NEA Pacific Regional Leadership Conference Reports

On February 26 and 27, three of your fellow part-time faculty members attended the NEA Pacific Regional Leadership Conference (PRLC) at the Portland Hilton. Adriana Aristizabal, of Computer Science, Jennifer Rueda, of ESL, and Ivan Mancinelli-Franconi, of Psychology attended conference sessions on multiple topics regarding leadership in education, including sessions on teacher evaluation and assessment, achieving budget goals, the Teacher's Health Trust, creating safe schools, education reform and bargaining, English language learner culture and equity framework, and the Oregon delegation meeting. Please look for reports and information about Adriana, Jennifer, and Ivan's experiences at the PRLC conference in our upcoming spring issue of the PTFA Newsletter.

Adriana put together a wonderful report with introductory information, main points, and some slide images from the sessions that she attended on teacher evaluation and assessment, achieving budget goals, and the Teacher's Health Trust. The information she provided is more than we can publish in the newsletter, but I wanted to make sure that everyone got a chance to see it. Please click on the link here to learn more about the sessions that Adriana attended. Jennifer also provided some links to resources related to the conference and to some of the sessions that she attended:

• 2011 NEA PRLC: The homepage for the NEA's 2011 Pacific Regional Leadership Conference.



• StretchWare: Software that helps you remember to stretch while working and that also might provide some ideas for classroom stretching and moving exercises.



• JAM (Just-a-Minute) School Program: A program that brings physical activity and health education into the classroom.



• OEA Choice Trust: A wellness program with a mission to make positive changes in the heath habits of Oregon's education employees. Those who want to learn more about the program may also contact Holly Spruance at hs@oeachoice.com.



• zhaolearning.com: Yong Zhao is the Presidential Chair and Associate Dean of Global Education at the University of Oregon. He is also the director of the Center for Advanced Learning and Technology and a fellow of the International Academy for Education. His site provides a blog, publications, speeches, and information regarding projects and courses, related to various topics, including education, globalization, technology, China, and Chinese language and learning.



• Slides from Dr. Zhao's presentation: Jennifer reports that Dr. Zhao's "talk focused on transforming our current, perhaps broken, public education system into a creative, world-class system that produces students ready for life in the age of globalization."



• A Blog Post by Lily Eskelsen: Lily Eskelsen is an elementary school teacher from Utah and the Vice President of the NEA. This particular blog post, Jennifer tells us, offers sense of what Eskelsen spoke about at the PRLC conference, including heifer.org, a non-profit organization that gifts third-world citizens with farm animals. Eskelson talked about how the public education system can learn something from these third-world citizens that can help us better educate our own children.

Look for more on these topics soon, in the PTFA Newsletter, to be delivered to your mailbox around Week 9 or 10 of the term!