AFT 29th Annual PSRP Conference

By Karen Kendall, IFT PSRP Committee Member and Vice-President of Orland Council of Educators

During this past weekend while you were lacking sunshine in Illinois, Washington DC was sunny and 69º. It was here that the 29th Annual AFT Paraprofessionals and School-related Personnel Conference was held. It was extremely well planned, the workshops had plenty of new ideas and topics and your fellow PSRP’s from around the country were interesting to share ideas with.

The theme of the conference, “It Takes a Team to Make Education Work” had workshops that would satisfy any classified position. Just to name a few - Attacks on Economic Security, AFT Salary Survey for PSRP’s, Communication Skills for Custodial and Maintenance, Foundations of Instruction, Volunteers to Activists, Wellness: Strategies, for Living and the Good Life, Workplace Ethics, Students with Diabetes, Students with Autism and The Medically Fragile Child in the School Setting.

If you ever questioned the connection between politics and your job, this conference explained the affects on your employment and how important it is to be politically involved. One of the guest speakers during the Saturday lunch was Neil Abercrombie, a House Representative from Hawaii. He is a very emotional speaker whose mother was a teacher from New York during the depression. When she married his father her position was changed to half time and she lost all benefits including her retirement since she now had a husband that could take care of her.

Any PSRP is eligible to attend the national or the state conferences. If you are selected to go, be prepared to get involved in your council or local. I am on the IFT PSRP state committee and if you have an issue that you think needs to be brought to the attention of the committee please let me know. To e-mail meHERE.

By Jim Weir, President Hoover-Schrum Support Staff

On April 28-30, 2006 the 29th Annual AFT PSRP Professional Issues Conference was held in Washington, DC. I attended this conference along with two others from Hoover-Schrum School District. While at the conference I attended six workshops: Managing Student Behavior in the Classroom: The acting Out Cycle; Supporting Students with Autism; Paraprofessionals—Bus and Playground; AFT History: Learning from the Past, Building for the Future; AFT Tools for Bargaining in PreK-12 Settings; and ABCs of Being a Paraprofessional.

All the workshops I attended were very interesting and informative, but the one that I got the most out of was AFT Tools for Bargaining in PreK-12 Settings. This session was very useful (especially since we are currently trying to negotiate our first contract). The session was filled with useful information on topics that deal with negotiating important contract clauses such as insurance premiums; it also showed us many valuable tools the AFT website has to offer that deal with example contracts as well as how to create online membership surveys.

This was the first time I attended a PSRP conference and given the opportunity, I would definitely attend another.

By Pat Enright—Vice-President Hoover-Schrum Support Staff

My experience at the Washington, DC conference was terrific. The Supporting Students with Autism seminar was helpful. I do have daily contact with one autistic student. I learned the signs of mild autism and that autistic children often have marked sensitivity to sound, light, smell, and temperature. The most valuable part of this particular seminar was the presentation of fictional scenarios followed by possible strategies to handle the situation. I will definitely use these strategies at school.

On the lighter side, all three of us enjoyed the conference. Barb Kacanowski walked us until we dropped and Jim Weir was invaluable as our navigator. We squeezed in sightseeing too. I now can say I saw the Vietnam Wall (very moving), and the pandas at Washington Zoo.

Thanks for sending us to this conference.

By Barbara Kacanowski—Secretary-Treasurer Hoover-Schrum Support Staff

Let me take this opportunity to thank you for allowing us the chance to attend the AFT PSRP Conference in Washington DC. I was very impressed with all the sessions that I attended. I brought back useful information from them all. There are suggestions that I have started to put in place for the coming year and many strategies that I thought others would benefit from. I have copied much of the material I was given and have distributed it to my colleagues.

The two sessions I was most impressed with were “Troubled and Violent Students” and “How to Build a Bigger and Better Union.” They have given me ideas that I have already discussed with the superintendent of our district and plan to pursue further. This is the first time I have been involved in a union, and I look forward to helping our union grow.

  AFT Local 943
  15521 South 70th Court
  Orland Park, Illinois 60462
  (708) 633-0943
  (708) 633-0944 (Fax)

  Kathy Setlak, president

  IFT Field Staff