We
have a Tentative Contract Agreement. Information meetings
will be held at the following times and locations:
CAT-Pickering
March 4 4PM
CAT Brandywine March 6 4PM
Educational Support Center (ESC)-Boot Road March 10 4:30 PM
We
will vote on the contract on March 12 at ESC.
You may vote anytime between 2 and 7 PM.
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The November
release of a report finding that Pennsylvania is under-funding public
schools by $4.38 billion was the catalyst for collective action on the
part of a large number of education and advocacy groups, including PSEA.
More...
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| NEA
partners with National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to
teach web safety
West Virginia's
CBS affiliate WOWK-TV (12/5, Long) reports, "To help combat the
online threats facing young Internet users, the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), the National Education Association
and Sprint are partnering up in a new initiative called 4NetSafety."
The program "offers free tools and information to parents through
several websites." One, found
here, is designed to keep parents informed. Another, found
here, is for teens. At a news conference to announce the effort,
NCMEC President Eric Allen encouraged parents to "keep those lines
of communication open so if your child is encountering" cyberbullying
or other web-based threats, "they'll come to you." He added,
"don't assume that your child can deal with these kinds of challenges
without help."
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| Chapter
14 Regulation Changes
The process
in Pennsylvania to bring regulations from draft into final form has
taken more than a year. Once it was announced that Pennsylvania would
undertake the task of updating regulations to comply with federal special
education regulations, your organization put together a Chapter 14 Work
Group. The Work Group addressed recommendations to the State Board,
testimony, input for members and the Special Education Board and recruitment
of members to speak at Roundtables and Hearings. Staff worked in collaboration
with other groups to convey ideas and positions and communicated with
the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the State Board directly.
Click here to read the final draft.
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| ESEA/NCLB
Update
Statement from House Education Chair George Miller on ESEA Reauthorization:
On Wednesday,
Nov. 7, U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the House Education
and Labor Committee, issued the following statement about the reauthorization
of the No Child Left Behind law and the President’s threat to
veto the 2008 spending bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and
Human Services, and Education. This statement by the House Education
Chair is a very encouraging sign as we gear up to keep pressure on Congress
to override President Bush’s expected veto next week of the education
funding bill. Most notable in the chairman's statement are the following
comments: "It has become clear to me, however, that without real
Presidential leadership, this reauthorization process is unlikely to
succeed. And with this week’s veto threat of the education appropriations
bill, this President has demonstrated a complete failure of leadership.
President Bush’s only real involvement this year in developing
a new education bill has been to make an occasional speech urging Congress
to stay the course. That has been counterproductive given how clearly
unfair and inflexible the law is. Now the President is saying that he
wants to stay the course on inadequate education funding as well. It
is difficult to see how we get a reauthorization bill done in this Congress
as long as the President continues to oppose both common-sense improvements
to the law and additional education funding."
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| Changes
to PDE’s Evaluation of Master’s Equivalency Applications
The Pennsylvania
Department of Education recently finalized the changes it is making
to its review of Master’s Equivalency (MEQ) applications. (More...)
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| Teachers
urged to avoid using social networking websites
Ohio's
Columbus Dispatch reported that the Ohio Education Association
"has 'strongly' encouraged teachers against using MySpace, Facebook
and other online social-networking sites." A recent union memo
to its members said "the dangers of participating in these two
sites outweigh the benefits." (More…)
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