President's Corner

June President Editorial

By Maripaz Berlin, OGEA President

president@ogea.org

Hello, OGEA Members! 

Congratulations, OGEA! We have reached the final stretch of 2022-2023!! It has been quite a year. Here are some of the accomplishments and happenings of the year. 

Created opportunities for our groups to connect and provide input at our dinners for our 

● New Educators 

● Psychologists 

● Speech and Language Pathologists 

● Special Education Teachers 

We added 50+ new OGEA Members to our Community! Sent 45+ members to CTA Conferences, such as the Leadership, Special Ed, Equity and Human Rights, Good Teaching, Summer Institute, NEA Representative Assembly, Political Academy, and New Educator Conferences. 

I was able to visit with members at all 19 school/work sites and share a meal and pies, learning about issues and how to improve the OGSD public education system for the betterment of our students and educators. 

We continued the fight for better and safer Special Education conditions and processes, as well as called on for more support for our intermediate school campuses that experienced a multitude of challenges in student behavior. 

Nationally, our LGBTQ+ and Educator Communities are under attack and rights are being stripped away with the banning of books, the threats against our LGBTQ+ students’ identities, the attempts to erase curriculum that uplifts communities of people who have been marginalized and the attacks against teachers who uphold and protect students and their rights as human beings. 

Our push for the fidelity of the LGBTQ+ Resolution continues, especially in providing ongoing education and training for all staff and having restrooms that are gender neutral is part of this ongoing work to stand up for each other and our students and their families. 

This year we also started our work on educating members and families on the Community Schools model. Having shared-decision making abilities with all education partners such as students, families, admin and educators. We plan on reaching out to our Edenvale educators and families again in the early Fall. 

THANK YOU for your dedication, drive, passion and LOVE for this work. I see you! There is no more noble nor supreme and essential profession than that of the public school educator. Everyone in our world goes through the US. We touch everyone’s lives with our humor, our knowledge, our heart, our strength, our persistence and now our resistance to all things that threaten human dignity and civil rights, especially of our youth. 

THANK YOU to our retirees for your service and resilience! Know that YOU have impacted lives in the most positive way! You have paved the road for our incoming educators with your wisdom, knowledge and skills! Have a wonderful Summer, OGEA! RECHARGE, RENEW, and BREATHE. 

In UNITY!