Rutgers SNJEA is making strides to becoming a great new(ish) chapter!!!

We recieved chapter recognition over the summer & wanted to share it with everyone who helped to build this chapter over the last year!!

A big thank you to everyone who helped make this chapter!!!


We received the 2009-2010 New Chapter Award at the National Education Association's Student Leadership Conference in New Orleans!!!  This is national recognition!!

Rutgers SNJEA also received a thank you and Certificate of Appreciation from Heart of America for our contribution to H. A. Brown Elementary School.

Stay tuned for information about this coming semester and please cast your vote for the most convenient time for you to make a meeting!

We're in the NJEA Reporter AGAIN!!!

Check it out!!  Page 7 is a picture of Jaime Sia, Eugene Grear and Jen Hoffman to compliment an article on the SNJEA Conference.

Pretty exciting stuff!!!  :-)


http://www.njea.org/pdfs/Reporter_May2010.pdf

Photos From Our First Year 2009-2010

Our trip to Henry A Brown elementary has finally come and gone....

and what a rewarding experience it was!

Not only were the principal, teacher support supervisor, teachers, and students very excited and appreciative of our generous donation (about 1500 books!!!) and $175.00 which will give them 116 more books!! It was just the moral booster we needed to keep on truckin' toward our degree considering the "political climate" in NJ right now.  Reading to the students reinforced in us that this is what we want to do!!

Thanks to everyone who participated & and big thanks to Kappa Delta Pi's and it's President, Eugene Grear (and RU-SNJEA's new Membership Chair) for joining us in this book drive and event!!  Hopefully this can become a yearly event!

Reminising on our First Semester & Congratulations to our new officers!!

Today was our last official meeting of the semester.  We held elections and brainstorms ideas for next semester to work on during the summer.

I (Jaime) would like to thank everyone who helped to make this semester a success, it was our first full semester at a club on Rutgers Campus and we did a great job!

Here's a recap of our events:
Visit to NJEA Headquarters
Book Drive (30 boxes of books collected & $175 to date)
H.A. Brown visit to donate books & read to students
Student NJEA Conference
NJ Retired EA seminar

So, for our first semester--we've done quite a bit!!

Elections were held today and our new officer line up is...

President Jaime

Vice President Tara

Secretary Jen

Treasurer Brittany

GOA Rep Ashley

Membership Chair Eugene

Historian Rachel

Here's to an AWESOME Fall semester!!!  Oh, and stay tuned for summer meeting dates as well as meeting dates for Fall.

Save the Date!!

There will be a rally in Trenton to show Governor Christy that there are people that support education & try and persuade him to re-evaluate the cuts he is proposing to make.

Please keep Saturday May 22nd open!!  

 More details to come, stay tuned!

Any questions or if you are DEFINITLY going to attend, email Jaime

Student NJEA Conference overview

Saturday, April 17th.  Jaime, Eugene & Jen attended the SNJEA Conference in Princeton NJ.

It was, for those who have been there, the NJEA convention on a smaller scale.  Vendors were they giving away stuff, there were workshops to attend, and the food.....yum!

The workshops were informative and will help us make sure we are ready to get the first job.

If you would like a summary of a specific workshop, ask at one of our meetings and we can briefly give you the highlights of the session, it's worth knowing!

The workshops were:

• Are you prepared for your first job?
• Electronic communication & social networking saftey
• These are not quite as common sense as they sound, some points and tips were brought up that you wouldn't normally think would be an issue!

 

NJREA meeting overview

Jaime, our president attended a meeting of NJREA NJ (Retired) EA last week.  The meeting covered pensions, health insurance and how it will affect those already retired and future generations (us!).  And, of course, the "political climate" could not be avoided as part of the discussion.

Here were some key points, don't hold me to my word as these are from my notes & memory.  If you want to make sure something is factual, do some research & please, if I'm wrong let me know so I can make corrections.

If budget passes:

• Teachers benefits will be merged with other state workers benefits
• meaning when they negotiate a change in their benefits, ours will be affected
• Pensions 
• for us, they may not be there
• if they are, they (not sure who, government presumably) can change just about anything about them before, and after we retire.
• NJEA is particularly upset about this because the state is supposed to contribute to teacher pensions but out of the last 15 years, has only contributed 2 years.  NJEA dues pay teacher pensions, so they don't see why the state should be able to change teacher pensions as will.
• Insurance
• We will be linked with state workers insurance (I think)
• Coordination of Benefits (the ability to use yours & your spouses insurance to pay claims) will be taken away.
• higher co-pays, etc
• Politics
• Considering what our future profession is facing, we need to be activist for what we beleive!
• We need to vote on the school budget (which is today...)
• we need to attend rally's
• we need to stay on top of what's happening so we can make informed decisions about our future as an educator!

We are in the NJEA Reporter!!

Our visit to NJEA Headquarters on March 13th made it into NJEA's newspaper and our picture is there too!

What a way to be recognized for our hard work in getting this group up and running!  

NJEA Reporter-Check Page 8 now!!

H.A. Brown Details

We are scheduled for our Read Across America Event (better late than never right?!) for Friday, April 23 at 12pm.  We will be reading to Kindergarten and First graders.

Preferably, we will have a few different readers to divide the students up and keep them interested with smaller groups and if possible, move them (or us) around to give the students the chance to hear different books by different readers.

Details will be solidified at our April 21st meeting (among other things), so be sure to be there and bring books and monetary donations!!

Any questions, email our President, Jaime

A date is set for our visit to H.A. Brown!!

Finally, we have a date for our Read Accross America event! 

We will visit H.A. Brown Elementary School on April 23rd, time will be posted once confirmed-but obviously it will be during school hours for the students.  Mark your calendar!!

Keep collecting those books and if someone wants to write a check, tell them to make it out to Hearts of America and leave the subject line blank!! 

For every $1.50 Hearts of America will donate a new book to H.A. Brown on our behalf!  If you have checks to give Jaime, contact her to set up a time to meet.

Our next meeting is April 21st so bring the books to that meeting if you won't be able to attend our trip to H.A. Brown to deliver them.

NJEA Headquarters trip!!

So the trip to NJEA HQ has come and gone.  It was a very informative trip.

I was really neat to meet some of the people the help keep our (future) profession a great profession to be in!!

We would like to thank Marguerite Schroeder for inviting us and hosting a wonderful visit!!

Stay tuned, our picture may be the NJEA Reporter!

                                                                                                                                       

L to R Maria, Trish, Marguerite-NJEA Leadership Field Rep,  

Holly President SNJEA, Jaime President RU-SNJEA                        

Wynter, and Eugene 

 

Book Sorting was a success!

Not only did we have fun doing it,

we were able to sort through all 15 boxes of books for our book drive that 

Eugene, KDP treasurer/SNJEA member, collected from local libraries!!

Thank you Trizia, Jen & Eugene for help sorting them out!!

One event done, 

4 more to go!! 

Welcome New Members and participation in our poll!!

Hi Everyone!

I wanted to welcome our newest members and do a quick poll to see where we stand as a group for availability to do events.  Specifically, our trip to HQ and HA Brown Elementary.

Please vote for the best day so that I know when the best day to plan these events are. 

The poll ends Sunday Feb 28 at 10pm so I so that I can try and have dates for you at our next meeting, which is March 3rd 5pm South Conference room A, and don't forget--we feed you!

Changes due to snow & exciting news!

Hey everyone!
There are some things that need to be postponed,
I will have dates at the next meeting (which was also postponed).

Our next monthly meeting is Feb 24th at 5:00 Sharp!
The Interest Meeting starts at 4:30,
for those who are interested in knowing more about our group.
New recruits are more than welcome to stay for the monthly meeting
and join in the activities right away!
Vested Members who attend this meeting and new recruits who sign up for vested membership at the Feb meeting will receive a special "goodie bag" from NJEA!
Also, our NJEA Representative Marguerite Schroeder might be at our meeting!!

Now, on to the items that will be postponed...more details at the meeting, so be sure to be there!

• Trip to NJEA Headquarters
• Read Across America at H.A. Brown
• Bake Sale

As per today's meeting...

For the few of us who were at the meeting, we saw that many members missed the meeting today. It's not then end of the world-I'm sure with the beginning of the semester hectic-ness the meeting slipped your mind (for those I didn't hear from). Once Rachel sends the minutes out, I will post them here as well.

There were a few things discussed in the meeting that were important as well as time sensitive so I will discuss them briefly now.

• Time change of meetings! Meetings will now start promptly at 5pm. We can park closer to campus starting at 4:45 so for those not already on campus for the meeting this is a benefit to take advantage of. We will wrap the meeting up before 6:00 because I'm sure many of us have class. We will also have food during the meetings so no worries about dinner before class if you don't have the chance before the meeting.
  
• Book drive starts today!! Start collecting new or gently used books (not text books or magazines) that were published no earlier than 1985. Books should be for the k-8 grade level. Monetary donations can be accepted, if a check make it payable to Hearts of America & leave the subject line blank! Donations-books & monetary can be brought to any meeting (if it's a lot of books, let me -Jaime- know ahead of time so we can make arrangements to no carry them to & from campus! =)
  
• Operation Backpack as discussed in the meeting, the link to the list of backpack contents per grade can be found here *it's the PDF file* http://www.voadv.org/operation_backpack.cfm backpacks can be brought to any meeting but the deadline in the July meeting. For the high grade backpacks-try to get some friends/family/co-workers to go in on the contents with you.
• Place your vote! I am trying to plan for a NJEA rep to come to campus during our April meeting to give us a workshop on the topic with the most votes, you'll find the poll on the left of your screen.
• February's Meeting is important to make!! It is the last meeting before our trip to NJEA HQ and our Read Across America event!! We will need everyone planning to participate there to fine tune the details of these events!! If you have class during our meeting time but want to participate--email me ahead of time, I will fill you in on what you will miss and get any information from you I need.
• Refugee Tutoring update since today's meeting! I heard back from the ESL teacher I've been working with to set up our group to tutor her students. We have the okay!! She said she would love and really appreciate our help! The times she has these students in class are 9:25-10:15, 11:55-12:45, 1:55-2:38 and she welcomes after school tutors from 2:45-?. It's Oaklyn school district, K-9, if anyone is interested let me know! I'll get you in contact with her!

Well that's all for now, for the rest of what you missed (if you weren't there) at todays meeting--stay tuned for Rachel's meeting minutes! =)

Important dates and changes for Spring--Important to Read!

Hello everyone!

There have been a few changes over the holiday break that I wanted to put where you could access them at any time. I will mention them at the meeting also, but for those who can't make a meeting check here for important news!

Meeting dates, all on a Wednesday at 4:30 in Conference room South A in the community center...
1/27
2/10*
2/24 is our new member meeting
3/3*
4/21
5/12**
7/28**
*=date change
**=meeting will be held off campus

Event Dates:
Friday 2/12 Trip to NJEA Headquaters in Trenton to celebrate us!*
Tuesday 3/2 Read Across America
Saturday 4/17 Student NJEA Convention*
*= for vested members only


Also, there as been a change of plans for our Read Across America event.

We will be having a book drive for a school in need and hopefully visiting the school for a storytelling to celebrate our donation.

We have a school picked out, but need to fine tune the details which will hopefully be done by January's meeting. Regardless of the school details, the book drive will be a definite event starting in January.

For those who are wondering about the Burma/Nepal refugee tutoring, I'm still working on that. My contact at Catholic Charities has not responded to my requests for information, but Laura Gaffney-SNJEA member that brought the refugees to my attention is contacting the schools directly to see if we can help. Thanks Laura!!

I hope to see you at our meetings! If you would like to join our group please attend our new member meeting on 2/24 or email Jaime at Jaime.Sia@rutgers.camden.edu

The Date is Set!

Friday, February 12th we are going to NJEA Headquaters to celebrate our new group!!!

This trip is for our vested members, I will email details shortly.

Here's to a great new year!!