Say Thanks to a School Nurse on May 8

By Helen Yoshida In honor of National School Nurse’s Day, NEA Today spoke to 2012 Missouri ESP of the Year Carmen K. Hill. Hill is a tireless and dedicated school nurse working in the St. Louis, Missouri public school system. What’s a typical day like for you? I get in here at 6:45am and by [...]

‘Lunch Lady’ Author: Let’s Celebrate School Lunch Superheroes on May 3

By John Rosales After publishing his first book, Good Night, Monkey Boy, author and illustrator Jarrett Krosoczka returned to his old elementary school in Worcester, Massachusetts to talk to students about writing, illustrating, and publishing books. While walking the halls at Gates Lane School, he says he ran into the “beloved lunch lady of my [...]

Maryland Paraeducator Named NEA 2013 ESP of Year

By John Rosales For Donna Schulze, the gala at the 2013 NEA Education Support Professionals (ESP) Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, turned out to be the night of a lifetime. One for the books. The Friday night dinner and dance always kicks off the two-day series of seminars, speeches, and pre-conference workshops. While this is Schulze’s [...]

Community Rallies Around ESPs, Defeats Privatization Plan

By John Rosales Board members of the Exeter Township School District in Reading, Pennsylvania took great pride in their transportation department. In the fall of 2011, after reviewing a study of their school bus operations by the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials, the board learned some very satisfying news: the district spent $447 for [...]

Education Support Professionals Larger Than Life In Las Vegas

By John Rosales Family, friends and colleagues have been complimenting Scott Kulseth on his eye-catching billboard set against the backdrop of the Las Vegas skyline. Kulseth, a food service manager for the Clark County School District in Nevada, is one of nine members of the Education Support Employees Association (ESEA) whose smiling faces, first names [...]

May 9 is National School Nurse Day

By Robert McNeely School nursing requires much more than just than applying a band aid on a student’s scraped knee. Ask any student or teacher and they’ll tell you school nurses are more than a human first-aid kit, which is why they’re being honored for their commitment to health and safety on National School Nurse [...]

Judy Near From Colorado Named NEA 2012 ESP of the Year

By John Rosales The humility, drive, and dignity that Judy Near is famous for in Colorado’s Canon City School District was evident Friday night at the NEA Education Support Professionals (ESP) Conference in Memphis, Tennessee, where Near was named the National Education Association’s 2012 ESP of the Year. As Near approached the dais at the Marriott Downtown Hotel [...]

Education Support Professionals On the Front Lines in Fight for School Modernization

By John Rosales After a particularly snowy night in January, paraeducator Lynn Witts found herself zigzagging around water buckets the next morning as she walked the hallways at Polson High School in Montana. “The snow melted and we had buckets everywhere,” she says. While winter brings it share of snow and ice to challenge the [...]

Healthier Lunches Coming to Schools

By John Rosales New standards for school meals released on Wednesday  by the U.S. Department of Agriculture will help ensure healthy nutritious food served to every public school student in an effort to bolster their health and academic success. This effort was kicked-off with an appearance by First Lady Michelle Obama at Parklawn Elementary School [...]

A Boot Camp to Promote Healthy Food in Schools

By John Rosales The rigorous culinary training that Donna West attended in Aurora, Colorado, involved much more than cooking classes. West is a lunchroom and child nutrition manager at Brownwood Elementary School in Scottsboro, Alabama. For five long days spent in a high school kitchen and classrooms, West and two dozen other public school food [...]

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