Education Support Professionals (ESPs)

Time to register for the 2009 NEA ESP Conference

It's now time to register for the 2009 NEA ESP Conference, which will be held March 13-15, 2009 in Orlando, Florida.  This national conference is a great opportunity for ESP members to learn about important issues, and gain skills they can use to build stronger locals. The conference is designed to help members gain professional development opportunities, to build strong internal and external relationships, to organize members, and to enhance NEA ESP members’ ability to positively  influence student achievement.

We encourage all conference participants to take advantage of our on-line registration system.  Registration deadline is Thursday, February 12, 2009 . For detailed information about the conference, and to register, please click here.

NEA ESP of the Year nominations deadline December 12

Laura Vernon rarely shies away from helping children. She solicited donations so high school students from low-income families could attend the prom. She also volunteered to tutor students during the summer months to help them stay focused. These examples help explain why the Wisconsin safety assistant is the 2008 NEA Education Support Professional of the Year. You can watch a video about Laura at the right, and view a Webcast of her speech to the 2008 NEA Representative Assembly here.

Do you know someone who deserves to be recognized as an ESP of the Year? If so, the nominations process is underway, and the deadline for submission by your state affiliate (or local affiliate, if your state does not have its own ESP award system in place) is December 12, 2008 .  Here's more about how to do it.

Privatization: Losing job to outsourcing hurts Michigan custodian

Jill Wood misses her job as a custodian for Southfield public schools. As the primary wage earner in her household—at 64, her husband receives Social Security income, Wood worries how they're going to pay their mortgage and utility bills. She thinks they'll probably lose their house and go bankrupt.

"I never would've thought public schools would do this to people," Wood said. Read more about Wood's life after privatization.

Results-Oriented Job Descriptions - A New Approach

Too many ESPS have old and outdated job descriptions, or no written job descriptions at all. Read how Madelaine Colas and other members of the North Plainfield Education Association members have been working with administrators to update job descriptions that haven’t changed since 1993.  They are using ROJD's (results-oriented job descriptions), a new approach developed by the NEA.

ESP Local Assocations around the country are succeeding in implementing ROJDs. Learn more from these publications: Results-Oriented Job Descriptions and Results-Oriented Job Descriptions: How Paraeducators Help Students Achieve.

Merging Local Associations

We know that there is strength in numbers, and that many Local Associations which include both teachers and ESPs, or which combine different categories of ESPS (bus drivers and paraeducators, clerical staff and custodians), are strong and effective advocates for their members.  But we also know that it takes work to build unity out of this diversity, and that not all mergers are equally successful.

Please take a few seconds to give us your opinion on merged locals - complete the poll to the right.

ESPs Deserve Professional Pay

ESP's deserve a living wage! Debbie Ennels, a classroom aide, lives in a shelter. Bus driver Jerry Parham works five jobs.They are among the many NEA members trying to get by on low pay.  Want to know what a living wage is in your community?  NEA has links to several on-line living wage calculators.  

Through its nationwide salary initiative, NEA is pushing for an appropriate living wage as starting pay for all education support professionals. The new "Professional Pay" area of this Web site is chock-full of features to help you understand and fight for a living wage. Here’s more.

ESP in 'NEA Today': Where Have All the Nurses Gone?

School nurses assess student health status and make referrals, identify vision and hearing problems, administer medication, deliver emergency care, manage insulin pumps, suction children on ventilators, and counsel pregnant teens. They also teach first aid to teachers, conduct drug assessment exams on students, and conduct health-related classes for students and parents.

The heath needs of students suffering from asthma, obesity, diabetes, and substance abuse are increasing. But a combination of lack of funding for nursing positions and a national shortage of nurses means that school nurses are spread thin.

Read more in "Where Have all the Nurses Gone?"

New ESP Mentoring Manual

Don't miss Supporting Our Own: A Manual for ESP Mentoring Programs. This new on-line manual is designed to help local Associations and school districts to plan and implement mentoring programs specifically for and by ESP.  Accompanying materials, downloadable as PDF files, can help program administrators prepare mentors for their important roles.  The complete print version of this manual can also be downloaded as a PDF file from the "NEA Resources for ESP" section of this site.

Dave's View: Students Step Into the Work World

The theme of American Education Week (Nov. 16-22) is "Great Public Schools: A Basic Right and Our Responsibility." Dave writes about how that theme is exemplified in the STEP (Secondary Transitional Experience Program) program, which provides supervised work experience for high school students with learning or physical disabilities that might create barriers to future employment.

In his custodian position, Dave has supervised STEP students every year, and often sees former students working at jobs in his community. "Just to see them working tells me that their experience in STEP was a success." Read more in "Students Step into the Work World." (November 14, 2008)

Be sure to take a look at some of Dave's previous columns, which now number more than 150! Dave, a member of the Illinois Education Association, is head custodian at Brownstown Elementary School in Southern Illinois. If you want to learn more about this ESP scribe, read the feature on Dave entitled "The Quiet Leader," in the March 2006 issue of NEA Today.

The "ESP List"

The ESP list is an automated e-mail list (a "listserv") open to all NEA members and to staff of NEA and its affiliates. List members use the ESP list to discuss issues that concern education support professionals within the NEA, including contracting out, bargaining problems, training needs, and questions about how to improve and strengthen the Association. 

It's easy to submit a subscription request to the list from this Web site. Here's more.

NEA's 489,000 Education Support Professional (ESP) members take care of our children every day and make sure they have the tools they need to succeed in our schools and classrooms.