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National Principals Month Is Right Around the Corner!
October is National Principals Month (NPM) and now is the time to start planning actions to highlight the great work of America’s principals, assistant principals, and school leaders, as well as their crucial role in fostering student success. Want to get involved? Check out the National Principals Month website for ways that you can elevate the voice of school leaders! Here are a few campaigns that we need your help with right now:
- Principals Shadowing Week (October 15–19): Invite your member of Congress or other elected officials to visit your school and shadow you for the day. Click here for more information and a sample invitation.
- Social Media Toolkit: Use these social media resources to promote NPM. Be sure to use #ThankAPrincipal all month long!
- 2018 NPM Student Video Contest: Encourage your students to submit a video highlighting what your principal means to the school and community! Learn more about the video contest here, and submit videos using this form.
This Month’s Top Advocacy Issues
Senate Passes FY 2019 Defense-Labor-HHS-Education Funding Package
In hopes of averting the looming threat of another government shutdown in the fall, the Senate overwhelmingly passed H.R.6157, a bipartisan $857 billion spending package for FY 2019 on August 23 by a vote of 85–7. In another win for principals and education, funding for NASSP’s top priority programs, including Title II and Title IV of ESSA, remained consistent with what the Senate Appropriations Committee approved in June. While the Senate bill’s education funding numbers are encouraging, House consideration of the bill in September could include reductions to key education programs. NASSP will continue to monitor developments in the lower chamber this month and fight against any cuts that will adversely impact school leaders, schools, and students.
More than 300 amendments were filed to the Senate bill and more than 50 of them were adopted by unanimous consent before final passage. One amendment of note, filed by Senators Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio of Florida, provides $10 million in funding to the Department of Education to test and evaluate innovative partnerships between institutions of higher education and high-needs state or local educational agencies to train school counselors, social workers, psychologists, or other mental health professionals and address employment shortages relating to school-based mental health services in low-income public schools.
Twitter Talk
For more advocacy tweets, join us on social media by following NASSP and the advocacy staff on Twitter:
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Take Action
Betsy DeVos is considering diverting Title IV funding to pay for purchasing weapons for schools and arming educators. Click here to send a message to Sec. DeVos and Congress and tell them that education funding and programs like Title IV should support student achievement, not putting guns in schools.
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Other news:
NASSP joined a chorus of national education organizations and educators around the country in forcefully condemning reported proposals from Secretary Betsy DeVos to divert Title IV funding from ESSA to pay for guns in schools and arming educators.
On September 25, the Principals of the Year from all 50 states and Puerto Rico will be on Capitol Hill meeting with their members of Congress to advocate for the policy priorities of school leaders. Follow #POY2018 during the Hill Day and help support their efforts! You can view the 2018 finalists for National Principal of the Year here.
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