Business Items

NEA will use existing legal resources to support state affiliates by providing information regarding existing laws that allow undocumented students to receive in-state college tuition rates in the state in which they reside.

The NEA shall mount a media campaign in the coming school year advocating the preservation and extension of library media programs in public schools and community college libraries across the country that are staffed by professionally trained librarians. The campaign shall consist of both print and digital media in both print and video formats. Publication will be made in media outlets curated by the NEA and other organizations supportive of school library programs such as the American Library Association, School Library Journal, and everylibrary.org as well as the related social media pages maintained by the same organizations and through their outlets.

NEA Exit Interview Project – Drawing from the work of state associations and locals that have implemented educational employee exit surveys, the NEA will develop an exit interview tool for locals to use as a guide to exit interview data collection including: leaver demographics, job statuses, years of employment, reason for leaving. This toolkit will advise locals how to use this information to benefit their local and school district.

NEA will make available, through digital resources, classroom strategies from current research for meeting the needs of students who may be struggling with mental health conditions.

NEA will use existing research and resources to publish successful practices used by states and locals to recruit and retain minority educators for K-12 and public higher education institutions. The NEA will determine what policies and practices support these efforts. NEA will identify toolkits and resources for locals, schools, school districts, and higher education institutions to use to recruit and retain teachers of color and encourage minority students to major in education.

Through a press release, the NEA will state our opposition to the draconian austerity measures and privatization of public services being imposed on the people of Puerto Rico through the Puerto Rican Oversight Management and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) of 2016, as this debt was not created nor is owned by the Puerto Rican people. In this press release, the NEA shall explain how we

• Support the need for communities to have well-run schools where the people live, and we oppose the closure of more than 130 schools, the cutting of 40 days from the school year, and the non-renewal of the year-to-year teacher contracts of more than 5,000 teachers.
• Support local educators and oppose the corporately-controlled board’s plans to freeze teacher salaries that have been stagnant since 2007.
• Support the rights of people to access healthcare and receive their pensions and oppose expected cuts in both.

The NEA will include a written demand to end to these destructive cuts as outlined above and insist that the restructuring plan not be carried out at the expense of the Puerto Rican U.S. citizens who own less than one-third of the debt. The public good must be put first before the lobbying efforts of hedge- and vulture-fund owners.

The NEA will change the name “NEA Student Program” to “NEA Aspiring Educators,” starting in the 2018-2020 budget cycle.

In partnership with the Southern Poverty Law Center, NAACP, ACLU, GLSEN, National Center for Trans-Equality Human Rights Campaign, and any other legal and human rights groups of related concerns, NEA will track incidents of discrimination, racism, homophobia, and transphobia, as well as anti-semitism, Islamophobia, and all other forms of religious discrimination, and bigotry in our public schools. The data will be shared with districts to educate and eradicate hate through the development of programs that include, but are not limited to, training on unconscious bias, culturally responsive instruction, and the anti-defamation league.

Using existing vehicles, the NEA will provide locals and states with methods, tools, and resources to create outreach opportunities and build partnerships with parent and community groups, in order to form coalitions for the purpose of seeking full federal funding for special education.

Through existing resources, NEA will share sample contract language for fully paid parental leave and highlight states that have passed parental leave legislation as well.