Don’t forget to VOTE in next Tuesday’s primary election
Jul 30, 2020
Don’t forget to VOTE in nextTuesday’s primary election
Election Day – don’t forget to vote, especially if you’re one of the 1 million Michiganders who have applied to vote
Next Tuesday, Aug. 4, is Primary from home but haven’t returned your ballot yet.
At www.MEAVotes.org, you can check the status of your absentee ballot, find MEA recommended candidates and, as always, contribute to PAC.
Voting from Home? Check your ballot status!
With our partners at BallotPower, MEA now offers a tool to make sure your absentee vote is counted. At MEAVotes.org, you can get info on applying to Vote from Home and check the status of your ballot. Using BallotPower, you can look yourself up in the system and see when you applied for a ballot, when it was sent to you by your local clerk, and when your completed ballot was received to be counted.
If you haven’t applied to Vote from Home yet or you still need to return your completed ballot, there’s still time, but you should NOT rely on the mail to do so. Please visit your local clerk in-person to receive and return ballots. Information on your local clerk’s location and contact information is available at BallotPower as well – clerk’s offices should be open this Saturday prior to election day (contact them directly for hours.)
Of course, you can still vote in-person on Tuesday at your normal local polling location, which you can look up using the Michigan Voter Information Center.
Candidate recommendations at MEAVotes.org
MEA’s online voter guide allows you to enter your address and find a listing of local pro-public education candidates, as recommended by MEA members serving on screening & recommending committees. Our full listing of recommended candidates is updated regularly as local S&Rs are finalized throughout the election season.
Joint statement from school unions and management calls for collaboration on local plans
Jul 22, 2020
MEA joined with AFT Michigan, the Michigan Association of Superintendents & Administrators (MASA) and the Michigan Association of School Boards (MASB) on a joint statement calling on local districts and educators to work collaboratively on Preparedness Plans for fall learning.
“To create and maintain safe school communities, district leaders, building leaders, teachers, staff members, and a variety of stakeholders must work collaboratively and intentionally to craft a successful school reopening plan,” the statement said. “To accomplish this, districts need to strictly adhere to the Governor’s Executive Order and take all reasonable safety precautions backed by science, data, and public health evidence. Collaboration, collective accountability and efficient communication are key elements.”
The statement recommends that districts develop plans with students' and staff members' health as a top priority. To that end, "To the extent feasible, it is strongly advised that 'highly recommended' and 'recommended' protocols be adopted in districts' Preparedness Plans because they are rooted in science and public health evidence." It also specifically outlines that school employees need to be part of local decision-making and that the collective bargaining process must be followed.
The governor's MI Safe Schools Return to School Roadmap, issued in late June, was developed by an advisory council of educators and health experts. The roadmap requires districts to develop various plans for both remote and face-to-face learning, depending upon which of six phases of reopening is designated in a particular region at a given time. The governor's plan includes required elements in each phase, along with strongly recommended and recommended safety protocols. In phases 1-3, no face-to-face learning is allowed.
Districts must post preparedness plans online, along with a document explaining rationales for each strongly recommended safety precaution that is not included, the joint labor-management statement said.
In addition, MEA published a Q&A last week addressing member questions about potential return to learning – emphasizing that schools should only resume in-person classes if health professionals deem it’s safe and school employees have a voice in reopening plans
MEA Summer Virtual Conference Free to All Members
Jul 22, 2020
This year’s Summer Conference is unlike others in the past. MEA has decided to make this year’s conference virtual, FREE, and open to ALL MEA-Retired lifetime members if they wish to participate. Lifetime members can attend at no cost and are encouraged register at the link below.
https://www.mea.org/summer-conference/
MEA is pleased to announce the 2020 Virtual MEA Summer Conference – no COVID-19 pandemic can stop us from gathering to get information to both learn and help our union brothers and sisters!
The conference will be held on Wednesday, July 29, and Thursday, July 30, beginning with a message from MEA President Paula Herbart at 10 a.m. There will be a total of 36 session offerings throughout the rest of the day.
Each participant will be required to register online for the conference at MEA.org. There will be no fee for the conference which is only open to MEA Members in Good Standing. It will be important for members to watch for a confirmation email for the conference to confirm their on-line registration was processed all the way through. Participants can sign up for one session in one series, one in multiple series or one in all series.
Further instructions about the platform to use for each session will be distributed to participants the week before the actual conference.
Please help us spread the word about this training and learning opportunity. Registration for the conference will be available beginning Tuesday, June 16, and will close on Friday, July 17
Search for Recommended Candidates
Jul 10, 2020
Search for Recommended Candidates, apply to Vote from Home at MEAVotes.org
Now online at www.MEAVotes.org, you can search for MEA recommended candidates in your area and apply for a ballot to Vote From Home – plus give money to MEA-PAC to help elect friends of public education.
The recommended candidate search allows you to enter your address and find a listing of pro-public education candidates, as recommended by MEA members serving on screening & recommending committees. Our full listing of recommended candidates is updated regularly as local S&Rs are finalized throughout the election season.
Also on the site, you can get information to Vote From Home under new Michigan rules. Thousands of members voted absentee for the first time in the March presidential primary and many more will do so for upcoming elections. Join them by applying online or downloading a ballot request form – you can even sign up to get updates about your ballot status from your local clerk, helping you ensure your vote is counted!
As always, www.MEAVotes.org is where MEA members can give online to help MEA-PAC and the NEA Fund elect friends of public education. Dues dollars cannot be contributed to candidates, so we rely on voluntary PAC contributions to ensure we continue the momentum from our 2018 election victories. At the site, you can make a one-time contribution or sign up for recurring monthly contributions
Whitmer Announces Learning Plan
Jul 01, 2020
To safely reopen for in-person learning next fall, schools across the state will be required to enact one of a range of safety plans based on the COVID-19 threat level their particular region is facing at a given time, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced on Tuesday.
The MI Safe Schools Return to School Roadmap resulted from the work of a 25-person appointed council of education and health practitioners and experts – including MEA President Paula Herbart and other MEA members – to provide minimum steps for districts to use in developing more detailed local plans.
“Nothing is more important than keeping our kids and our educators and all of their families safe,” Whitmer said at an afternoon press conference to release the 63-page plan.
Under the plan, districts must follow certain required protocols but will be allowed to consider whether "strongly recommended" and "recommended" actions are appropriate to local needs and circumstances, Whitmer said after warning: “This virus is very much alive in Michigan.”
The minimum steps outlined in the state plan provide a roadmap back to in-person learning, but things are not “returning to normal,” Herbart said at the press conference.
“It will not be perfect, and there will be curves in the road ahead,” Herbart said. “We owe our students—and the educators who serve them—the greatest measures of clarity and consistency we can manage in an unprecedented situation.”
Importantly – as has been the case throughout the pandemic’s course in Michigan – Whitmer has placed educators’ expertise and voices at the forefront of the state’s plans and responses, Herbart added.
“Educator voices were represented and heard on the Return to Learn Advisory Council—now we need to follow that example and ensure school employees are part of making important health and safety decisions at the local level, as called for in state collective bargaining law,” Herbart said. Read more.
