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EDUCATION NEWS
MCCEA honors Lisa Galley, editor of the NJEA Review
The Morris County Council of Education Associations is very
proud that for the last 15 years one of their own, Lisa Galley, was the
editor of the NJEA Review. On April 5, MCCEA honored her with
the Friend of Education Award for her service to the profession and
to NJEA members. Prior to her career at NJEA, Lisa was a history
teacher at Mount Olive High School in Morris County and an awardwinning
tennis coach.
Lisa was unable to accept the award in person. She was in the final
weeks of her battle with ovarian cancer—a diagnosis with which she
struggled mightily for five years. Her NJEA colleagues in the Communications
Division accepted the award on her behalf and delivered
the remarks she had prepared for the event.
“Morris County will always hold a special place in my heart,” Lisa
wrote. “Like so many of you, my association involvement started because
I was drawn to those who really cared about their colleagues
and their students.”
Lisa often remarked that when she first began teaching, she noticed
that those in her school building whom she perceived to be the
best teachers were, more often than not, the same individuals who
were active in the Education Association of Morris (EAMO). The
professional example set by those educators was what brought her
into association involvement.
A harbinger of the kind of work Lisa would do at NJEA, she became
the editor of EAMO’s newsletter, but writing was not the only
skill she brought to association work.
EAMO created a political action committee, naming Lisa its chair.
The Political Action Committee for Education (PACE) made voting
recommendations for the local school board elections.
“We were so successful that we had a board member challenge us
with the state ethics commission,” Lisa recalled. “That challenge led
to a new rule in the state that an endorsed candidate could not vote
on the collective bargaining agreement.”
The “Mount Olive Decision” required board of education members
who had been publicly endorsed by a local association to recuse
themselves from contract negotiations with that local and from voting
on contract ratification for a period of one year following their
election.
Once she was hired as the editor of the NJEA Review in January
2001, Lisa knew that her job was about more than article selection,
grammar and punctuation. As the editor of the Association’s professional
journal, Lisa understood that she would need to work closely
with the NJEA Professional Development and Instructional Issues
Division. She wanted to be sure that the publication would serve
members well as they navigated teaching or provided support staff
services in New Jersey's public schools.
Lisa carefully studied education policy at the state and federal
levels—and kept a close eye on emerging trends—to ensure that she
could explain complex matters to members in clear, direct prose.
NJEA quickly recognized that Lisa’s dedication to members extended
beyond her editorial responsibilities to the NJEA Review
and invited her to serve on a staff committee to develop a plan to
improve mentoring for new teachers. NJEA and then-Gov. Christine
Todd Whitman negotiated a plan to improve the state’s mentoring
requirements. Whitman appropriated $5 million for the effort. Lisa,
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