Ahhh, Spring!!! — the Grassroots Are Spreading Kathleen Mccune
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NSBEA TODAY I N S I D E THIS ISSUE: President’s 1 Message Leadership 3 Development NSBEA TODAY SPRING 2013 NCE Conference 3 Investing in Your 4 Professionalism Ahhh, Spring!!! — The Grassroots are Spreading Leadership 5 Notes Kathleen McCune , NSBEA President NBEA 6 Photographs Welcome Spring!!! The grassroots are NBEA in Atlanta 7 spreading. Can you see them? What’s the Deal 8 with They’re organic. They’re Chromebooks? spontaneous. They are in your Nebraska FBLA 9 backyard and in your neighbor’s Nebraska FBLA 10 backyard. They’re at your school. Recognizes State Award Winners They are spreading from your community and across the state. They about Career and Technical Education Nebraska DECA 14 Announces can be stubborn and they can be pesky. and Career Academies? Do they know Award Winners They’re natural. They have a purpose. about professional organizations such NSBEA 18 They will get attention and they will as NSBEA? Most importantly, do Membership create action. Like the grasses that they know you and what you do for NBEA 19 you see popping up in the most your school and for your students? M-PBEA 20 obscure places, grassroots advocacy is Conference Information becoming commonplace. Grassroots advocacy doesn’t have to be complicated. Kolterman offers NSBEA 21 The NEXUS Conference of 2013 many simple methods to advocate for Executive Board focused on grassroots advocacy. your educational passions. To be DPE President’s 22 Speaker Jessica Kolterman, Nebraska involved in grassroots advocacy, she Message Farm Bureau Director of NFBF PAC, advises to: supports and encourages advocacy as a Vote. powerful tool to promote Career and Volunteer for your public Technical Education and for candidates’ campaigns. advocating change. Be visible. Show up at events where candidates go. Because grassroots advocacy allows Contribute financially to a for activism at the lowest level in the candidate’s campaign. The community, it can be pursued and amount does not have to be large. practiced by individual citizens and Share what goes on in your educators alike. It can be pursued by classroom with administrators, you. What are you passionate about? board members, advisors and What do your programs need? What senators. do your students need? Do your Invite those that can help you the school counselors, school most to your classrooms and your administrators and school boards know events. P A G E 2 NSBEA TODAY (Continued from page 1) parents, students and student organizations joined Grassroots advocacy requires preparation. Before forces and pursued a campaign of letter writing and the need for a change arises, become a grassroots phone calling that ultimately culminated in face-to advocate. Begin by getting to know, on a personal face appeals on the floor of the Nebraska legislature. level, the administration, board, advisor, or senator Through advocacy at the lowest level, the outcome that can help you the most. Then, know what you resulted in 450,000 additional state dollars, rather want and know the policies or legislative bills that than spending cuts, for state advisors and student will affect you. Communicate your passions, needs, organization. concerns and wants. When you communicate, communicate on a personal level. Grassroots If through your advocacy, a bill is passed, a program advocacy takes more effort than merely hitting is endorsed, or a course is supported, your work is “Like” on a Facebook page. Instead, write a not done. You are never done. Say “Thank you.” thoughtful letter that stays on message and offers Again, make it personal. Express your appreciation few talking points. An angry letter does little to in a handwritten letter. Better yet, have the students change anything. that are impacted the most by a change in actions write letters to those that listened and supported your As an advocate for Career and Technical Education cause. As Kolterman professes, elected officials and (CTE), consider sharing the Nebraska Career persons of power are just like you. They want to Education Data and Research with those making help and they want to know that what they do is decisions affecting your programs and your students. appreciated and makes a difference. The BMIT Workshops provide business educators with wonderful resources that support the existence Senators retire, administrations change, advisors of programs. It is up to you to pass this information relocate and school boards are replaced. As different on and to be an advocate. Let the compiled research faces emerge, create and sustain relationships with and the data inform decision makers about newcomers. Do a better job of telling your story and Nebraska’s Career Education students. Let them educating others about your classes, organizations, know that Nebraska CTE students take honors or and programs. Advocate for what you need and do. Advanced Placement coursework, that they complete Successful grassroots advocacy has purpose and will high school with a diploma, and that they, get attention. statistically drop out of high school at a lower rate than the average Nebraska student, to name a few. Advocacy, at the grassroots level, is an action word. You are the catalyst. Remember, it doesn’t have to Also, consider the occurrence in 2009 when many be Spring for grassroots advocacy to spread. student organizations were threatened with cuts in state dollars. It was grassroots advocacy by individuals volunteering time that changed the course of action. Facilitated through Facebook, NSBEA TODAY P A G E 3 Leadership Development Institute Lori Anderson, LDI Chair The Leadership Development Institute (LDI) is future leaders while sharing with attendees the offered as a preconference membership event on importance of networking and professional Monday, June 3 after the FBLA Advisor Workshop development. at the NCE Conference in Kearney. The LDI is a fantastic way to gain leadership skills, obtain ideas This is an invitation-only event so if you are a to enhance your organization and network with other recipient of one, it means that someone thinks business educators. The purpose of LDI is to develop enough of you and your leadership abilities to nominate you. Please consider attending. Are you ready for the 2013 NCE Conference? Matt Maw, NSBEA Publications Committee The Nebraska Career Education conference will be Community College and Southeast Community held in Kearney June 4-6 at the Younes Conference College, for all BMIT teachers. The social will be Center. Excellent lineups of both national and local held at Holiday Inn from 8:00-10:00pm. The speakers are sure to give you lots of ideas for the NSBEA/DPE banquet will be held Wednesday next school year! This year, you will receive a evening at 6 pm in the Younes Center, followed by complimentary copy of the new text Learning, the NSBEA Annual Business Meeting and Officer Earning and Investing for a New Generation. Installation. Featured speakers include Leslie Fisher, a national Remember, you will be able to pay your dues to both technology speaker, and Molly Skold, marketing NBEA and NSBEA at the conference. NBEA/ director of Midtown Crossing in Omaha. Fisher and NSBEA members who are present will be eligible Skold will each present a Tuesday pre-conference for a prize drawing during Thursday’s career field session and present multiple sessions on Wednesday. luncheon. Leslie Fisher (www.lesliefisher.com) will present technology related sessions, while Molly Skold will Register for the NCE conference today by logging present on marketing topics. In addition to these two onto the website at http://nceconference.com . Be featured speakers, you will have the opportunity to sure to register by May 3 to avoid paying the $25 hear from a great variety of Nebraska speakers late fee. You may browse the full conference presenting a vast array of topics including program online at http://nceconference.com/. This technology, marketing, finance and accounting. In year’s conference looks to be a great one and a addition, there are multiple pre-conference wonderful opportunity to network with your workshops available on Tuesday, but those spots colleagues and get new ideas for your classroom. may fill up quickly. Be sure to take advantage of the many networking opportunities available to connect with your colleagues. The NSBEA Executive Board meeting is set for Tuesday night at 5:30 pm at the Holiday Inn. Following the Executive Board meeting is the Tuesday evening social, sponsored by Mid-Plains P A G E 4 NSBEA TODAY INVESTING IN YOUR PROFESSIONALISM= REWARDS GALORE!! Deb Wolken, NSBEA President-Elect While recently completing a savings and investing unit in my Economic Perspectives class, I typically show students the importance of investing/saving and doing so early. Even the most un-interested student will sit up and watch the curve move upward and pay close attention to the principal/interest bar. A number of valuable concepts can be explained with just this one graph. If you have not used this before, check out the Compounding Interest Graphing Tool on this site: http://www.econedlink.org/lessons/index.php? lid=603&type=educator With some minor changes, you can use the above example to CHART the benefits of NSBEA! It’s not quite as interactive as the above chart—but the message is loud and clear! Rewards GALORE!! Professional and Personal Professional — Your resources— time, talents and energy PERKS Your Years of NSBEA Membership NSBEA TODAY P A G E 5 Leadership Notes Sheryl Piening Keller, M-PBEA President 2013 I have always been intrigued by leadership position without a team of Service Award from MPBEA in June articles on leadership and leadership leaders, and we could never of 2010 for his providing NBEA characteristics, and I have recently accomplish the goals and mission of memberships for 15 regional student reviewed articles on this topic.