President's Message
Self Evaluation is the Most Important Assessment
The month of May signals the end of the school year. It’s the perfect time to reflect on your successes as teachers and the successes of your students. It’s the time of year when teachers and students alike breathe a collective sigh of relief because “the tests” are over.
You can teach all those last minute lessons you know they need to learn before you send them on, and you can do it without the high stress of testing. It’s a liberating time that reminds us why we went into education.
For education support professionals, it’s time to think about all the end-of-the-year tasks that have to be completed. It’s a time to reflect on all the students whose lives you have touched. You are often a role model for them and someone they look to for advice. The word support means to strengthen, and that’s what you do daily – you strengthen public education and make it stronger.
We each have dedicated our professional lives to our students and public education. It is, therefore, hard to see public education attacked by those people who want to demonize and vilify it. The Stand Up for Public Education Campaign has put our profession in a positive light. It’s been our opportunity to share our stories and to remind the public that we – teachers and support professionals – are the backbone of public education.
We are not the enemy. We are the experts who know what is going on in education. We live it daily and have committed our professional lives to making it better for our students.
Put the May 5 Stand Up for Public Education Rally on your calendar. This is your opportunity to stand up and speak out for our profession. It’s a chance to stand together with parents, grandparents, students and all supporters of public education. It’s our opportunity to be “public education proud.” While we know that public education is alive and well, the rally is our chance to show the doubters and nay-sayers that we are doing a great job educating the children of Oklahoma.
The Stand Up Campaign is a result of action by the 2011 Delegate Assembly. The TV ads and billboards have been a huge success. They have appeared on Facebook, hulu.com, YouTube and in newspapers and e-mail.
The quality of the ads was outstanding. In fact, the campaign won eight gold medals, one bronze medal and a Special Judges Award at the Oklahoma City Ad Club Addy Awards. Not only were our messages awesome, they were done in an award-winning manner. A big thank you to the Staplegun agency for their creativity and work on the campaign.
I look forward to seeing you, your family and friends at the Capitol on May 5. Let’s show everyone that we are “Public Education Proud!”
Linda Hampton
OEA President
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