From: GEA Subject: (granite) GEA President Update - March 1 Date: 01 Mar 1999 12:23:41 -0700 Hello, I must appologize that this first update is so very late in coming. It did not work when it was sent off the first time. With all my school visits and the legislature - I have not been able to get back to attempt this again, until now. So, this will be the second and first - together. However, they will be posted on Fridays - from now on.... :) Thanks for your patience! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hello, This is the first, official, update. I am excited to be providing one more method of communications with our members! These updates will be done every other Friday unless there is something of more major importance to report. ~~~~~ During the past few weeks I have been out in the schools holding Legislative Work Sessions. I have had assistance from Jay Blain, your Vice President and the UniServ directors. We have held a 20 minute meeting before/after school or a session during a school's lunch. During this meeting, we have given the staff an update of what is happening on the hill and facilitated a letter writing campaign for Granite's legislators. These Legislative Work Sessions have been very successful. We now have nearly 1,000 letters that we have delivered. ~~ Our final total was 1,262! The Association Representative Council (ARs) met Wednesday and wrote a resolution. We will give this resolution to our legislators next week. It asks for their support of our public education system. ~~ This was delivered to our legislators on the 17th. ~~ We have more help on the web-site. If you have ideas please let me know! I look forward to your comments. This concludes our first (and second) update. If you have things you would like information on or questions - email me at pres@gea-ut.org -- Debbie White President Granite Education Association ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him. ~Aldous Huxley - To unsubscribe to granite, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe granite" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: GEA Subject: (granite) GEA President Update - March 12 Date: 12 Mar 1999 13:01:29 -0700 Hello, The past two weeks have been very productive. The legislature ended on March 3rd. It was a disappointing session as far as the WPU - funded at 2.5%. However, the teacher directed supply money should be around $200 per teacher and UEA killed many negative bills. Refer to your UEA Capitol Bulletin for further details. (If you did not receive one - let your rep or myself know.) Local presidents, from across the state, spent nearly four hours - Saturday, March 6th - discussing what happened at this legislative session. Phyllis Sorensen, UEA President, told us to prepare our members both economically and mentally for next year. It was a consensus, with the local presidents, that we need to begin now, doing what needs to be done, to insure public education is treated as a real priority where they truly fund our needs. Our GEA PAC will be dealing with these issues and giving members further information. Let me know if you are interested in joining this committee. GEA was well represented, March 9th, at a Site-Based Decision Making (SBDM) retreat with the district. Nearly thirty individuals from all constituency groups spent the entire day discussing this topic. This is the beginning. Further discussion and work will be done on SBDM. I will give you details as things happen. I held a focus group discussion with elementary resource teachers Thursday, March 11th. It was a very productive session. We decided that it formed a Task Force that will look at the issues presented during that session. There is an open invitation for any resource or regular ed teacher to attend. The first meeting will be Thursday, April 8th at 4:30 - here at the GEA office. The UEA House of Delegates will be held Saturday, April 24th at Jordon High School. (We need delegates to attend.) This is the meeting where members give direction to UEA about the direction the association should take. UEA is requesting that each delegate bring a guest - new or experienced members. The purpose is to involve and inform more of the membership about the workings of the association. Let us see how many we can have attend! Plus, UEA will buy the guest lunch. (How can you beat that?) Let us know your plans - 266-4411. We have available, for bid, a Risograph- 2500 (original purchase price in 1988 was $4,000). Included with the Riso an extra drum in blue (value $750), extra black and blue inks ($30), and a roll of masters ($20). It prints materials slightly skewed. Minimum bid $500. Bids due by March 31st at the GEA office. -- Debbie White President Granite Education Association pres@gea-ut.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him. ~Aldous Huxley - To unsubscribe to granite, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe granite" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: GEA Subject: (granite) GEA President Update - March 31 Date: 31 Mar 1999 15:33:01 -0700 Hello, GEA has been very busy since the last update. The Political Action Committee has taken on a new task. They are the crisis committee for GEA. UEA has asked each local to assess the frustration with the teachers. PAC chose to use a survey (that also included statistics) to do the assessment. That survey is in the schools now. They are due back April 14th. PAC will compile the results the next day. We will use the results in planning. I will also pass the information at the next local president's meeting. I am now scheduling school visits (before/after and lunches) with our legislators. If your school would like to be involved with these visits or would you like a legislator to visit your classroom - let me know.... pres@gea-ut.org or 266-4411. The Professional Development Task Force, which has representation from each educational constituency group, met on the 24th of March. They approved a much shortened draft proposal. At the AR meeting in April, Reps will receive the in information and do an evaluation. We are in the process of scheduling other opportunities for the general membership to give their input. More information coming in the future. The UEA House of Delegates will be held Saturday, April 24th at Jordon High School. (We need delegates to attend.) This is the meeting where members give direction to UEA about the direction the association should take. UEA is requesting that each delegate bring a guest - new or experienced members. The purpose is to involve and inform more of the membership about the workings of the association. Let us see how many we can have attend! In addition, UEA will buy the guest lunch. (How can you beat that?) Let us know your plans - 266-4411. We still have available a Risograph- 2500 (original purchase price in 1988 was $4,000). Included with the Riso an extra drum in blue (value $750), extra black and blue inks ($30), and a roll of masters ($20). It prints materials slightly skewed. Minimum bid $500. Send bids to the GEA office by April 16th. Thanks... -- Debbie White President Granite Education Association Email - pres@gea-ut.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him. ~Aldous Huxley - To unsubscribe to granite, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe granite" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message.