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Guest blog: Studt wraps up reporting from the NEA RA
07/11/2016

This is the final report from ISTA member Randy Studt who spent last week in Washington, D.C., as a National Education Association (NEA) Representative Assembly (RA) delegate. Thank you to all of our Indiana delegates for representing our nearly 40,000 members. 

Edited by Kara Seward


 

Now that most delegates have arrived back in the Hoosier state with about a month left before school starts, it's a good time to reflect on what the NEA RA has meant to us as individuals and for our profession.

Yes, we dispatched 125 new business items, or NBIs, meaning we spent about a third of the contingency fund we keep on-hand. Many of these topics will end up in information passed along to you on topics ranging from health issues, professional changes and gender neutral bathrooms in schools. 

We also collectively approved Constitutional Amendments and By-laws, elected new Executive Committee members, amended our Resolutions and policies. The NEA RA attendees learned about parliamentary procedures. 

But for me the most important part of the NEA RA were the personal interactions we had and the bonds we forged with folks from all over Indiana and the nation. Whether you spent all your time with Hoosiers, or if you joined an NEA Caucus and built bridges across the country, you were learning and sharing in an intimate way.  

Every year, the NEA RA is hosted in a different city. One of the best parts of the NEA RA in different cities is getting to enjoy the sites and tastes. As I finished my last morning with new NEA Board Member Jennifer Smith-Margraf from Lafayette at the Postal Museum [photo], something struck me.

 Randy_Studt_NEA_RA_4.jpg#asset:8732

Public education, like the postal service, is a common good. It binds us together and allows all, regardless of social status, ethnic heritage, geography or orientation, to come together to share and learn and begin to bind ourselves together as a common nation. Our founding fathers envisioned a grand nation – expansive enough for all religions, cultures and people to live together in freedom. That's our greatest mission in the classroom whether you're in Evansville or Auburn, Richmond or Crawfordsville.

It’s time to relax, refresh, recharge – those kids need you in just a few weeks. 


Studt has been a lifelong member of ISTA. Born in Connersville, Ind., he taught for 18 years at North White and since 2003 at West Lafayette.