By OESPA President Mike Donnelly

OESPA leaders had the privilege of representing Oregon elementary principals on Capitol Hill this summer.

COSA Legislative Affairs Director Chuck Bennett led a delegation of Oregon principals – including Carlynn Capps, Bob Goerke, Barb Chester and me on the elementary side – on a series of meetings with Oregon’s Congressional delegation.  We visited about potential changes to NCLB and the status of the reauthorization of ESEA overall, with Sen. Ron Wyden, Sen. Gordon Smith, Rep. Peter DeFazio, Rep. Darlene Hooley, Rep. Greg Walden and Rep. David Wu.

This “Day on Capitol Hill” was part of the NAESP/NASSP National Leaders Conference in Washington, D.C., July 23-26. The National Leaders Conference also focused upon the release of two NAESP publications: Leading Learning Communities and Vision 2021 (this year’s kindergartners' graduation year). These publications are continued efforts to bring support to the absolutely important role of the building leader in the national pursuit of educational excellence. We spent a full morning identifying methods to deepen and enrich the knowledge and skills of today’s elementary principals.

Besides just being in Washington, D. C. where you can just sense the pulse of democracy at work (sometimes, not at work), a great highlight was spending time with principals from across the United states and sharing in dreams and determination to uphold America’s educational goals.

We discussed the National Leaders Conference and our conversations with Oregon’s Congressional delegation at the OESPA Executive Committee meeting last week.  We spent a bulk of that meeting talking about how to align our new executive committee structure, which was reduced from 27 members to 14 members by the OESPA bylaws changes that were adopted in June. 
Those changes also adjusted our regions, and one result of that change is that we are seeking a regional representative from the Coast.  If you are interested, please contact me. 

We will continue to work through the changes between now and our next executive committee meeting, which is set for October 19, during the OESPA/OASSA Principals Conference at Sunriver.  We should be able to finalize the restructuring at then.  And, naturally, we’ll report to you on the updated makeup of the OESPA Executive Committee.  Look for that in late October.
In the meantime, if you have any thoughts or questions about the “Day on Capitol Hill,” the OESPA Executive Committee realignment, or anything else related to OESPA, please share them via this blog.  Just use the comment form below.

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