KEA Executive Director's Report - Kentucky Education Association

March 2013
TO:
FR:
RE:
KEA Delegates
Mary Ann Blankenship
KEA Delegate Assembly
Report of KEA Staff Activities since the 2012 Delegate Assembly
I hope each of you will join me in thanking KEA staff who have absorbed more work this year as we
have left some vacant staff positions unfilled. Almost all staff have picked up more work during this
past year.
Summarizing the work for nearly seventy staff over a full year is nearly impossible. Consequently, I
highlight a few of the more notable activities, organized around KEA’s operational goals.
Member Rights
1. Individual Advocacy: KEA has maintained its strong history of advocating for individual
members’ rights, both from advice and assistance from UniServ staff and from attorneys.
2. Organizational Relations: KEA’s presence and relationships with both local and state
decision makers assures that members’ needs and rights are considered and included in
deliberations.
3. Local Advocacy: KEA equipped its local association leaders in advocacy activities with their
local school board, especially around financial and professional issues. KEA assisted
bargaining and non-bargaining locals with their local organizing and advocacy activities.
4. Superintendent and Principal Selection: KEA advised and trained members to assure
that they exercised their rights as teachers and as SBDM council members.
5. Troubled School Districts: As management problems in more school districts came to light
this year (whether because of reviews by the State Auditor’s office or KDE), KEA assisted its
leaders and members in assuring that members’ voices were heard and they were
protected.
Membership Development
1. Training: KEA developed and piloted new membership training to give recruiters skills and
help them target. KEA also provided training to ARs, emerging leaders, and local officers,
each with a component of membership recruitment and engagement.
2. Communication: KEA enhanced its communication with members and non-members this
year, with redesign of www.kea.org, more Facebook presence, better face-to-face contacts,
and new membership videos.
3. Outreach to New Professionals: KEA has increased its communication and outreach to
younger members, knowing they will lead the association of the future and are also key to
increasing KEA’s membership.
4. Leadership Development: Knowing the strong local officers and Association
Representatives are key to KEA’s ongoing success and growth, KEA continues to focus on
recruiting and training these local leaders.
5. Community Outreach: Since school employees support their local communities every day
in both their professional and personal commitments, KEA has assisted locals in organizing
Read Across America activities and the student program in its annual outreach to teach
activity, this year in Magoffin County.

Strong Locals
1. Member Collaboration: More local are working well across all categories of membership –
classified members, certified members, retired members and student members. Several
locals have merged their certified and classified groups into one united organization.
2. Treasurers’ Training: KEA has created and began delivering training for local treasurers.
Request this training through your UniServ director.
3. UniServ Study: In response to NEA 2 from 2012, KEA has begun a study of the way that
KEA assigns work to UniServ staff, in an effort to create an equitable way to serve all
members’ needs appropriately.
4. Electoral Involvement: KEA worked with members to become more involved in local
school board elections and to maintain a Democratic majority in the Kentucky General
Assembly. KEPAC continued to develop its county-focused structure to enhance members’
political engagement.
5. Lobbying Involvement: The 2013 General Assembly session saw significant changes, with
a more bipartisan atmosphere, which resulted in more bills passing. Unfortunately, among
these bills was one that changes the structure of the pension system for all classified
employees hired after January 1, 2014, while not assuring that the pension systems are
funded. Most troubling, legislators show no inclination to resolve the state’s financial
problems more generally.
Strong Profession
1. Regulations: KEA has become more involved this year in advocacy around proposed
regulations to assure that they are consistent with the law, enhance the education
professions and also protect members.
2. Teaching Quality: As the development progressed of the Professional Growth and
Effectiveness System, KEA members and staff devoted significant time to advocacy related
to this huge priority. KEA enhanced its support programs for candidates for National Board
Certification and with the national board leadership.
3. TELL Kentucky: KEA was instrumental in Kentucky’s record-setting participation in the
second administration of the TELL Kentucky survey in March 2013.
4. Focus and Priority Schools: KEA offered informational sessions for members in focus and
priority schools and worked with KDE on services offered to these schools.
5. KEA TALK: KEA’s new Teaching Advocates Leading Kentucky is advising the association on
communications with educators about PGES and implementation of the common core and
Kentucky’s new assessment and accountability system. This work is underwritten by a
grant from the NEA Foundation, with funding coming from the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation. TALK will sponsor a conference in June in Louisville.