July 7, 2019

It's the last day of the 2019 NEA Representative Assembly!  Your delegates are exhausted as it has been a long 3 days, but we are ready to do the work of the union and push through on this last day!

At this morning's caucus meeting we learned we met our PAC goal for the state of $25,000 and were treated to VEA President Jim Livingston dressed up as the hulk!




















The issues committee went through the rest of the NBIs for discussion.  The VEA members on the NEA Resolutions Committee thanked Angela Dews for her 6 years of service on that committee.

There's an interesting tradition right after caucus ends on the last day of the NEA RA; delegates will sometimes announce their candidacy for VEA officer positions.  Here's who announced:

• James Fedderman for VEA President
• Carol Bauer for VEA Vice President
• Angela Dews, Carla Okouchi, and Kevin Hickerson each announced candidacy for NEA Director.

These folks, and maybe more, will campaign through out the year, then the delegates to the VEA Delegate Assembly in Hampton, VA from March 26-28, 2020 will elect. (Mark your calendars and plan on attending! See your local officers and ask how you can attend!)

After announcements, we headed over to NEA RA Floor.  We have 81 NBIs to get through, plus some other business, and have to have it done by 8:00 pm.  The 2019 NEA RA officially ended by 6:18 pm!  Whew!

Your Blog Team's Top 3 Things from Today were:

1. Networking: Your blog team enjoyed getting to know and building friendships with others in and out of our state. 
2. PAC: We found out at the end of the RA, that we raised $1,360,000 for the NEA Fund! This money will go towards helping elect education friendly candidates to federal level officers. To learn more about the NEA Fund and how the endorsement process works, check out their website.  (Reminder, your dues dollars do not go towards candidates)
3. Princess Moss announces her candidacy for NEA Vice President!  Princess Moss served as VEA President for 6 years, on the NEA Executive Committee for 6 years, and as NEA Secretary-Treasurer for 6 years.  Virginia is proud of Princess and we are thrilled to support her on her journey to become the NEA Vice President! 

Delegate Highlight: Renee Beverly

Spotsylvania Education Association Member Renee Beverly has been working hard during the 2019 NEA Representative Assembly in Houston.  In fact, she has been a community outreach coordinator for the NEA RA for the past 10 years!

Before Renee became a coordinator, Virginia was dormant with the volunteer program.  Renee was asked to help restart Virginia's participation by Meg Gruber, a past president of VEA. Renee works with the other coordinators via teleconferencing and emailing to come up with activities that NEA Delegates can do during their stay in the host city.  

This year, Renee has taken the lead on working with "Teachers Aid" in Houston.   "The Teachers Aid program provides supplies to teachers in schools that meet the following criteria:

– Teachers Aid Agreement must be submitted.
– 60% of students are on free or reduced price lunch
– Participate in the Houston Food Bank’s Backpack Buddy Program or School Market."

The organizers worked to find volunteers, collect supplies, work on preparing meals, pack backpacks, and serving meals to homeless teens.  They also helped make clean bags, which contain toiletries for homeless, and pack purses with feminine items for homeless women.

Renee is also an active volunteer in Spotsylvania. Why does Renee volunteer and do community outreach? She says, "It's all about giving back. It's always been in my nature to help others, my community."

Renee (R) with volunteers

Renee with volunteers and with NEA Secretary-Treasurer Princess Moss

July 6th, 2019

We completed Day 3 of the NEA RA! As you may have noticed, this update is being posted on the morning of July 7th instead of in the evening of July 6th...your blogger is tired! :) 

After our morning caucus from 7-9 am, we headed over to the convention floor.  We had one election today to vote in a run-off for a an NEA Executive Director position.  In the morning we worked on NBIs....well we tried to. Sometimes on the floor, there are lots of questions or points of order that delegates bring up, so in 90 minutes we got through 4 NBIs.  We then heard from Matthew Powell of Kentucky, who is the 2019 Education Support Professional (ESP) of the year!  Matthew's speech was a tribute to the ESPs who helped him in his life as a student.  His speech was very moving, and I encourage you to watch it. After Matthew's speech, an award was presented to David Schneider, the 2019 NCHE Higher Educator of the Year, then we went back to do more NBIs until we received an elections report.

After lunch and more action on NBIs, we heard from 2019 National Teacher of the Year Rodney Robinson, who works at the Richmond Juvenile Justice Center and he is a VEA Member!  Rodney's speech called for more teachers, especially teachers of color, so students may have a teacher who looks like them.  Watch his speech, you won't be disappointed.  We then moved on to proposed Legislative Amendments. Note this is an interesting process where the chair of the Legislative Committee can chime in and say if they find the amendment friendly or not.  The friendly amendments passed with ease from the body, and the ones not considered friendly, we debated.  Then, we moved on to proposed Resolutions Amendments.  Resolutions are NEA's belief statements.  VEA also has its own set of resolutions.  After that work, we went back to NBIs.  There are a total of 160 NBIs and we have 81 left for Day 4.  

Your Blog Team's Top 3 Things from Today were:

1. Rodney Robinson's speech.  Have you watched it yet?!
2. Bundling.  It's cold on the convention floor and you'll see some folks bundled in jackets or blankets. But we don't want to talk about that kind of bundling, we want to discuss a suspension of the rules so a delegate can make a motion to bundle certain NBIs and refer to them to appropriate committee.  The NEA Board of Directors will go around to makers of those certain NBIs and ask them if they would be willing to have their NBI referred and are given one minute to speak about their NBI at the mic.  This can help move through the NBIs more quickly. 
3. The LGBT Banquet. From our aspiring educator delegate, "The banquet was great not just because the food was great and the music was even better, but it was amazing to see so many people come out to celebrate a community that isn't always celebrated."

 From L-R: VEA VP Fedderman, NEA Secretary-Treasurer Princess Moss, VEA President James Livingston, and Rodney Robinson, the 2019 Teacher of the Year!

From L-R: NEA president Lily Eskelsen Garcia pictured with VEA Aspiring Educator Jessica

July 5th, 2019

Day 2 of the 2019 NEA RA was different, as compared to previous Representative Assemblies.  The day started out as usual...the issues committee met at 5:45 am, the Virginia Caucus started at 7:00 am and went until about 9:00 am.  During our caucus meeting, we received a report from the Resolutions Committee. Also, we had the task of electing a delegate to the NEA Resolutions committee for a 3 year term and an alternate.  After both candidates spoke, we voted, and elected Carla Okouchi, of Fairfax Education Association, to represent Virginia on the NEA Resolutions Committee and Lorraine Corbin-Morales, Prince William Education Association, as her alternate. After elections we forged ahead through discussing NBIs (we made it to NBI 41...out of 120 NBIs so far).

After President Jim Livingston adjourned our caucus meeting, we traveled over to the convention center and had to report straight to the voting area to vote for candidates, proposed constitutional amendments, and proposed bylaws.  Still going about our normal day we worked on NBIs and heard some speeches, but the afternoon session was a first.

The National Education Association sent a questionnaire and invitation to every 2020 Presidential Candidate who have announced so far, to attend a presidential forum.  11 candidates sent the their info back, and 10 were able to attend the NEA Presidential Forum.  Each candidate was separately interviewed; they had one  minute to have an opening remark, then they had 3 questions to answer. Each question was submitted by an NEA member, some video recorded and some written.  The candidates had three minutes to respond to each question.  You can read more about what candidates had to say here. You can also watch the full forum.

After the forum, we heard the results of the morning election and then moved on to more New Business Items.

Your Blog Team's Top Three Things from today were:

1. The Presidential Forum.  This was an incredible event....to have 10 Candidates for President come to the RA and answer education questions in front of over 7000 people, as well as those watching via video. Also, it was amazing to see all the news cameras from every major network, it really showed how powerful the NEA is.  Some NEA Caucuses were fortunate enough to meet with some of the candidates.  Vice President Joe Biden spoke with the NEA Aspiring Educators Caucus and Senator Bernie Sanders spoke with members of the Bad Ass Teacher (BAT) Caucus. For this event, all the NEA delegates were encouraged to wear red for #RedForEd, and it was a sea of red on the RA floor!
2. The speech by outgoing NEA Executive Director John Stocks. John Stocks has served in this role since 2012 and this was his last speech to the delegates as NEA Executive Director.  His speech was passionate, he said "“Our democracy is calling out for social justice patriots. We need you to come together and make this country whole. Most of all, we need you to embrace your power.”
3. Baseball Game and Fireworks!  Thanks to VEA Vice President James Fedderman for organizing ticket sales for VEA members to attend a Houston Astros Baseball Game.  75 Virginia Delegates attended the game and were treated to a fireworks display after the game ended!

John Stocks delivering his speech to delgates

John Stocks speaking

Fireworks at Minute Maid Park after the Astros Baseball Game!

Issues Committee

Every morning, a small group of volunteers serve on the "Issues Committee".  This group meets at 5:45 am and works in teams to look over proposed New Business Items (NBIs).  Each team will discuss some of the NBIs and make a recommendation to the caucus which starts at 7:00 am.  Because there are so many NBIs, the committee may end up meeting during the hour long lunch breaks to sift through some more.

These dedicated volunteers will present their recommendations to the Virginia Delegates, and the delegates can adopt a position of support, opposition, or no position.  Why do we do this?  Because  it helps us later when we are on the floor going through the NBIs, we are reminded of the positions we took on NBIs, and we can share with our positions with other states if we are passionate on a particular NBI.  

Though it should be noted, that each delegate can vote their conscious; it is important for them to pay attention on the floor to debate and hear if there are proposed changes to the language or motions to refer to the appropriate committee.

Thanks to the 2019 VEA Issues Committee for helping us navigate the NBIs!

July 4th, 2019

It was the first day of the National Education Association Representative Assembly (NEA RA)!  The majority of the delegates started their day at 7 AM, there were a few who started around 5:45 am on the Issues Committee, more on that in another post.  From 7:00 until 8:45 AM, the VEA Delegation:

•  heard from candidates running for office,
• a report of the resolutions committee,
• an update of the NEA Fund Goal
• Total at the end of morning caucus was $18,938! Our state goal is $25,000!
• Candidate Screening Committee Report,
• a report from our representative to the Elections Committee
• and a report from the Issues Committee on positions on proposed Standing Rules, New Business Items, 

After Caucus, we hopped on our shuttle bus over to the George R Brown convention center for the start of the NEA RA at 10:00 AM.  After the opening ceremonies (pledge, national anthem, blessing), the delegates heard a key note address for NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia (read text of her speech).  We then adopted the rules for governing the RA, had a financial report from Secretary-Treasurer Princess Moss.    

We then heard speeches by nominees for their various offices up for election this year including:

• NEA At Large ESP (Education Support Professional)
• NEA Executive Committee
• NEA At Large Higher Ed 
• NEA At Large Administrator

The NEA RA delegates will vote for these office positions as well as  proposed constitutional amendments on July 5th by secret ballot.

After lunch, we started working through New Business Items, aka NBIs. We made it all the way from NBI A to NBI 18 by the end of the day, but usually by the end of the RA we'll have over 100. You can see what NBIs we are discussing and voting on and follow along here.

Your Blog Team's Top 3 Things from Today were:

1. Lily Eskelsen Garcia's speech, which was a passionate call to change our Democracy. 
2. How supportive and helpful everyone is with each other, our SVEA Aspiring Educator appreciated everyone making her feel welcome and sowing us the ropes.
3. After the RA, several delegation members marched from the George R Brown Convention Center to the Federal Detention Center in Houston.  This center is housing children that were separated from their parents at the border.  It was an emotional evening hearing from speakers, including Virginia's Princess Moss.

VEA Delegation Remembers Honors Jonathon Kite

Members of the Virginia Education Association were shocked and saddened when they learned of the death of Jonathon Kite, a member of the Loudoun Education Association.  Jonathon was expected to attend the 2019 NEA Representative Assembly and had raised over $500 for the NEA Fund.

To honor his memory, each first time VEA delegate to the NEA RA received a pair of "crazy" socks; Jonathon was known for wearing fun and crazy socks or bow ties. 

Also, the VEA/NEA convention planning committee of Afreen Gotee and Joy Kirk announced they would reserve a seat in honor of Jonothan and encoraged delegates to place crazy socks or other mementos at his seat.