By Brenda Ortega MEA Voice Editor As a self-described “Harry Potter nerd,” MEA member Ashley Calhoun has brought a bit of magic to her hometown of Homer, where she is now finishing her fourth year of teaching fourth grade. When the global COVID-19 pandemic forced school buildings in Michigan to close in March, Calhoun was…
While educators across the country are doing amazing things to help our students, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is using this crisis to push her education privatization agenda – this time proposing “microgrants” that sound very much like school voucher programs she’s pushed for years. “Once again, she’s tone deaf. She’s out of touch,”…
New distance learning guidelines have been issued by the Michigan Department of Education (MDE), taking into account that 500,000 of the state’s 1.5 million students – one-third of the K-12 school population – do not have home internet access. Mostly teacher written, the document is designed to help district administrators and local union leaders who…
A fanciful watercolor painting titled, “Even Cows Deserve a Vacation, Bovine Beach” won the Best in Show Award at the 56th Annual MEA MAEA Art Acquisitions Purchase Exhibition. The piece was one of two accepted into the show from MEA-Retired member Thomas Thiery, a retired art teacher from Adrian. The painting features a dreamy depiction…
By Glen Young English department chair Petoskey High School Educators in Michigan are certainly nodding agreement at Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Fiscal Year 2021-2022 budget proposal. We ELA types, however, have an added reason to applaud Whitmer’s plan. Along with per-pupil funding increases and Early Childhood improvements, Whitmer proposes a line-item for Poet Laureate, a writer…
Stories by Brenda Ortega MEA Voice Editor MEA member Stefanie Sedlar was drawn to become an educator in two ways. She felt a strong desire to help at-risk kids find their way to success, and she believed a federal loan forgiveness program for teachers would help her “afford” to make less income than other college-educated…
As we enter statewide standardized testing season, I find myself reflecting on this school year and the series of articles I have written about the Read by Grade Three Law. I think about the main point I wanted to make in sharing my experiences and concerns with the law. It’s this—that ultimately our voices need to be heard…
Jeremy Frame has been a special education teacher in Farmington for 17 years. He recalls attending a new teacher orientation in 2003 with 80-100 new hires in which he only saw one other African-American man.“I remember those first few years, having issues and questions and nobody I could turn to and say, ‘Here’s my experience;…
Cateisha Wardlaw is a paraeducator in Pontiac, working with high school students who have autism. She has worked in the district for 15 years; her dream is to be a preschool teacher. She has an associate’s degree in early childhood education, but she recently learned it would cost $50,000 to finish a bachelor’s degree and…
Phu Trieu has taught middle school social studies in Mattawan for 16 years. He loves the profession while acknowledging it has ups and downs. He came to the United States as a baby after his mom fled Vietnam with him and his siblings and they lived for a time in a refugee camp in Thailand.…
