Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/697518
SUMMER 2016 | WEAnews 4 PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE Kathy Vetter WEA President kvetter@wyoea.org Make Your Summer Break Count School is out and it is time to make plans for the summer. As you are planning what to do over your summer break, I encourage you to consider helping out the WEA-PACE-endorsed candidates. Everything that happens in your classroom is decided by an elected official, so please consider volunteering to help out our endorsed candidates in your area. An astounding 148 people have filed to run for the 60 Wyoming House of Representatives seats, and 34 people have filed to run for the 15 available Senate seats. The WEA takes these elections very seriously because practically everything that occurs in our schools is influenced by a decision of our Legislature. Class size, accountability, school buildings and funding are just a few of the outcomes that are decided by our legislators. Anyone who seeks the endorsement of the Wyoming Education Association Political Action Committee for Education (WEA-PACE) is interviewed at the local level by committed local members and WEA staff who comprise Candidate Interview Teams. These teams review a candidate's questionnaire, then have an in-depth conversation with that person, focused entirely on education issues or issues impacting WEA members. The process culminates with the WEA-PACE Council, which consists of every local president or their designee, and our WEA-PACE Steering Committee reviewing the Candidate Interview Team's recommendations and deciding if the candidate is worthy of endorsement. This process helps establish a relationship between the local members and the candidate. This relationship is carried into the legislature once a candidate is elected and helps develop a line of communication from our local members to our elected officials. We need your help to elect these friends of education. On page 2 you will find a list of the WEA-PACE-endorsed candidates. What can you do? Contact the candidate and build that relationship; ask how you can help with his or her campaign. Share with your friends and family the fact that these candidates have earned the WEA-PACE endorsement. We've done a lot of the work to help inform you who our friends of education are. Now, together, we need to get them elected so that friends of public education hold the positions that make the decisions which directly impact the students of Wyoming. An astounding 148 people have filed to run for the 60 Wyoming House of Representatives seats, and 34 people have filed to run for the 15 available Senate seats.