November 2007

Our 2007 Annual Institute was held October 17-19 at The Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center in Roanoke, Virginia. The title of this year’s institute was “Coordination + Collaboration + Content = A Plan for Student Success”. Thank you to all the presenters, participants and vendors. We appreciate the responses on the evaluations and will use this information as we begin planning for next year’s institute which will be held, once again at The Hotel Roanoke. Next year our conference dates are October 27-29, 2008.

As promised, the presenter handouts I have received are posted on the web site. Look under the conference logo for this link.

Due to the great participation we had at our institute this year, we were able to meet the “over 100” mark with NAFEPA subscriptions. Now Virginia is able to have two representatives on the NAFEPA Board of Directors. According to our bylaws, the President of VAFEPA is our representative until we meet the 100 subscribers. Our second representative will be the past president. Theophilus Lawton, from Chesapeake, is our current past president and has agreed to serve as our second representative.

Our next big event is the NAFEPA conference in Washington, DC. This year it will be held, April 14-16, 2008 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel. The title of this year’s conference is “Foundation for Success: Understanding and Using Data to Enhance Student Achievement”. Featured speakers are Douglas Reeves, Founder of the Leadership and Learning Center; Jack Jennings, President and CEO of the Center for Educational Policy; Stan Collender, Managing Director of the Qorvis Communications; and Kristen Tosh Cowan, Partner, Brustein and Manasevit. You will remember that Leigh Manasevit, of Brustein and Manasevit presented at our conference. I have heard Kristen present before and I don’t think you will be disappointed.

You can link to the NAFEPA web site from the VAFEPA web site to access registration information. You should be able to register as a NAFEPA member if you attended the VAFEPA conference. If you are having trouble with this, please contact me because all subscriptions and payments have been forwarded to the NAFEPA consultant.

If you plan to attend the NAFEPA conference, be sure to let me know. The VAFEPA Board schedules time with our House and Senate Representatives and we want to make sure that we schedule a visit with your Representative. They always like to talk directly with their constituents.

As I close this message we are getting ready for another holiday season. Take time to appreciate your family and friends!

Happy Holidays to each of you.

Betsy Mierzwa
President

Previous messages:
October 2007