Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/838614
COMMUNIQUÉ A PUBLICATION OF THE IOWA STATE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION – JUNE 2017 – Vol. 54, No. 7 IN THIS ISSUE: Your Busy Summer A Look at You Re-certification Elections 3 6-7 8 Set it... Set it... and forget it! and forget it! EFT AVAILABLE NOW! EFT AVAILABLE NOW! Excellence in Education We are not alone Pelzer advocates in her community and her classroom As Kim Pelzer's 4th grade class files out for lunch, one girl stops, turns toward a visitor and whispers, "I bet you'll really like Mrs. Pelzer; she's fantastic." It's a compliment that Pelzer has earned time and time again during her 27-year career as an educator and powerful advocate for her profession and her hometown of Tipton. She's been the Tipton Education Association's president, vice president and treasurer. As a contract negotiator for nearly two decades, she's worked to make Tipton a destination district for educators and the students they teach. As a mentor, she makes sure her colleagues have a friend to turn to. But Pelzer's work goes beyond what she does for the school district. She's active in her church and in civic organizations, so much so that she and husband, Mike, were directors of the Tipton 175th Celebration. That's the 2015 city-wide anniversary festival that included theater acts, a 'Hairball' concert, a parade, cookouts and the "the biggest and best fireworks show ever seen in Tipton." She promotes the profession at every step, hoping she sets the type of example that will inspire others to enter the education ranks, or simply support the work of those who are already there. Grassroots groups organize to support public education professionals and positive education policy So you've planted an "I ♥ public educators" sign in the front yard and volunteered to be on the schoolboard candidate interview team. You've brushed up on what a re-certification election is, made your plan to vote, and you've already registered for the Iowa State Education Association Summer Leadership Conference in Altoona. You're almost done with that ISEA Academy online class and your big summer road trip isn't for a few weeks, but your local association meeting isn't until next month and you've got an activist itch that needs to be scratched. What to do? The people at Iowans for Public Education and Parents for Great Iowa Schools are always looking for help. Neither are directly affiliated with the Iowa State Education Association but both have worked with the ISEA on different projects. Both grew up independently – PGIS pre-dates IPE by a few years – through education activism and both came to the FOLLOW US ON: see EXCELLENCE on page 10 see NOT ALONE on page 10 ISEA Excellence in Education winner Kim Pelzer of Tipton works one-on-one with one of her fourth grade students at Tipton Elementary School. How do you get your news? ISEA members like social media for general news; emails for association news Media bubbles. Echo chambers. Fake news. Media stratification has given news consumers more options than they've ever had at the same time it's given them more reasons to be skeptical of what they're reading/listening to/watching. Likewise, stratification has made it both easier for purveyors of news and information to reach an audience by going around traditional gatekeepers and it's reduced the certainty that a specific message will break through the noise. For instance, there was a time when the ISEA could arguably reach 60 percent of its membership with a singular news item if the editor of the Sunday Des Moines Register saw fit to place it in on the front page. Now days that same item needs to be sent to the papers, television and radio stations, tweeted about, posted on Facebook, placed in the Communique and emailed directly to members to approach that type of penetration. The Iowa State Education Association sent out a media survey earlier this year to help us gauge how members are getting their news and information, both generally and about the association specifically. see NEWS on page 6