First-year educator Stephanie Connell briefly paused and held her head in her hands to contain the overwhelm she felt while shopping in the New Teacher Store at Rochester Community Schools last Friday. The high school English teacher and brand new MEA member was allowed to take whatever she wanted for free from a room crowded […]
MEA member Virginia Weichert would like to start using flexible seating in her St. Clair County special education classroom. Her students with cognitive impairments enjoy activities more when they are not confined to desks, she says. But Weichert also has basic school supplies to purchase with her own money, and she can’t afford to buy […]
MEA members, This morning, I received a letter from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer that I thought you should all see: As a new school year is upon us, I wanted to reach out and tell you again how much I respect and appreciate the hard work you do on behalf of our kids. Preparing our students […]
Collective bargaining in school districts around the state has been hampered by the Legislature’s failure to pass an education budget before leaving for summer break, MEA President Paula Herbart said this week. As of Tuesday afternoon, there were 157 unsettled contracts among MEA-affiliated locals across the state. “For the first time this decade, the Legislature […]
MEA President Paula Herbart used her monthly “Labor Voices” column in The Detroit News to slam various schemes being floated by Republican leaders in the Legislature to bond, restructure, or reamortize the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System. A pension is a promise of a secure retirement, she writes, but too often in Lansing pensions […]
A survey earlier this year of nearly 17,000 educators by Launch Michigan – a coalition of business, civic, and education leaders – revealed school employees’ attitudes on a range of topics, including professional development, literacy resources, and evaluations. Now those results have been broken down by region. See how perceptions in your area compare to […]
A pension is a promise of a secure retirement. But too often in Lansing, they’re viewed as piggy banks to be broken into for political purposes. As a young educator, I remember then-Gov. John Engler diverting state payments from the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System to fund other priorities — which accelerated us down a […]
Matt Cottone, a sixth-grade World Studies teacher at Van Hoosen Middle School in Rochester, has been selected as a 2020 NEA Foundation Global Learning Fellow. As a fellow, Cottone will spend a year in a peer learning network of 44 educators from across the country building their comprehension of issues of global significance and their […]
Click to view online. In this issue: #RedForEd Rally: ‘We have to keep going’ Above and Beyond I will never stop loving/recommending/fighting for my profession Amid Benchmarks and Cut Scores, MEA Project Spreads Reading Love My View: One–The Courage of a Teacher In the spirit of Anne Frank, ‘He showed me my voice Travel for Teachers […]
In 22 years, the K-2 paraeducator working with students on the autism spectrum in West Bloomfield—has seen good (kids) and bad (cuts) What’s your typical day like as a paraeducator in a special education classroom? I supervise cars in the drop-off line in the morning, so I get to see all the good-byes and well […]
