Mrs. Poff goes to Washington (and helps save thousands of school employee jobs!)

8/20/2010

When KEA member Catie Poff went to the Web page set up by NEA to allow members to post messages of support for the education jobs bill being considered by the United States House of Representatives in May, she wasn’t thinking of it as an act of political advocacy. 
 

She certainly never imagined she would end up in the nation’s capital at a press conference for the national media with NEA President Dennis Van Roekel, US Education Secretary Arne Duncan and members of Congress. 
 

“I did not even really know what the bill was all about,” Poff told KEA News last month. “I have never been very involved in politics. I just clicked on the NEA Web site link that I was sent and it took me to a page that encouraged teachers to tell their stories so that those in positions of power might understand the consequences of this bill. So that is what I did.” 
 

The legislation then at the center of NEA’s advocacy efforts was introduced to create a Federal emergency “education jobs fund” to help save school employee positions eliminated in states hit hard by the recession. 
 

One of those jobs eliminated was Catie Poff’s: She had been notified on May 4th that she was not going to be renewed as a Reading Interventionist at Madison County’s Kingston Elementary for the 2010-11 school year. 
 

When she clicked on the “NEA Web site link,” which she received in an email from Stephanie Winkler, who is president of KEA-Central District and Madison County EA,  Poff followed the instructions on the site: “I told the story of how I had been a teacher for three years and was pink slipped due to the lack of a state budget in Kentucky and how important reading interventionists are.” 
 

Nothing happened immediately, Poff said, but “a few days later, Poff got a telephone call from NEA public relations director Andy Linebaugh, asking “if I would like to travel to Washington, D.C. to participate in a news conference on the bill.” 
 

Poff said that event, at which she shared the podium with Van Roekel, Duncan, and three members of Congress, was “surreal.” 
 

“When we walked in there were what felt like hundreds of flashing lights, cameras, and microphones.  I remember that my heart was beating and I just wanted to make sure that I didn’t mess up my speech. As my speech went on I realized that I was becoming less nervous. I had a totally captive audience and was talking about an issue that was so close to my heart.” 
 

Since her trip to Washington, Poff has learned that her teaching contract will be renewed for the 2010-2011 school year and she will again work with students at Kingston as a reading recovery teacher. 
 

The biggest revelation of Catie Poff’s experience in Washington was about NEA itself, she said. 
 

“I have been a member of NEA and KEA since I started teaching. On my trip I was amazed to learn that there are real people in Washington, D.C., whose sole job it is to work on our behalf. They work to give the educators of our nation a voice in the places where decisions affecting us are made. It made me proud to be a member of this organization.”