Day 6--Last Day!

Our last caucus meeting saw us finish the last of the 87 NBIs before 8AM! There were some final announcements and then at 8:45 we lined the sidewalks with our posters amidst the news cameras as 100 members of the delegation joined the leadership in walking to the governor's SD office--they couldn't get a parade permit so the smaller group walked it. The final day of the RA began and we discussed issues from supporting Honduran teachers, to sanitary classrooms, to ELL issues, to the Employee Free Choice Act, etc. We finished the 87th NBI at 5:35 and are now on to the budget. I'll update tomorrow from home but what a wonderful, moving, educational experience this has been!

Day 5--What Day Is It??

Finished yesterday at 5:45, had a nice dinner at a restaurant near the hotel where we could watch the fireworks over the water, and then collapsed for the evening! Up again and at our 7AM CA Caucus where we went through NBI items from #44-69. Tomorrow the leadership will walk the mile to the governor's SD office to deliver our message and the 10,000+ postcards from the RA. Today my gifts to the Virginia contact and her president were bottles of CA wine. (Did consider keeping it.... :) ) We then voted on the Bylaw Amendments and for the NEA Director--run off election from yesterday. Again, it went very quickly. Even had time for a quick snack before heading for the RA floor.
Today saw a delegation that had not only the solid color red, yellow, and green flags but checked ones to indicate steering committee suggestions! KC Walsh took us on a tour of the backstage area which was really interesting. Each officer has an office, there's a green room for special guests, a conference room, a fantastic technology room--with razor type scooters in parking spaces outside, etc. All the equipment, screens, carpet, etc. are all NEA's which of course made it less expensive when it was in DC :) Secretary/Treasurer Gail Burrell came out of her office to meet all of us and have her picture taken with the 5 of us. President Obama spoke to us via video and promised to work with us and that decisions would involve us and that change would not be something done to us but rather with us. Pretty impressive!
The diversity of our country has come out in a variety of ways and on a variety of issues. Conservatives, liberals, and some very interesting characters in both. Some of the state stereotypes really do hold true. One speaker from Wisconsin admonished us that this was the National Education Association NOT the California Education Association---sad but true :) Their president did apologize to ours. From the podium the body as a whole had been admonished not to heckle speakers they don't agree with so in general everyone has been pretty well behaved. It is almost 3PM and we are still voting on Legislative Amendments--no break yet. (Delegates just go and get something to eat when they can...)

Day 4--Happy 4th of July!

The day began early again with our CA Caucus meeting at 7AM. We continued through the legislation that would come up on the RA floor and I tracked our oppose and support positions for Virginia. News from Sacramento after CTA call for phone calls yesterday, said that the Governor was reconsidering his call to spend Prop 98. Today we had to vote on candidates for the NEA Board as soon as we adjourned at 9AM. It was amazing how smoothly the process goes--after showing both delegate and picture ID we went to designated counters to sign for our ballots, then moved through to the voting carousels and exited by putting our ballots into the tabulating machine. Our 1100 members were through in about 15 minutes!
At the RA, after opening ceremonies we took up the By Law Amendments which we will vote on tomorrow. I delivered the day's gifts for the VA contact and her president along with the CA Caucus positions. The CA delegation was asked to stay to support David Sanchez during his press conference when the rest of the RA took a 30 minute break around 2PM. It was very moving to be part of that--as a State Contact I got to stand on stage while the State Presidents delivered their postcards to the podium to be delivered by the CA delegation to the Governor's office here in San Diego on Monday. We had posters to hold and in addition to David, an 8 year teacher spoke on the RIF notice she received here at the RA (this is the first time CA has had to do summer layoffs and districts have until 8/15 to do them.) Next was the 4th of July celebration--historical readings, music, etc. We then went back to New Business Items. It's 3:30 and we are going until 6PM! More later or tomorrow!

Day 3---The NEA Rep Assembly Begins!

Long day today but longer tomorrow! We started at 7AM w/California Caucus meeting. I had to report to the State Contact Table to pick up the tracking sheet for CA positions to deliver to the Virginia Delegation. We first heard candidates for the resolutions committee and then, while David gave his Sacramento update, we voted on the candidates. The news from Sacramento is awful and we are being asked to call our legislators again. The Governor has called an emergency meeting of the legislature to suspend Prop 98--the guarantee of minimum funding for education. It is too late to get a parade permit but something will occur on the floor at the RA. We then went through 10 Standing Rule Amendments, 5 Bylaw Amendments and 15 New Business Items! I recorded all of our positions, support or oppose, for Virginia. We adjourned at 9AM and I reported to the CTA Office to pick up the day's gifts for my state contact and her president as well as the postcards that their delegates will fill out in support of our budget positions--these will be delivered to the governor by hand. At this point we went to the Exhibits at the Convention Center---too many booths to visit and so little time :)
At 10:30 we went to the floor of the RA and located our seats. I'm on an aisle so that I can easily get to the Virginia delegation if necessary and Randi is next to me. CA is seated down front and we sit with our Santa Clara County Service Center. The whole experience is exciting but the opening moments with loud music, people dancing and clapping, beach balls in the air in some delegations, funny hats and then confetti when we actually convened. The opening which included the Color Guard from Coronado Navel Base, the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem, and an Invocation were all impressive. David Sanchez greeted the delegates and introduced the Host Committee. The recognized past NEA Presidents and related the highlight of their time in office which was very interesting. We then voted on the Standing Rules Amendments. The process w/regard to the order and recognition of speakers was interesting. If you wanted to speak you had to submit a form and each mike had a phone where the info was called in and the tech folks had the person's name and pro or con or the amendment on the screens and on the VP's screen at their Mike. They instantly tracked how many pro or con, what order they were received in, etc. Each delegation had a way of letting their delegation know what their caucus' position had been--our were signs that had a green up arrow that said "Caucus Recommends Yes", one for no and then if something was amended the sign would say "Leadership recommends...". You vote however you want these are just recommendations. Some caucuses had flags that were red, green, and yellow, etc.
I'm sure you can find President Dennis Van Roeckel's speech elsewhere but the emphasis was on the need or all of us to get involved and to work to make change and transformation to happen. There was no lunch break--I think that logistically they couldn't release over 10,000 people at one time so people would leave and come back with lunch. (We had a ten minute break at 3 :) ) We then moved on to discussion of New Business Items--more interesting discussions and I have their text if you are interested.
Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico was there to receive the Education Governor Award. What he has accomplished there is truly amazing. His teachers' salaries went from 46th to 36th in the country. He got rid of the State Board Of Education and created a Cabinet post and an advisory committee. He really got out and listened to teachers and involved them in the planning and changes. Really interesting--you might want to look up the text of that speech.
Randi and I then drove to Cardiff by the Sea to meet her son and his girlfriend for dinner. A long day that varied from moving to interesting to impressive and back!

Day 2----

Today I had to be at a breakfast meeting for State Contacts so left Randi behind as I headed down to the ballroom at 8:30. My duties as State Contact (to Virginia) essentially require me to take California's positions to them and to bring their positions back to our delegation. I also deliver presents from CTA to their President.
When done with my meeting I met Randi for the 10 minute walk to the convention center to attend the Town Hall with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. It is especially significant that this dialogue is going on when there was none for the previous 8 years. He spoke and then a panel of about 10 teachers spoke either making comments on his remarks or posing questions for him to respond to. After that they took questions from the floor. It was clear that there are some areas of disagreement but I appreciated his taking the time to talk and listen and he allayed a few of my concerns. The issues of merit pay, union practices such as tenure, and of course, charter schools still are issues that need to be resolved. (I'll try to post a link to his speech if we get it.)
We took a quick tour of the exhibit hall picking up free items such as water bottles, pencils, pens,etc. and made note of booths we'd visit when we had more time. I was amazed at the number of conservative Christian/religious booths there were. Guess even though we are in CA I have to remember this is a national convention.
We then drove out to Coronado and had a late lunch at the Hotel Del Coronado. We did a little shopping and headed back in time to change for our Santa Clara County Service Center's dinner at 6PM.
Our real work begins tomorrow. We have to be at the CA Caucus meeting at 7AM(!!!!) at the convention center. Then the Rep. Assembly begins and goes from 11-5PM. The remaining days it's still 7-9 for CA Caucus and then 10-6! It was interesting to get a preview of the hall today when we went to hear Duncan. Because CA is the host we are seated down front and we were all wearing our NCLB t-shirts that say on the front: NCLB Erase, Rewrite, Reauthorize and then on the back: "Learning is more than a test score ...and so is Teaching."

Day One: July 1, 2009

We had breakfast in our room--we brought breakfast food because after the first couple of days our meetings start at 7AM! At 9AM we headed for New Delegate Orientation where we were introduced to both the CTA and NEA Board Members--I knew them from State Council. We were given an overview of procedures for both the CA Caucus meetings and then the NEA Rep. Assembly. A few of the interesting facts:
*NEA's RA is larger than the Democratic and Republican Conventions together!
*It is the largest democratically elected body in the world
*Most states have 30-60 delegates and we have 1150--with 50 staff that keep everything organized and running smoothly.
*There are approximately 10,000 delegates from all over the country at the RA

At 10:15 we attended the first CA Caucus. We found our seats with the Santa Clara County Service Center--there are about 55 of us. We sang the Star Spangled Banner with the CTA/NEA Choir they will open the Padres game tonight. We adopted Caucus Rules and Procedures and then the rest of the meeting was mostly introductions and procedural items.

David Sanchez talked about the dire budget situation. He had been at the Convention Center from 7AM on giving news interviews. He asked us to call the governor and Republican senators during our lunch break. The Democrat's budget has some cuts but does include some revenue and it puts back some college funding along with a plan for repayment of 9.8 billion eventually (Prop. 98) The governor and the Republicans are holding it up. Bank of America has said it will not honor the IOU's.

When we broke for lunch we headed down to the Convention Center to do our NEA Registration--yes we have to register twice--once for CA Caucus and once for the RA. In order to vote on the RA floor we have to have our delegate ID cards. We grabbed a quick lunch at the Hard Rock Hotel across the street and then headed back for our 1PM Caucus.

David Sanchez gave us a budget update from Sacramento--we were to stop calling--the message had been received and the governor was meeting with Nunez. Later reports said that he now wanted to suspend Prop 98 (which protects minimum school funding) so there will be a full RA activity--later this week to continue the fight to prevent further cuts to education.

We had committee reports and then discussed a proposed new business item dealing with turnaround schools. Obama has proposed spending 5 billion to turn around the 5,000 lowest performing schools in the country and the NEA Board of Directors wanted to develop and implement an action plan. This will be discussed at the RA but we amended it to include that we "oppose conversion of public schools to charter schools."

At 4PM we helped our Service Center Chair pack sets of 55 "snack bags" for the days that we will be in the convention center. At 6PM we headed to Petco Park wearing our CTA shirts. We were in the "All you can eat" seats--hotdogs, popcorn, nachos, soda, ice cream.... We were up high and it was cold so we left when the score was 6-1 with the Padres losing:) It's been fun to see my colleagues from State Council and to meet folks from all over the state. I look forward to meeting teachers from all over the country in the next few days!

Travel Day-Tuesday 6/30/09

Arrived at Randi's house and loaded her car...we have enough stuff to be gone for at least a month now! Made it to the Manchester Hyatt in San Diego around 3:30..including a stop for lunch in Long Beach! We checked in, dropped our things in our room and went out to check out the hotel. We then headed over to the Gas Lamp District where we had dinner at Dick's Last Resort. At 7:30 we headed to the 2nd floor at the hotel to register for the California Caucus. We encountered our first set of lines: lines to register, lines to buy the CTA shirts, lines to get our tickets for CTA Night at the Padres Baseball Game, and lines for our free t-shirts w/NCLB slogans on them for meeting w/Arne Duncan, the Secy. of Education. We then carried everything back to our room and sat down to figure out our schedule for tomorrow. Randi got us a beautiful room on the 30th floor with a beautiful view--the aircraft carrier Midway is just below us. Tomorrow is all CA Caucus meetings with the game in the evening.