Message from NAFEPA
President Rick Carder

I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and were able to take some much deserved time off to recover from the fast and furious conclusion of 2009. As we are constantly hearing and experiencing from the current administration, “full steam ahead” seems to be the administration’s motto. With the release of the School Improvement Grant applications on December 3 and the due date for the Race to the Top phase 1 application on January 19, 2010, I am sure your holiday vacation schedules were altered a bit. These are just a couple of examples we have all experienced, but I believe that 2010 will be just as furious. 

Reauthorization has begun in Washington, D.C., and Secretary Duncan has made it clear that it cannot wait. NAFEPA has been fortunate to have our Maryland Board representative, Chris Richardson, in attendance at some of the reauthorization stakeholder meetings in D.C. Our annual NAFEPA conference, “ESEA Reauthorization: The Race to the Future”, will be held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., March 28-31, 2010, and our focus is reauthorization. Our conference chairperson, Vice-President Debra Baros, has once again out done herself with securing some of the nation’s most sought after keynote presenters. Deputy Secretary of Education Anthony Miller will be representing Secretary Duncan and providing a roadmap for the future of reauthorization and the U.S. Department of Education’s 2010 educational plan.  (continue)