lines. Similarly, charter schools, which are often independent of district lines, should be required to adopt some of the key civil rights provisions of magnet schools.
 
The resurgence and expansion of segregation haven’t happened because we’ve learned how to make separate schools equal. With rare exceptions, we haven’t. Nor has it happened because we’ve learned that desegregation and integration don’t work. In fact, we’ve never had more solid evidence about their benefits. Five hundred fifty three researchers from 201 universities and research centers pre¬sented the U.S. Supreme Court with a summary of a half ¬century of research on these issues, showing that the Court was right in Brown and that going backward deepens educational inequality. Segregation’s resurgence and expansion have happened because a very powerful and insistent legal and political cam¬paign to attack and reverse desegregation is succeeding, primarily through transforming the federal courts, the Justice Department, and the White House. This transformation is so deep that policies once considered severely inadequate to protect the rights of minority students in the Civil Rights era are now prohibited by the United States Supreme Court, and practices producing segregation once held to be constitutional violations are now approved. The coming election will be very important in the next stage of the battle over the courts and over American justice.

A Different Nation
Four decades after Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, we are a very different nation. We are a nation where the white population will become the minority in the nation’s schools in just a few years, and where nearly a fifth of public school students come from linguistic minority families. Even though there is no significant effort to desegregate our schools now, thousands of American schools, mostly in the suburbs, are going through racial and ethnic change as black and Latino families move away from central urban areas and many city schools experience displacement of one minority by another. Since teaching is the one profession that must interact effectively and in great depth with nine-¬tenths of the nation’s young people, lack of training and support means, at best, lost opportunities for deeper and more effective rela¬tionships. At worst, it means being helpless in the face of serious divisions coming into our schools from the outside community. American parents, by very large majorities, want their children to grow up un¬derstanding how to relate successfully with all groups in a diverse society. For this to happen, and for our society to avoid projecting into ever larger sectors of suburbia the kinds of poor race relations and resegregation that damaged so many urban neighborhoods, teachers must have the tools to understand and relate to students and parents from all backgrounds and to help children understand the very diverse and changing society they will live in.

Addressing these issues isn’t a luxury or an optional part of education. It goes to the core of what makes our schools and communities work. We need new dedication to addressing these issues. Younger teachers are well aware of this necessity, but often find too little support and too many pressures. There are positive models and experiences we can draw upon. They don’t take a great deal of school time or cost a lot of money, and they tend to produce real academic gains. Addressing these issues is part of the groundwork for successful education reform and community stability. It’s time we insist that these issues find a place high on the agenda of all education and community leaders.

Orfield is co-director of The Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles and an education professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. His central interest is the development and implementation of soc¬ial policy, with a focus on the impact of policy on equal opportunity for success in American society. This article is drawn from a presentation he made at NEA headquarters in Washington, D.C. as part of NEA’s Visiting Scholars program.

What Keeps Us Going

by Deborah Powers

Sometimes a heartfelt ‘thank-you’ is the best reward a teacher can get. I recently received this letter from one of my former fourth grade students who I have remained in touch with. She wrote it just before she moved to New Orleans to begin a fresh new life and college.

Dear Deb,
Do you remember my fourth grade year at Cassell Elementary School? Do you remember the stories I wrote, the books I read, the friends I made (or didn't make)? I had some good times and rough times.

One of the most influential moments that year was when I broke one of your most important rules in the classroom—no cheating. I remember it was a big test, a math test, in the middle of the day and I was using a calculator. You had told every student before administering the test that no calculators were allowed. Yet I used one. I wanted the best score on the test, the best grade in the class and, most of all, higher grades than my brother would bring home on his report card.

A few minutes into the test, you caught me using the calculator. Instead of sending me to the office or punishing me, you took me to the back of the classroom for a talk. I might have been crying—hopefully, I said I'm sorry, but you looked me straight in the eye and even got down on your knees to talk. I don't remember your exact words, but you told me that I was a bright girl and that I did not need a calculator to take the test. You asked me, "Jessica, why would you cheat and use a calculator when you already know how to answer the problems?" You reminded me of a game we had played earlier in the week and how well I answered the math problems on the blackboard without using a calculator.

You took the test that I had started, took away the calculator, and gave me a fresh, clean, unanswered test. You gave me a second chance. You didn't say another word to me for the rest of the day, but I do remember you smiling at me when I handed you my completed math test. I got on the bus that afternoon feeling really bad, thinking that you might have called my parents. But when I got home I realized that you never did, that you really gave me a second chance to prove to myself that I could do something without cheating.

The next day during math you handed back the graded tests. When you handed my test back you gave me back my calculator and whispered, "I knew you could do it." I had gotten a 100 on my test. You gave me the confidence I didn't know I had that week.

Of course, there have been many other times when you've given me the confidence to achieve my goals. But second chances are hard to come by. You let me join you in 2002 for a whole year in a mentorship. I came to you with my grievances and my heartaches, and you always made me feel better about myself.

Deb, you've been my friend for many years. I think it all started when you reached out to a scared little nine-year-old and told her, "You can do it." Of course, you've been saying that for 12 years now—Deb, when are you going to come up with something new? I'm just kidding because you did and you never realized it. And you did it in your own way, by telling me about your family in Kentucky and how well your sons are doing. You told me that, "there is life out there."

I'm going to finish college and achieve dreams and goals, but I will always be thankful for the people who have made such a difference in my life. Thank you, Deb.  I will miss you more than you'll ever know.

                                                                        Love,
                                                                        Your friend, Jessica

Powers, a member of the Augusta County Education Association, teaches at Wilson Elementary School in Fishersville.

Teens confident about future

NBPTS-Certified Teachers
Bolster Achievement
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) is more than a rigorous process that teachers can go through in order to earn an impressive credential: It also has an impact on student achievement, according to the National Research Council. An NRC report has found that students who were taught by NBPTS-certified teachers made bigger gains on achievement tests that their peers who were taught by teachers who have not earned national certification.

"Earning NBPTS certification is a useful 'signal' that a teacher is effective in the classroom," says Milton Hakel, a psychology professor at Bowling Green State University and chair of the committee that wrote the report.  "But we don't know whether the certification process itself makes teachers more effective -- as they become familiar with the standards and complete the assessment -- or if high-quality teachers are attracted to the certification process."

Future research will address that question.

Launched in 1987, NBPTS develops standards for what an effective teacher should know and be able to do. To earn certification, a teacher must complete a year-long of testing, observation and evaluation. Approximately 64,000 teachers have earned national certification from NBPTS, which calculates to only three board-certified teachers for every five U.S. schools.

NRC, part of the National Academy of Sciences, based its report on existing research and some of its own study.

First-Year Teachers Feel Need for
Diversity Training
NEW YORK—Rookie teachers enter the classroom feeling pretty confident about their ability to teach, but most feel less prepared to deal with the ethnic and racial diversity of their students, according to a joint report by the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality and Public Agenda.

Here are some highlights of the “Teaching in Changing Times” study, based on a nationwide survey of new teachers:

• 80 percent of new teachers feel either “very prepared” or “somewhat prepared” to begin their teaching careers; 81 percent of new middle school and high school teachers feel comfortable teaching their subject matter.
• 94 percent say that diversity training would be “very” or “somewhat” effective in improving teacher quality, which ranked only below reducing class size (97 percent) in the survey.
• 62 percent of new teachers say they plan to teach for a “long time”; 68 percent say they will teach for more than 10 years and only 16 percent say they plan to leave teaching in the first five years.
• When asked if they would choose a school with stronger administrative support or one that paid a significantly higher salary, 79 percent of the new teachers in the survey chose the school with better support.

Strong Relationships Help Students Make
Good Health Choices
COLUMBUS, OH—Strong relationships between students and teachers have long been known to promote better achievement and better behavior—now a report says that such relationships also help students make the life-altering behavior changes they learn in high school health classes.

For years, many high schools have been bringing in outside experts when it came time to teach sensitive topics such as HIV prevention and birth control options. But researchers at Ohio State University and the University of Kentucky have found that students learn more about such topics when they hear about them from their regular classroom teachers, because they know and trust them.
 In the study, nearly 700 high-schoolers were given the same information—some by their regular teachers and some by temporary educators—and surveyed before the class and then again several weeks after completing it.

Almost always, the students had better results with their regular teachers. There were several reasons cited by researchers: Students believed they’d be tested by their regular teachers more than by a temporary teacher and so paid better attention; they believed the information was more important when it came from their regular teachers; and they were more likely to take part in class discussions about sensitive topics with their regular teachers.

American Teens Confident
About Their Futures
WASHINGTON, D.C.—America’s teens are feeling pretty pessimistic about the future of our nation, but pretty good about their own futures as individuals, according to results from the 10th State of Our Nation’s Youth report, conducted by the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans. Some highlights of the survey:

• Just 53 percent of the just-over-1,000 high school students surveyed say they feel hopeful and optimistic about the future of the country; meanwhile, 88 percent feel “confident” and 66 percent feel “optimistic” about their own futures.
• Three-fourths of teens think the outcome of the presidential election will make a substantial difference in the nation’s direction; teens’ biggest issues are the economy and jobs (34 percent) and the war in Iraq (31 percent).
• Almost one-third (30 percent) of teens regard cyber-bullying as a bigger threat than traditional bullying.
• To prepare for success in a global economy, 33 percent say the most important subjects to master are science and technology.

Fredericksburg award winner

F’burg’s Hawkins
Wins National Health Award
Catherine S. Hawkins, a member of the Fredericksburg Education Association and an elementary health education teacher at Lafayette Upper Elementary School, has been chosen as the 2008 Health Education Professional of the Year, K-12, by the American Association for Health Education.

In her over 30 years of teaching in Fredericksburg, Hawkins has served as the school system’s lead educator in health, physical education and driver education and was the department chair for those areas at James Monroe High School for five years.

Six Association members are among the 2008 recipients of the Agnes Meyer Outstanding Teacher Awards, which are presented by The Washington Post to exceptional educators in the Northern Virginia, Maryland and District of Columbia area.

Virginia’s winners include Barbara A. Dennee of the Fauquier Education Association and P.B. Smith Elementary School; Patricia Herr of the Loudoun Education Association and Smart’s Mill Middle School; Beth Lepp of the Stafford Education Association and Garrisonville Elementary School; Wesley McCune of the Education Association of Alexandria and John Adams Elementary School; Ward John Merritt of the Arlington Education Association and Randolph Elementary School; and Michelle Ohanian of the Fairfax Education Association and Mountain View Alternative High School.

Winners received $3,000 and a crystal apple.

Clarence Fairbrother, a member of the Fairfax Education Association and a math teacher at Lake Braddock Secondary School, is among only 53 teachers across the U.S. to win the Edyth May Sliffe Award for Distinguished Junior High Mathematics Teaching. The award is given by the Mathematical Association of America.

Two VEA members are among those honored by the Consortium of Interactive Instruction, which is sponsored by WHRO-TV in Norfolk and represents nearly 280,000 students and 24,000 teachers in eastern Virginia. Williamsburg/James City Education Association member Ron Trainum, a health and physical education teacher at Toano Middle School was named the Middle School Technology Educator of the Year, and Anthony Vladu of the Newport News Education Association and Heritage High School took home the high school honor.

Some Tech Resolutions for the New School Year

by Karen Work Richardson

The beginning of the new school year is a wonderful time to make some resolutions for what you hope to accomplish in the coming year. In particular, I would encourage you to think about how you plan to integrate instructional technology this year. Here are just a few suggestions for possible resolutions:

          Incorporate Internet safety: Virginia has once again led the nation by making Internet safety education a priority. No matter what grade level or content area you teach, you should be incorporating information about how to stay safe online into your curriculum. Here are a couple ideas for how to do that:
     • Post a list of Internet safety rules by the computers in your classroom or computer lab.  Cybersmart has several sample posters for you to download and print (www.cybersmart.org/for/teachers.asp).
     • Help your students learn how to use an evaluation tool such as those at Discovery Education (http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/eval.html).
     • Browse the curriculum-related resources available at the Virginia Department of Education's website (www.doe.virginia.gov/VDOE/Technology/OET/internet-safety-guidelines.shtml).
     • Check out some of the activities at my Internet safety wiki: (http://witchyrichy.wikispaces.com/internetsafety/).
          
         Try out a new tool: Even the most tech-savvy of us has some piece of hardware or software that we are curious about but just haven't had time to learn about or use. Maybe it's the new interactive white board or student response system that your school purchased last year. Or maybe it's software like Inspiration or MovieMaker to which you were introduced in a workshop but never explored. Or maybe it's one of those "Web 2.0" applications everyone seems to be talking about like a weblog or a wiki. Pick one or two to explore in the next few months. You could visit the website where manufacturers often have lesson plans or integration ideas, talk to a teacher who is already using it, schedule some time with the instructional technology teacher, or locate an online tutorial. As you learn, think about ways you can integrate the tool in your classroom. Set a goal to use it several times between now and Christmas.

          Get to Know your ITRT: Speaking of your instructional technology resource teacher, each school division in the state is required to have at least one. Their primary purpose is to work with teachers to help them use technology effectively. Make this the year that you get to know yours better. You might want to schedule a meeting to discuss your instructional technology needs. What technology are you already using? What areas in your curriculum might benefit from integrating technology? What ideas and resources do they have for how you can make better use of technology to support your students' learning? I work with the ITRTs a lot, and I have found them to be enthusiastic and helpful. Don't be intimidated by their technology prowess; instead, take advantage of it.

          Set up a portal for your classroom: The World Wide Web is a lot like a library after an earthquake. It can be tough to find things and even tougher to keep track of them. A Web portal is a page that allows you to store links to different websites and also display information such as the weather or images. There are lots of choices of portals. One favorite of mine that is easy to use is iGoogle (http://google.com/ig). Once you set up your account, you can add gadgets related to classroom content. Are you studying earthquakes? Add the United States Geological Survey gadget that displays the most recent earthquakes. Working with a foreign language? Add Dictionary.com's Spanish Word of the Day. Then, you can make the portal the homepage for your classroom computers.

          Do some networking: Once the school year begins, it’s easy to feel isolated in your classroom. You hardly have a chance to go to the bathroom, much less network with your colleagues. Thanks to the Web, however, you can reach out to other teachers in your division, the state or the world. While we usually associate this kind of social networking with the younger generation, many teachers are embracing it as a way to keep in touch and learn from others. With its focus on Virginia teachers, I would recommend visiting VSTE's social networking site: http://vsteonline.ning.com. And be sure to join VSTE (www.vste.org), the Virginia Society for Technology in Education. It's free, and you'll receive monthly newsletters and updates related to educational technology as well as information about upcoming events, including the annual conference.

          These are just a few ideas for your new school year's resolutions. Perhaps the most important resolution of all is to have fun and learn something new!

Richardson has been working as an educator for over 20 years, currently as an adjunct instructor in educational technology at The College of William and Mary, where she is also working on her doctorate in curriculum and educational technology. She also serves as regional director of the Virginia Initiative for Technology and Administrative Leadership, a professional development program for school administrators.
 

by Samantha Grabelle

For the past couple of years, I have served as a volunteer judge at the Academic Decathlon, “a team competition wherein [high school] students match their intellects with students from other schools.” Every student competes in the 10 events and every team is made up of three “honor,” or “A” students; three “scholastic,” or “B” students; and three “varsity,” or “C” students. There are seven multiple-choice exams—one in each of the following subject areas: art, economics, language and literature, mathematics, music, social science, and a science “Super Quiz.” There is also an essay exam, a speech event, and an interview. The scores of each student on a team are added up and the team with the highest score, of course, wins.
 
In the book I wrote with Dennis Littky, The Big Picture: Education is Everyone’s Business, we began on page one with what we believe are “The Real Goals of Education.” There are fourteen goals listed and I often find myself viewing academic endeavors I read about or witness through the lens of these “real goals.” 

The Academic Decathlon itself, as a team-based competition where teammates’ individual scores are combined into an overall score, is a fine embodiment of the goal of being able to work independently and with others. And, without perseverance , another real goal, it would be impossible to finish the 10-leg event that starts early in the morning and lasts into the evening hours.
 
I appreciate these aspects of the competition, but I am always troubled by the seeming celebration of the traditional goals of education one finds throughout most of this long day. What I mean is, though the students are out of the school building and away from their textbooks and classrooms, the Academic Decathlon, in many ways, looks a lot like a day in the life of a large, traditional high school.

The seven events, aside from the essay, speech and interview, all require answering multiple-choice questions. The teams are meant to study vigorously to prepare for each of the tests. The topics vary: last year, all of the subjects focused on the Civil War, this year it is Latin America. Like a standard high school class, the application of the knowledge is only necessary for the regurgitation of memorized information. Only the speech, essay and interview “test” something more concrete than the student’s ability to fill in bubbles on a piece of paper. The speech topic is up to the student, and the interview mimics a typical college admissions or job interview format. The real-world skills and knowledge necessary to do well in these two events clearly take a backseat to test-taking skill and theoretical knowledge. In fact, in determining if a student is an honors, scholastic or varsity student, and therefore eligible for the competition, the rules state that “grades for courses shall not be used in GPA computations for Academic Decathlon competition purposes if the nature of the course is performance-based. The skills that are developed in these courses tend to be more technical/vocational or hands-on, and the majority of a student’s grade in these courses is performance-based and/or is subjective in nature.”

The Real World
Another of Dennis’ and my real goals of education is to be able to use the world around you well. When the Decathlon claims that hands-on and performance-based skills do not demonstrate the caliber of a student, they are just following the status quo of our current education system. Test-taking skills prepare a student to continue being a student within an academic institution; hands-on skills prepare him or her to be an adult within the world. Another goal we list in the book is to be able to look at things differently . A multiple-choice test is the epitome of a system that believes there is only one way to look at things.

I am disappointed by the Decathlon’s heavy reliance on testing to determine a student’s, and a school’s, academic fortitude. But, as a speech judge and interview judge (my favorite events), I am thrilled by the extent to which the students are set up to pursue many of the real goals of education by preparing for and executing their speeches and interviews.

The Real Goals
One of the real goals that is most in play here – being ready to take risks – is realized simply by giving the speech, an act that many people find scarier than death. And, if trying to get a high score, the goals of being passionate and being creative will necessarily inform a student’s speech and interview. The goal to speak well, write well, read well and work well with numbers is found in both of these events as well, though not always the math aspect, which is, in part, covered by the math test section. But, because it is simply a test of “fundamental subject matter” in algebra, geometry, etc., it does not fully embody what we mean by working well with numbers, which implies an ability to approach the numbers and mathematical applications presented by the real world with a sense of mastery.

The process of preparing for the essay, interview and speech events requires problem-solving and critical thinking skills, another of the goals we listed. After each student gives his or her five-minute prepared speech, they are given a list of topics from which they must choose one upon which to give a two-minute impromptu speech. There is no greater time to demonstrate problem-solving and critical thinking than during those two minutes.

This is also true of the interview, the one event that mirrors the real-world competition we all take part in when we apply for a job or to a school. When I witness a student stumbling and stuttering through the interview, especially a junior or senior, I am angered by the fact that this could be the only time they will receive feedback on this all-important, life-changing, pass-or-fail performance. We all know that a person’s ability to present themselves well, in person and on paper, plays a larger role in determining their academic and career success than any test score or grade. We are failing our students when we don’t prepare them for this experience. Why is it that so many school districts leave the job of teaching students how to put together a resume, write a cover letter, make a professional phone call, or interview for a job or a school, to poorly-funded government job training summer programs? Why is this not a part of the standard curricula or exit exams? We are sending them out into a world that expects them to succeed as individuals without arming them with the ability to express their individuality. Preparing our young people for the real world is the overriding theme of the real goals of education. If we are not doing this, we are failing them and society. 
 
The students who excel at the interview have most likely been left to their own devices in figuring out how to present themselves well. They know how to demonstrate their integrity and self-respect, and, like the “volunteer work” section of any well-rounded resume, their demonstration of caring about and wanting to give back to their community will always result in a higher score in the interview and speech events.
 
More often than you might think, a student stands up and gives a speech about the problems with the No Child Left Behind Act or exit exams or the lack of attention to the genocide in Darfur, and becomes an inspiring example of moral courage . At last year’s Decathlon, a young man gave a powerful and thought-provoking speech about the ethical implications of a religious group donating money to support victims of Hurricane Katrina, but earmarking it only for followers of the same religion. In his speech he explained that he had raised this question in his Sunday School class despite his fears of ostracization: absolute moral courage.

There is usually an even mix of both stirring speakers and those that blunder at the podium each year. And each year, during the speech and interview judges’ training sessions, we are told that while the teams have been hard at work preparing for the tests, it would behoove us to remember that most of them do not put as much, if any, emphasis on preparing for the speech and interview competitions.
 
There are Resource Guides, Research Guides and Basic Guides for all legs of the event except the essay, the interview and the planned speeches. The value of the skills required to succeed in these events – the ability to write well, speak well and speak well about oneself – is clearly overlooked in the grand pursuit of testing content-based knowledge with multiple-choice questions. Just like in a traditional school.

The test questions and the live quiz require the skills and knowledge to succeed at the Decathlon and in our current education system, and perhaps if one goes on Jeopardy. The essay, interview and speeches require the skills and knowledge to succeed in life. When we push these kids out of the four walls of their high schools and the 10 legs of the Decathlon, they may be experts at taking and passing tests, but will they continue to seek out knowledge? Will they know what their passions are? Will they be happy, lifelong learners who enjoy their work and their lives ?
 
There are no tests that will predict this and there is nothing one can memorize to prepare for it. Life is not a didactic classroom, a textbook or an academic competition. It is whatever we make it. Is it possible to get this incredibly important, yet simple message across to our young people without helping them to pursue what Dennis and I have called the real goals of education? I don’t believe it is. Is it possible to incorporate the real goals into your schools and classrooms while still abiding by the traditional education system’s goals? Perhaps.

The Challenge
Page one of the “Real Goals” chapter of The Big Picture begins with the following passage: “When I watch kids walk into the building on their first day of school, I think about what I want them to be like when they walk out on their last day. I also think about what I want them to be like on the day I bump into them in the supermarket 10 or 20 years later.”

As you begin a new school year, as you set up your classrooms, decorate your bulletin boards, organize your desks, and plan out your curricula, how will you weave these real goals of education into your daily practice? How will administrators inspire their faculty with the real goals? How will parents talk to their children about their school days with an eye towards their future and what they really want them to get out of their education?

 I believe if you use the world around you well; sharpen your skills at speaking, writing, reading, and computing; think critically and problem-solve; embrace your passion and creativity; take risks; look at things differently; desire to give back; hold onto your sense of integrity and self-respect; dare to show moral courage; and, persevere, you can do anything you set your mind to. If you are a lifelong learner you can inspire your students to be so, also. And, if you do all of these things, I have no doubt that you will find real joy in your work and in your life.

Grabelle (www.samgrabelle.com) is the co-author of The Big Picture: Education is Everyone’s Business (ASCD, 2004) which won the Association of Educational Publishers’ Distinguished Achievement Award in 2005. She also helped write and edit the FIRST organization’s coffeetable book about its LEGO League and high school robotics’ competitions.

by Tom Allen

If you’re a resident of the Galax area and your family is blessed with a new addition, you’ll probably get some nice baby gifts from friends, neighbors and relatives. But you’ll also get a gift from someone you probably weren’t expecting to be a part of your celebration—the teachers and education support professionals of the Galax Education Association.

And GEA’s gift will probably have an even longer-lasting impact than the onesies, pacifiers and rattles that came from others.

Through its “Books for Babies” program, GEA reaches out to new parents, bringing them the message that it’s never too early to think about the education and literacy skills of their children. Proud parents receive a packet, which includes two books that parents can read to their newborn immediately and in years to come, a sheet offering tips on reading to infants and toddlers, bookmarks, and information on the local public library and other literacy resources in the area.

“We feel very strongly about the importance of literacy, and we’re proud to be doing this,” says Jessica Justus, GEA’s president. “Reading is very important, and not just in the schools. We want to extend that idea into the community.”

Because the Galax area has a growing Hispanic population, GEA has created packets featuring books in Spanish, as well. “We want something we can do for all parents,” says Justus. “We’re really trying to put a focus on reading and education.”

GEA’s efforts have been well received so far, reports Justus. “Families are surprised to get something from us,” she says, “and they’ve greatly appreciated it. The packets have also been a huge eye-opener for some new parents. They say, ‘I didn’t realize we needed to start this so early.’”

But parents do need to start with literacy skills right away, because the ability to read well is not only a fundamental skill that affects the learning of young people, it is also a predictor of how well students will do in other subjects, such as math and science. Consider these literacy facts:

• Students who enter school behind their peers in knowledge and skills may have difficulty catching up, making their odds of academic and life success longer. Some research has shown that half of the achievement test scores gap among races in high school students can be traced to a lack of school readiness.
• The National Academy of Sciences notes that much of the human brain develops in the first five years of a child’s life. A stimulating environment during these years can change the very physiology of the brain. Children who are read to by their parents tend to become better readers and do better in school.
• Strong reading skills protect young adults against unemployment and help account for a difference in earnings, according to the Child Trends DataBank. Further, parents with weak reading skills are likely to pass them along to their children.
• By the time they’re four years old, children in families where at least one parent is working in a professional field hear 35 million more words than children of parents on welfare, according to the Educational Testing Service.

GEA makes sure that local parents get a running start by keeping Twin County Regional Hospital stocked with packets. Justus estimates that nearly 300 have been given away so far in 2008, including to the first baby born this year, a little girl who debuted at 10:22 a.m. on January 1 and now has begun her own personal reading collection.

Funds to support “Books for Babies” have come from a number of sources. Last year, in conjunction with Read Across America, GEA held a “Hat Day,” which allowed high school students to pay $1 to wear a hat to school and put a sticker on it promoting literacy and the program. That raised almost $200, and individual supporters have made private donations, too. The biggest source of money came in the form of a $1,000 VEA grant last year, money which will secure the program’s existence into the future.

In the past, Galax High School students have also lent a hand by printing some of the packet’s materials. Justus and GEA hope to expand “Books for Babies” involvement to include middle and elementary school students and even the local business community.

Reading skills are too important not to continue and expand the program, says Justus. “We identified a need in our community,” she says, “and, through these packets, we’re providing a no-excuse approach to literacy.”

Allen is the editor of the Virginia Journal of Education.

by Linda F. Wright

Teachers and administrators talk all the time. Some of those conversations are quick, “need-an-answer-to-resolve-an-issue” ones; some involve personal issues. Occasionally, though, an administrator will have the chance to have a discussion about professional issues and opportunities with a staff member that may lead the teacher down a slightly different career path. Those kind of conversations are rare, especially with someone who has been very successful at the elementary school level, but then so are true leaders—and few of us have been given the vision, drive, motivation and ability of Kitty Boitnott, with whom I’ve had the pleasure of having several such talks. The path she’s chosen to follow in the years since has culminated in her election as the VEA’s new president.

In the summer of 2000, I was fortunate to have Kitty as an administrative intern.  We had already spent many hours together as principal and school librarian when she approached me about doing her internship at the school during the summer. Unlike so many others, Kitty wanted the chance for a true internship, not just a few hours here and there, before and after school. Our school, Penn Forest Elementary, had been chosen as the elementary summer school site for Roanoke County, allowing her the opportunity to practice and hone her newly acquired administrative skills.

As with everything Kitty puts her mind to, she approached the assignment with diligence, professionalism and high energy. As we reflected on the experience and her future plans, she expressed her satisfaction, and at the same time some uncertainty as to where this might lead her. We discussed her options with the school system as well as those with her professional association, the VEA, her “second profession” at the time. I asked her if she’d like to be a VEA officer, and Kitty said she was interested but unsure about getting such an opportunity. While those possibilities must have seemed distant and undefined to her at that stage in her evolving career, even as we sat there and talked about it, I saw something she did not. At that very moment, I – and so many others who are fortunate enough to know Kitty well – knew that she would make an excellent VEA president. When I said so, she smiled and said, “Well, maybe sometime, but not now.” I’m overjoyed to say that “now” has arrived. At last she is going to assume the position that she has been preparing for her entire adult life.
 
That preparation began with an undergraduate degree from Longwood University and then a librarian position in her native Franklin County. She moved on to Roanoke County as an elementary school librarian and then a sixth grade language arts teacher and assistant librarian at William Byrd Junior High School. While working at William Byrd, Kitty earned a master’s degree from Hollins University. She returned to a full-time librarian’s position at another elementary school for eight years before being reassigned to Penn Forest, a much larger school. It was during this time that she earned her Ed.S. degree from the University of Virginia. In 2002 she moved to Henrico County, and became the librarian at Chamberlayne Elementary. Never content to be less than the best, she earned a coveted National Board Certification in Library Media in 2003 and capped that off with a Ph.D. from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2007. Despite these many academic advancements, she was still able to focus a great deal of her drive for excellence on Association work.

Kitty’s passion for her profession has always been shown in the untold hours she has given to the Association. Twice rising to the rank of president at the local level, she has also served on several VEA statewide committees, including Elections and Resolutions. Additionally, she has been a member of the VEA Board of Directors, the VEA Executive Committee and the VEA PAC Executive Committee. At the national level, Kitty has shared her expertise with the NEA Planning, Issues, and Instruction and Professional Development committees. Despite the fact that she received no compensation and has actually spent her own money for gas, lodging and food, Kitty never wavered in her commitment to the quality of work being done in these committees. She possesses a drive unlike any that I’ve seen -- if she starts something, she will see it through to the end. 

While Kitty has certainly demonstrated her leadership skills within the Association, she has branched out into other professional arenas, as well. In Roanoke County, Kitty frequently was asked to serve on school-initiated committees such as the Budget Committee and Personnel Policies, a committee she co-chaired. Kitty was also a member of the Advisory Board for Teacher Education and Licensure (ABTEL) and serves on the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), positions that expand her realm of influence and expertise to the national level.

And Kitty’s expertise sometimes comes through even when it is not sought out.  When appointed to the principalship at Penn Forest, I had purposely discontinued my membership in the RCEA and VEA, predominantly teacher-led organizations. This decision was not based on any sort of philosophical differences with the Association; it was based on the delicate nature of my new position, supervising those who were already members. During my first month as principal, Kitty and another RCEA member, Carol Gentry, deliberately approached me about rejoining the association. After listening to their well-conceived and eloquent presentation, I agreed to do so. As I explained to them, their presentation and the mere fact that they had taken the time to invite me were huge factors in my decision, but the overriding one was the professional atmosphere in which Association work was being conducted and the obvious goal of those involved – the improvement of the profession and enhancement of the lives of children. As the identified leader, not only in the school but also in the district, no one displayed these high ideals more passionately than Kitty Boitnott.

This was the beginning of a great friendship and of something approaching a mutual admiration society. This is not to say that we always agreed. In fact, there were times when we were forced into “agreeing to disagree.” Sometimes, conflict can breed bitterness, but disagreement tempered with respect and appreciation begets dialogue that sometimes results in compromise, sometimes ends in stalemate, but always engenders a measure of progress in a relationship that two people never come to by walking away. This sense of partnership in progress is what has made Kitty so effective as a leader. When concerns arose within the staff, Kitty served as liaison between teachers and administrators, always attempting to develop a solution agreeable to both parties. This ability to listen and see both sides of an issue make her a valuable asset to any organization and one that I feel blessed to have had associated with my own school while she was on our staff. Kitty is widely recognized as a true ambassador for teachers and the education profession, and as an advocate for those in our charge, the students.

Intelligent, articulate, well-versed in all aspects of education, and motivated - as I review this list of strengths and consider her vast accomplishments, I feel certain that I have omitted more than I have included. But even so, my sincere hope is that these words have in some measure presented a snapshot of Kitty Boitnott as someone who loves children, peers, family and her profession. This is someone who has prepared herself for the challenges that face her as VEA president, someone who is a champion for educators and children alike and someone who knows what she believes and is committed to a high sense of values. How fortunate we are indeed to be able to count her as our spokesperson, our advocate, our leader and our friend!

Wright, a member of the Roanoke County Education Association, is the principal of Penn Forest Elementary School.