Minutes February 2015
WCTE Board Meeting
February 6-7, 2015
UW-Stevens Point, Lee Sherman Dreyfus University Center, Room 378
Present: Justina Plemon, John Schad, John Pruitt, Kara Nelson-Sommerfeldt, Lynn Aprill, Tom Scott, Marty Matyska, Marci Glaus, Wendy Kropid, Jordan Palmer, Kelly Seefeldt, Jacalyn Mabon, David Roloff, Marianne Potter, Lynn Frick
- Welcome and Introductions; sharing of current reading
- Approval of Agenda. Meeting called to order at 9:30 a.m. Motion to approve: Lynn Aprill, second John Schad. Motion passed.
- Approval of October 2014 board meeting minutes. Motion to approve: Marianne Potter; second David Roloff
- Original minutes, district director report reads “Donna Pasternak will not be serving as.” We completed the phrase with “chair of the professional issues committee”
- Treasurer’s Report–Tom Scott
- Conference would have been profitable if the weather had permitted Sara Kadjar to make her flight. On target for convention spending.
- Overall we are just under what we used to have in our account.
- DPI Report Liaison–Marci Glaus
- Moving forward with CCSS and modules coming out for Speaking/Listening.
- Another module is Writing. Release will be April or May.
- Check out Dr. Evers’ funding plan. Found online.
- Latest Literacy Live Webinar Series also online.
- Assessments ready to go and scheduled for spring.
- Educator Licensing online is fully operational.
- Resources on current special education programs and initiatives found at http://sped.dpi.wi.gov/sped hmprograms
- Other
- ACT alive and well; Smarter Balance is up in the air, though no other assessment is on the horizon.
- Marci will look into flexibility of ACT dates and make-up dates.
- SCOA Region 4 Report–Kathy Nelson unable to attend; report submitted–report by John Pruitt
- NCTE is looking for volunteers for pre-registration of MN convention in exchange for free registration. Anyone interested contact Kathy.
VII. Officer Reports
- President (John Pruitt)
- Collaboration with Greater Madison Writing Project and possibly others. John met with Mark Dziedzic. Madison is taking applications now for their summer project and also an academic year project. Check out their website. Suggestion to have mutual links on websites to aid promotion of both groups. Discussion followed how WCTE could benefit from this relationship.
- “From High School to College: Engaging in Writing Dialogue” workshop. John Pruitt was on this panel and has started reaching out to high schools to talk about what is expected for writing in college. Encouraged others to reach out to high schools and colleges.
- Sara Kajder webinar: what to do with the link to the presentation. Three people signed up for Sara Kajder’s workshop. We would get to keep the profits from the webinar. What do we do with the link? Do we sell it? Put it website for members only? How do we do something on the website for member’s only? Suggestion: watch webinar and put together the highpoints to market it to school districts.
- Does anyone politically minded want to take on or recommend someone to take on professional issues? Lynn Frick would be interested in being the chair of this committee.
- Does anyone want to take on or recommend someone to become Diversity Chair? Discussion followed concerning job description and the type of person best suited for the chair. Justina Plemon is considering this position.
- Proposal to amend by-laws to include a member of the student affiliate on a board. Concern these students are not members of WCTE. Should Jenn Fishman be the affiliate voice as a District Director? Recommendation: students become members of WCTE. John Pruitt will take this back to Jenn.
- First Vice President–Denise Meyer not present: report submitted that 2015 Convention seems to be well on its way.
- Second Vice President–Marianne Potter: convention October 14, 2016 in Milwaukee
- Director at Large–Lynn Frick: no report
- District Director Liaison–Lynn Aprill
- Lynn sending letters to administrators letting them know their staff is involved with WCTE leadership as District Directors.
- NCTE Affiliate Liaison Officer–Tom Scott: no report
VIII. Committee Reports
- WCEE–David Roloff: clarifies Governor’s comment about New Teacher of the Year Award
B.WCEL–Tom Scott: Support submitted?
- WELA–Kathy Nelson: no report
- Intellectual Freedom–John Schad
- NCTE statement will be in next Update.
- Address change needs to be switched to John Schad.
- No applicants as of yet for Intellectual Freedom Award–Discussion: we should be seeking out teachers who are doing wonderful things promoting intellectual freedom and saying we want to recognize them.
- Do we have an intellectual freedom statement? Should we create one? John Schad moves to adapt NCTE’s position statement as our own. Second. Discussion: what do we do with this? Motion passed. It will be placed on our website. John S. will contact Linda to add this to the Update and to write a piece on banned books.
- Awards–Jacalyn Mabon
- All award applications are due in May.
- Pooley is a research award and teachers tend not to have time for research.
- David Roloff in charge of New Teacher and Student Teacher Award
- Plaques should be purchased by person actually giving the award.
- Wisconsin Authors–Marti Matyska: we need to have a spot on our website for the growing number of Wisconsin authors.
- NCTE Awards for Student Literary Magazine–Becky Donlin: no report
H.Update–Linda Barrington–not present, report submitted
- Due date for submissions–March 9
- Jackie Mabon will explore and write an article about Kohl winners (who are English teachers) and reminders about awards
- Jenn Fishman writing about student affiliate
- Focus new District Director–Lynn Aprill will report
- Wisconsin English Journal–new editor and call for proposals by John Pruitt
- What we are reading–Lynn Aprill
- DPI–Marci Glaus
- Calendar–Marty Matyska
- Brilliant classroom ideas–Kelly Seefeldt
- Technology tools and testing–Kelly Seefeldt and Jackie Mabon
- Wisconsin English Journal–John Pruitt
- Met with board on Google Hangout
- State of State on-going
- Teaching Creative Writing new on-going
- Teaching Developmental Writing new on-going
- Teaching in a Working Class/Rural community
- Info about WEJ sent to all English ed programs and writing project directors and Jackie Mabon will send to WSRA
- Book reviews–books to teach
- Web Site–Denise Meyer–not present
- Membership–Tom Scott: currently we have 118 members; as of October 2014, we had 185.
- Old Business
- Marketing plan (Mount Mary University assignment)–John Pruitt reported.
- Plan was submitted as a student project. Discussion and questions followed. Before the project is created though, students would have to meet with us for input.
- We discussed in the summer using Pooley money to help with our marketing.
- New Business
- Recognition of new student chapter (Kathy Nelson)
- Discussion of organization’s strengths and weaknesses (Tournament of Values handout)–John Pruitt
- This was compiled at an affiliate meeting.
- Discussion of when we should delve into these values. Summer meeting seems to be the best time for this.
- Bring in a facilitator for this discussion. Should we ask Millie Davis again? Other?
- Motion by Marianne Potter: John Pruitt will look into the process of establishing a values meeting and spending up to a thousand dollars for a facilitator for renewing our strategic plan. Second–Justina Plemon. Motion passed.
- Propose informal gathering of Wisconsin teachers at NCTE in Minneapolis–Justina Plemon will be in charge of this.
- Make Professional Issues chair a voting member of Board. In the summer, we will address by-law changes and voting rights of ex-officio members. Marianne Potter, in meantime, will go over our by-laws.
- Social Media
- Linda has a student, Amanda Upton, who tweets for us.
- Facebook page–all board members are administrators. Our Twitter and FB pages need to be linked.
- Justina Plemon and Kelly Seefeldt will be given administrator status for our FB page.
XI. Adjournment: Motion–John Pruitt. Second. Passed.