Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/998537
COMMUNIQUÉ A PUBLICATION OF THE IOWA STATE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION – JUNE 2018 – Vol. 55, No. 7 IN THIS ISSUE: My union My friends My family Academy: Financial Literacy Vote 2018 3 5 8 Set it... Set it... and forget it! and forget it! EFT AVAILABLE NOW! EFT AVAILABLE NOW! Helping students, colleagues and the community FOLLOW US ON: By Mike Wiser, mwiser@isea.org Kathy Kleen's classroom is a menagerie of taxidermy, diagrams, aquariums, potted plants, marked binders and aerial photographs of people standing in the shapes of birds and bugs on a frozen lake, much like a marching band will arrange itself as a school logo on a football field. Along a far wall, there's a bulletin board with pictures of former students who've graduated and continue to keep in touch. Many come back to visit to speak with Kleen's current students. Kleen is able to keep track of what they've done since graduation by affixing a slip of paper onto their photo. One is labeled "PROFESSOR," another "NURSE," and so on. "I tell them they have to come back and speak to the class," Kleen smiles. Kleen earned the 2018 ISEA Excellence in Education award for her commitment to her students, her colleagues and her community. ISEA President Tammy Wawro calls it the "trifecta." Inspiration Inspired by her 7th grade science teacher, Mr. Graff, to go into teaching, Kleen has taught science classes for 33 years in Iowa. She began her career near Des Moines in Guthrie Center moved to Terril in Dickinson County after five years and, finally to Spirit Lake. "I've taught all the sciences in middle and high school except for physics," Kleen says, quickly adding "It's a good thing I didn't have to teach that." During that time Kleen earned a master's in Biology, split her time with the Harris Lake Park School District, became a building leader, a member of the Spirit Lake EA bargaining team and serves as a mentor teacher both currently and long before the state recognized such a position. "Her car is quite often seen in the parking lot at the crack of dawn and does not leave until Legislative Wrap By Brad Hudson and Melissa Peterson, bhudson@isea.org, mpeterson@isea.org Vouchers fail; school funding still lags It was a tough year for public education and public employees. We knew this going in. In the 2017 legislative session, the GOP-led Iowa Legislature reneged on a 40-year-old deal and stripped rights from thousands of teachers, firefighters, bus drivers and other public employees at the same time they sucked resources from public schools. We braced ourselves for the worst. Our premonitions turned out to be true and like Hodor holding the door in "Game of Thrones," the members of ISEA were in a like situation trying to stop evil being done to our schools, our profession and our students. It is clear that the fight is bigger than Iowa. Our colleagues in West Virginia, Oklahoma and elsewhere rose up and marched. Your elected delegates met at the ISEA Delegate Assembly in April and debated whether the ISEA should start a strike fund. They agreed that now, more than ever, the ISEA strategy is to elect pro-public education and pro-public employee legislators on November 6, 2018. This legislative session, there were bills like the tax cut (SF 2417); the FY2018 mid-year appropriation cut that hit community colleges (SF2117) and inexcusable low supplemental state aid of 1 percent (HF2230) that placed more than half of Iowa's schools on the budget guarantee. These are outright attacks on public education. But we did not lose all the battles. We faced three different voucher bills which would have diverted over $200 million away from public education. see LEGISLATURE on page 6 see KLEEN on page 4 Spirit Lake's Kathy Kleen earns the 2018 ISEA Excellence in Education award Sprit Lake High School science teacher Kathy Kleen discusses a lab with one of the students in her AP Biology classroom. Kleen is a building representative for the Spirit Lake Education Association and a member of the bargaining team. She's a mentor teacher for the district and serves on the Dickinson County Conservation Board and Friends of Lakeside Labs Board. MIKE WISER/IOWA STATE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION