Most of the Fall 2012 OEA Representative Assembly on Saturday focused on key issues for the end of this year and challenges OEA members will face in the coming year. OEA issued a news release summarizing the actions and strategies coming out of the RA, but here are the highlights:

"A group of Republican legislators introduced Substitute House Bill 555 ... their intention was to ram through during a lame duck session a complex and consequential piece of legislation without adequate debate or thoughtful consideration," OEA Vice President Bill Leibensperger

• Delegates resolved to form a governance-staff task force to address so-called Right to Work legislation designed to undercut wages, benefits and union activity and influence. This issue will involve a significant training and communications effort. Learn more about it now.
• Delegates voted to join the Strong Schools, Strong Communities partnership, www.strongschoolsohio.com,  which includes parents, unions and school administrators, a grass-roots, citizen-driven, non-partisan movement dedicated to informing and engaging Ohioans at the community level to understand, appreciate and support Ohio's system of common public schools.
• Delegates discussed how across-the-board cuts in the federal budget, aka the “fiscal cliff,", threatens $147 million in school, pre-school and adult education funding in Ohio. Learn more at http://www.ohea.org/fiscal-cliff and then sign the Kids Not Cuts pledge at http://educationvotes.nea.org/kidsnotcuts. 
• OEA will continue to move forward in strategies to address the Ohio Teacher Evaluation System and Reduction-in-Force provisions now in Ohio law, offer advice to local associations on how they can shape evaluations and ensure inappropriate test data does not prematurely affect high-stakes decisions for teachers.
• Randy Flora and his staff of education reform consultants put together for the colloquium on teacher evaluation, the successful session on teacher evaluations, Navigating OTES - Fall 2012 OEA RA.This presentation highlighted the requirements for the Ohio Teacher Evaluation System and outlined approaches to member advocacy. OEA moved the presentation to the big auditorium at Vets Memorial to accommodate wide interest in evaluation procedures.