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PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE SUMMER 2014 | WEAnews 4 Looking Forward To The Next Three Years I am grateful and excited to be re-elected as the WEA President. I am looking forward to serving our WEA members for the next three years. I hope to continue our focus on organizing and engaging members, as well as being your voice on legislative issues. As this is an election year for Wyoming, I will be working closely with our local's Legislative Contact Teams (LCTs), as well as Candidate Interview Teams (CITs). As the WEA Political Action Committee for Education (PACE) Chair, it's vital for me to stress to our members that it is our local WEA members who interview your legislative candidates and then make recommendations to the PACE Committee about WEA endorsements. It's important that WEA endorses "friends of education," so I ask you members to get involved in this important, local process and make sure you vote in your elections! Important PACE information can be found toward the end of the magazine on page 27. As we move forward with our state's accountability legislation, WEA is planning on providing training on Student Learning Objectives, SLOs. We have received a three-year grant from the NEA that will allow us to provide training to our members on how to write SLOs and assess students' progress. We are hoping to work with the Wyoming Department of Education and local school districts to ensure that all K-12 teachers receive training on writing SLOs and assessing student progress before SLOs are a required part of the evaluation system. We have already had a core group of staff and WEA members attend preliminary trainings on this topic. I know this is going to be a large undertaking, but as your professional organization, I know we are up to the task. You can read more regarding the SLOs on page 20. I plan to continue to visit locals and schools around the state throughout the year. I will start out the 2014/15 school year by attending local back-to-school events and visiting locals around the state. I also hope to continue the GLEE (Give Legislators an Educational Experience) program. I know some locals had a very positive experience with this program. I hope to grow this program to be more than an American Education Week activity so that more of our legislators can experience a day in the life of an educational employee. I will also be continuing the Cat-a-van next year, which you can read more about on page 12. I hope everyone has an enjoyable summer. I am looking forward to working with all of you during the 2014/15 school year. ICI WEA.indd 6 6/26/14 3:20 PM