UPDATE: The House Labor Committee passed House Bills 4354-4357 on Thursday, May 25. The legislation will now proceed to the full House for consideration, likely in June. In the early hours of Thursday morning, over a dozen MEA members from across the state made the drive to Lansing to make their voices heard in the […]
Last fall when Kalamazoo Education Association President Heather Reid saw an ad announcing the Bored Teachers Comedy Tour was coming to town, she applied for a small MEA grant to hold a members event before the show. Soon she heard staff in the local MEA office discussing the same idea, so they all joined forces […]
When MEA member Amy Rever-Oberle experienced a mishap on a field trip with 150 sixth-grade band students and 30 adult chaperones from Rochester Community Schools, she handled it, got everyone back to school early, and let administration know what happened. Over the next few days, the principal responded to a few parent questions, and life […]
By Brenda Ortega MEA Voice Editor Things weren’t going according to plan at a recent meeting of the board of Brandywine Community Schools in Niles, where community opposition is growing as a new board majority has begun to enact an extreme political agenda targeting library books and teaching materials. Missing two of its seven members, […]
By Brenda Ortega MEA Voice Editor Gov. Gretchen Whitmer energized the MEA Winter Conference in Detroit on Friday with a heartening message to a capacity crowd that she described as “the fiercest warriors there are, the people that make a difference in so many lives every single day, who are too often under-thanked and under-appreciated: […]
Faculty at Monroe County Community College have overwhelmingly approved a no-confidence vote in President Kojo Quartey and filed charges of Unfair Labor Practices against the college, which the faculty association addressed with a show of solidarity at the Board of Trustees meeting on Monday night. A four-page resolution detailed reasons behind the no-confidence vote, including […]
By Brenda Ortega MEA Voice Editor Education policies pursued for the past two decades in Michigan have ignored the needs of rural school districts, which has reduced opportunities for students and stymied community development in areas facing serious economic hardship, a new study has found. School reforms favored by policymakers over the past 20 years […]
Providing additional academic support for students recovering from the pandemic has become a key use of federal school rescue funds in local districts across Michigan. Many school leaders are spending these resources on tutoring for students who struggled to adjust to learning from home and are now working to catch up. More than 200 school […]
As a parent in Livingston County’s Hartland Consolidated Schools, Laura Moore publicly addressed the school board in February to say that a small group of vocal people who have been lobbing insults and criticism at every board meeting for months do not speak for everyone. “I addressed the board as a parent of three students […]
Amid critical educator shortages, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is focused on delivering support and resources in her proposed education budget for next fiscal year with plans to use ongoing state revenue increases to shore up public schools as they respond to ongoing effects of the pandemic. In contrast, Republican leaders in the House and Senate issued […]
