Notes from Camp, 2009: July 2

Thursday, July 2

Most delegates arrived by the end of the day yesterday, and for many this was their first full day in the host city.

Ohio's delegates had held a caucus in Columbus early in June, but today the state held its second caucus. To ease delegates into the RA work schedule, today's caucus started at 7:30 rather than at 7:00 as it will for the rest of the RA. Ohio delegates heard a report from one of its screening committees and voted to endorse three candidates for at-large seats on NEA's Board of Directors. (Nominations will be made tomorrow, and the elections take place on Saturday.)

Since the biennial Ohio budget expires at the end of June, it has been common for the NEA RA to occur at a time when last-minute negotiations are occuring in Columbus. That didn't happen in 2007, when newly-elected Governor Ted Strickland managed to get nearly-unanimous approval of a budget out of both houses of the Ohio General Assembly; but it is happning this year, with one of the toughest budget fights in recent memory still unresolved as the delegates left home. Since this group includes many of the leaders of OEA, its district associations llike NEOEA, and many of the locals, delegates received a telephone briefing from Governmental Services representatives working in Columbus. (For the latest on the budget issues, see the OEA website at www.ohea.org.)

After the caucus ended at 9:30, Northeastern Ohio delegates met in a short caucus before being dismissed for the rest of the day.

A lot of delegates call this "hearing day" because it features an open hearing on the budget and strategic plan, and another open hearing on NEA's legislative program. (There actually was an open hearing on resolutions yesterday, so this isn't the only day with open hearings.)

As important as they were, those hearings may have been upstaged by three special presentations making up a program billed as "A Day of Hope and Change." In the morning, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan held a town hall conversation, the last stop on his "Listening Tour across America." Alan Blankstein, founder and president of the HOPE Foundation (hopefoundation.org), spoke at a luncheon, and in the afternoon the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson moderated a discussion on race, education, and culture in America.

This was the last evening before the four long days of the Representative Assembly, so many observed an early evening in order to get a good night's sleep before tomorrow's caucus, the first of four starting at 7:00 AM.

WSL

For a look online at the work of the Annual Meeting, check out www.nea.org/annualmeeting.
For NEA's Annual Meeting Blog, go to http://nea-ra.blogspot.com.