A Letter from USBA's President, Carolyn White

Greetings Utah School Board Members,

I hope all is going well for your districts in the roll-out of the 2014-2015 school year. This is always an exciting time when we see the students back in school eager to learn and teachers engaged in their plans for the year.

I spent a couple of days walking through some of our schools the first week of opening. I am always amazed at the time that has been put in by our teachers to be ready to help students learn. I enjoy the time I spend in our schools and find it refreshing.

USBA looks forward to visiting with each region at our regional meetings that will be held in October and November. It is always a pleasure to meet with our fellow board members and learn from each other. A note of reminder for our regional meetings, take a look at your MBA card or go online and see where you are personally and then check with your board in relation to the goals set for the year.

See you soon!
Carolyn White

NSBA News - JoDee Sundberg

September NSBA Board meeting was packed with much information and decision making. It was held in New York City, the home of NSBA president Anne Byrne. While the weather was lovely and we did take the opportunity to visit the 9/11 memorial and newly opened museum, which was sacred and amazing, most of our time was spent hard at work as a board. We did have opportunity to visit Anne’s school district and while there are a lot of similarities, there were some differences, like a per student spending of $19,000.00. They had some great things happening with the use of technology and other hands on opportunities but many of these same things are being done in our great schools across this state. We actually had lunch with the elementary students (a k-2 school). The lunch was fine (pizza, fruit, small salad, milk or juice (I had chocolate) and a cookie). The students were just like ours only with a little New York sound. It was delightful!

As part of my responsibilities I serve on the Agenda For Action committee. We discussed at length our Policy Initiatives for Advocacy during the 114^th Congress session. Here are some of our discussion points.

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