Wyoming Education Association’s Electronic Newsletter                                                                       

September 21, 2005

The WEA produces this electronic newsletter in an effort to share timely information with our members. Please forward this newsletter to members you believe would like to receive it. If you are not an original recipient of this e-mail, please consider subscribing by clicking here.  Please send feedback regarding this e-newsletter to Kathy Scheurman, WEA Communications Director, at: kscheurman@nea.org.  This newsletter can also be viewed online at: www.wyoea.org.

WEA Website:

http://wyoea.org/

NEA Website:  http://www.nea.org

Wyoming Education Portal:

http://www.k12.wy.us

Inside this issue:

·         Katrina Aid Updates

·         Bush Proposes Vouches for All Displaced Students; NEA President Responds

·         Urge Your Senators, Representative to Protect the E-Rate

·         Spoken-Word Artists to Come to Cheyenne—You Can Attend Free

·         Grants Available for Projects that Encourage Visual Learning; Student Contests, Too

·         Encouraging Youth to SPEAK UP to Prevent Violence

Katrina Aid Updates

Click on the “button” to the left (http://www.nea.org/katrina/index.html) to connect to NEA’s Website for information on how you can help Katrina survivors!

NEA Launches Hotline to Aid Public School Employees, Students

In a pledge to support those impacted by the hurricane, the NEA has established a toll-free hotline number for schools, teachers and school employees to apply for grants that total $1 million.  Public school employees who want to apply for assistance should call NEA’s toll-free hotline at: 1-866-247-2239.  Public school employees personally impacted by Hurricane Katrina are eligible to apply for grants to meet various needs, including:  housing, food, clothing and other personal needs.

NEA will also provide grants to public schools that have enrolled the estimated 300,000 students affected by the storm.  The NEA funds can be used to help purchase school supplies, textbooks and other materials needed to accommodate increased enrollment. The NEA grants will also be made available to public schools and their employees to assist displaced children with personal needs such as clothing.

“Our goal,” said NEA President Reg Weaver, “is to do everything within our power to help public school employees and their students recover as quickly and completely as possible from the ravages of Katrina.”

Bush Proposes Vouchers for All Displaced Students; NEA President Responds

“Under President Bush's plan to cover most of the cost of educating students displaced by Hurricane Katrina, parents could enroll their children in a private or religious school this year at federal expense, even if they had gone to public schools back home….White House and Education Department spokesmen confirmed that the government payment—as much as $7,500 per child—would be given for a year to any displaced family that now prefers an alternative to public schools.” [washingtonpost.com, Sept. 20, 2005:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/19/AR2005091901428.html]

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Reg Weaver, President of the National Education Association (NEA), issued this response to Bush’s plan:

"At this time, the most urgent need is to restore a sense of normalcy for the more than 300,000 students displaced by the storm.…

"Vouchers do nothing to solve the problems created by Hurricane Katrina. Vouchers are a flawed and divisive approach that undermines public education. It is opportunistic and inappropriate to raise the voucher debate at this time. Vouchers don’t repair or rebuild neighborhood schools that have been devastated by this storm or provide traumatized children with access to comprehensive services they and their families need. We need to look at real, long-term solutions—not risky band-aid fixes that won’t do anything to help these kids find the normalcy they’ll need to help them heal.

"NEA will continue to work with leaders in Congress in a bipartisan way to ensure that the real needs of students are met—for classrooms, educators, textbooks, school supplies, counseling and in many cases clothes."

Urge Your Senators, Representative to Protect the E-Rate

NEA held briefings for Senate and House staff Friday, September 9, on the need to protect the E-Rate program, which, despite its overwhelming success in connecting our nation's schools and classrooms to the Internet, might be forced to stop payment to schools because of arcane accounting rules.

A one-year exemption from the accounting rule is set to expire at the end of this year. S. 241 and H.R. 2533, introduced by Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and John Rockefeller (D-WV) and Representatives Barbara Cubin (R-WY) and Charles Gonzalez (D-TX), would exempt the E-Rate from these rules and allow payments to continue flowing to schools and libraries.

Action Needed

Spoken-Word Artists to Come to Cheyenne—You Can Attend Free

“The Diverse Voices of Poetry” is a free two-day poetry, writing, and performance workshop, 8:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m., Oct. 13-14, at the Atlas Theatre, 211 W. 16th St., Cheyenne. The workshop is free and open to all students and teachers in Laramie CSDs #1 & #2, LCCC, and UW. Members of the general public are also invited to participate.

Workshop presenters will be Colorado’s Jack Collom, a former factory worker with 20 books of poetry to his credit; performance poet Akilah Oliver, who teaches at Naropa’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in Boulder, Colo; and New York-based George Lee Miles, a spoken-word poet, actor, and director who teaches writing courses for Teachers & Writers Collaborative.  This workshop is made possible by donations from: Wyoming Arts Council, National Endowment for the Arts, Attention Homes, Inc., The Plains Hotel, The Atlas Theatre, and the Laramie County Library.

The workshop will culminate on Friday, Oct. 14, 7 p.m., with “An Evening at the Atlas: Poetry Performances” featuring the work of students and of Collom, Oliver, and Miles. Tickets to the evening event are free for workshop participants, $3 for others.

To sign up for the poetry workshops, e-mail Megan Oteri at megan@attentionhomes.com, or call Megan Oteri or Judy Perkins at Attention Homes at (307) 778-7832.  

Grants Available for Projects that Encourage Visual Learning; Student Contests, Too

Ten grants will be awarded to educators whose curriculum ideas illustrate effective & creative use of digital cameras & software resources.  Educators can visit www.toolfactory.com/olympus_contest/ to learn details and to complete an online application to enter the 2005-06 Olympus and Tool Factory Classroom Grant Program.  Deadlines (5 winners for each date): Dec. 30, 2005, and June 2, 2005.

At the same Website, you can also find out more about a student photography contest by the same sponsors.  Students may submit photos within 2 categories: Photography and Art (Photo manipulation).  Five winners will be selected.

Encouraging Youth to SPEAK UP to Prevent Violence

National Safe Schools Week is taking place October 16–22 this year, and the focus is on empowering youth to prevent violence. The fact is that young people can prevent violence.

The numbers are startling: gun violence kills 8 children and teens every day, and more than 950,000 students take weapons to school each month. As a result, over 1,400,000 students are injured or threatened with a weapon each school year, and each month, 840,000 students feel too unsafe even to go to school. (Source: CDC Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, 2003)

Recognizing this concern, SPEAK UP features the first-ever anonymous national hotline for students to report weapon threats 24 hours a day – 1-866-SPEAK-UP – that is supported by a powerful public service advertising campaign.

The SPEAK UP Campaign is also supported by middle and high school lesson plans that meet the national standards for health education and have been endorsed by several major national education and school safety organizations.  Launched in the 2004-2005 school year, the lesson plans are now being taught in dozens of middle schools, high schools and after-school programs across the country.

For more information on how you can get involved, please visit the Safe Schools Week website at www.safeschoolsweek.org, or contact SPEAK UP at www.paxusa.org, speakup@paxusa.org, or 212.269.5100.