Business Items

NEA will support state and local associations in recruiting and retaining ethnic minority educators by enlisting the Ethnic Minority Caucuses to train leaders in cultural competency, as well as, engage teacher education programs to actively recruit ethnic minority teachers.

NEA will offer a two-day, credentialed, member-led “Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training” for up to 1 representative per delegation as a pre-RA option at the 2017 RA. Participants should represent a cross-section of NEA members, including teachers and support personnel. States will bear the cost of travel and lodging.

NEA shall encourage its members to urge their school districts to celebrate the 2nd Monday of October as El Dia de la Raza and Indigenous People’s Day. Information shall be disseminated through NEA Today and on digital properties.

NEA will gather, create, and disseminate contract language to protect education employees from physical or emotional violence, sexual harassment, and abuse against them by students.

NEA will encourage local leaders to share the personal stories of American Indian/Alaska Native and Asian, Native Hawaiian, other Pacific Islander and Indigenous students who have been denied and those that have succeeded in being able to wear symbols of cultural significance at their graduation ceremony to highlight the much needed support of cultural inclusion in their educational career. These stories will be shared digitally by NEA using existing media resources or in the NEA Today.

President Eskelsen-Garcia will write a letter to every state chief officer of public education recommending they support American Indian/Alaska Native and Asian, Native Hawaiian, and other Pacific Islanders’ wearing symbols of their culture during their graduation.

That NEA have the appropriate committee explore the expansion of the Local President Release Time Grant Program to provide more grants to fund a larger number of local affiliates.

NEA, using existing resources and reports, will inform our members on the impact of racist stereotypes and mascots on students. They will focus on how racist imagery affects students in their emotional/social growth, stress, brain development, health, educational success and safety issues.

NEA will then develop a virtual toolkit of best practices and effective materials for working with students exposed to these racist images. NEA will also develop a training module on how to combat inequalities due to these racist images among our students. This module will be made available to affiliates and community groups as appropriate.

NEA will stand in solidarity with the Mexican teachers of the CNTE (National Coordinator of Education Workers) and urges to maintain the national dialogue on the Education Reform law in Mexico and further condemns the use of deadly violence against unarmed teachers, students and people of Oaxaca where 12 people were killed on June 19th. The NEA also requests due process and the release of unjustly detained teachers.

NEA will establish/identify best practices for high school transition programs for students with disabilities and publicize examples of exemplary approaches throughout the country.