Education Law Association

Goodness, I’ve been so busy with conference matters that I didn’t take the time to talk about the documentary! I had the opportunity to see it a couple of weeks ago in Columbus, OH as part of a pre-screeening with educators, professors, and attorneys. The screening was followed by a discussion group at a nearby restaurant.

The documentary itself was interesting and I learned a number of new facts. However, the attorney in me had a number of pointed questions in response to some of the interviews, and certainly noticed some of the gaps in the position of the movie’s creators.

As with any documentary or presentation, the presenter arrives with her or her own perceptions, just as the viewer arrives with theirs. Personally, I didn’t think the view toward the unions was as negative as I expected it to be, though yes, it was negative. However, among those at my table during the discussion group was a former labor lawyer who very adamantly thought that the unions were treated even more horribly than he expected. So, as with just about anything, your perception becomes your reality.

Being a documentary-length film, the ideas, information, and positions given are done so in their simplest form. The discussion group was wonderful because we could take those snippets and really discuss, debate, and give each other additional insight. I hope if you have the opportunity to see it that you do so with a group of people, or at least a small group of people, and you make time to discuss it afterwards. I took a small notebook and scrawled notes as I watched it, so I wouldn’t forget anything later during dicsussion.

Since I am the director of ELA, during the discussions I tried my best not to take a particular position but instead asked a number of questions on the topics at hand that would challenge the position of the other person, just for the sake of argument and further discussion.

On one had, the documentary tries to make it clear that charter schools are wonderful and can be an answer to our nation’s troubled schools. However, it admits that only 1 in 5 charter schools is really producing results. In a perfect world, it would be nice if we could take the elements of what is working well in those schools and apply them to our nation’s public schools, where 90-95% of our nation’s children are receiving their education. The consensus of the discussion at our table was that although charter schools are the answer for some students, they won’t replace the current system and so everyone must work together to import what is working in those schools to the entire current system.

It is interesting to note that the documentary pointed out that today’s massive educational system seems more focused on the adults than the children. That is a point I hadn’t thought of before. Perhaps skewed by the media, but when I hear reports of changing things in schools, I hear about how it will impact teachers, administrators, and parents; I don’t hear how it will impact the children. Is it natural in our society that adults come first because we’re running everything, or are we truly forgetting the needs of the children? Your thoughts?

Considering that the biggest ‘complaint’ of the documentary, and admittedly that of our group, is that compared to university-level professors, tenure is given too easily and quickly to K-12 teachers. I would be curious as to your response to this. What would you change, if you could, in the current system to make it work a little better for our nation’s children?

Cate Smith Uncategorized

Do you need to order Canadian currency from your local bank? It may save you money compared to the likely service fees of your credit card or exchanging cash at the hotel. Check the daily conversion rates at http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/rates/converter.html

Don’t forget your passport!!!

Please remember to sign up for the Fairmont President’s Club to be eligible for reduced or free Internet in your sleeping room. There will not be internet service in the meeting space.

Check with your cellular provider about International or Canadian rates for calls, texting, and data streaming (email). I am adding a plan right before I leave, and canceling it upon my return. I figure it will save me about $50 compared to my current plan.

I am very excited to see Mavin and Beau – the 2 yellow labs at the Fairmont. They are there Sunday-Friday and you can talk to the conceirge and sign up to take them for a walk. How fun!

Cate Smith Uncategorized

Are you attending any of our preconferences on Wednesday, November 10th? You can choose between Technology and Education Law, Legal and Educational Ethics in a Time of Change, or Religion in Schools: Establishment Clause Update. Conference evaluations from the past several years have suggested the need for a full preconference on the Establishment Clause and we have responded by expanding this very popular concurrent session into a half-day presentation! If you haven’t done so already, make plans to attend these timely and in-depth preconference sessions right away.

The preconferences are only $50 each! CLE credit is available for an additional fee and CEU certificates are also available. See http://educationlaw.org/10preconference_sessions.php for complete information and to register.

Cate Smith Uncategorized

1. For anyone making their own reservations at the hotel and not going through the ELA website, please note that we are holding our conference at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver on West Georgia St., not the smaller boutique hotel on the waterfront. I would hate for you to have to walk 20 minutes each way!

2. All conference attendees should be following ELAOffice on Twitter. I will be tweeting more about the conference as we get closer, and will also be tweeting during the conference with updates and special announcements! If you are a tweeter, use #ELA2010 to thread your tweets so that conference attendees can follow along!

Cate Smith Uncategorized

Your registration fee includes 2 receptions, 2 continental breakfasts, 1 full breakfast, and 1 lunch. On Thursday, November 11th you have the option of adding the role-alike lunch at no additional charge. First-time attendees are very much encouraged to attend this lunch session!

The Role-Alike Lunch is a deli buffet at which you are seated with members of your constituency group (attorney, professor, or administrator) and you participate in discussions about current trends and policies, and respond to questions and discussion points as guided by your facilitator. This year will be slightly different, as all the groups will be eating together in separate areas of the same ballroom. As the table and group discussion emerges, we will gather the most important points from each constituency group and discuss them with the larger group.

Last year the changes we made to this lunch were very highly evaluated! However, please note that after the Thursday morning concurrent sessions your schedule will be open all afternoon until the evening reception with the poster session which will be followed by the general session. Please take this into consideration when deciding whether to attend the role-alike lunch, as your afternoon sightseeing or free time will be reduced.

Cate Smith Uncategorized

The 2010 ELA Annual Conference is only 2 months away!

Reminder: If you have not yet ordered your passport, please do so immediately.

The list of concurrent sessions is being posted to the conference section of the website today. Please take the time to review the sessions to maximize your educational potential at the conference. There will be minor changes to the document over the next weeks but nearly all the sessions will remain the same unless there are cancellations. If you do not plan to attend the conference, (1) I hope you will reconsider and (2) please review the concurrent sessions so you can see what you are missing and make plans to join us next year in Chicago!

We are still in need of presiders for many of the sessions, so if you are willing and able, please complete the Volunteer to Preside form which can be found under Step 4 at: http://educationlaw.org/conferences.php

In addition, so that we can keep the costs of audio-visual rentals at a reasonable level, and therefore keep your conference registration fees at a reasonable level, please consider bringing an LCD projector for us to use in one of the concurrent sessions rooms. Projectors will be gathered every day and locked in the conference office. We really appreciate your assistance with this, as each projector we can borrow for the conference will save ELA more than $600!

Cate Smith Uncategorized

My, how the summer flew by! I will try to be more diligent with my posting in the coming months!

I had the pleasure of visiting the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver in July. I just happened to be within driving distance for my own summer vacation and so crossed the border to see the hotel, meet with hotel staff, and also with Page Kendal of CAPSLE. What a beautiful property with delightful staff! In addition, the area surrounding the hotel is easily walkable and there are dozens of restaurants and shops within just a block or two of the hotel. Weather permitting you can even walk down to the waterfront park.
“Within its walls you will find the luxurious Absolute Spa, an exclusive Fairmont Gold floor, a state-of-the-art health club, award-winning restaurants and an array of designer shops in downtown Vancouver.”
“You will also meet Mavis and Beau, The Fairmont Hotel Vancouver’s loveable Canine Ambassadors. Ready to welcome guests, these friendly canines help create a “pawsitively” wonderful home away from home.” These two yellow labs are so sweet! They are very laid-back and approachable. Give them a pat or a belly rub and you can feel your tension begin to melt away.

Internet will not be made available to you in the meeting space; however, there are several ways to keep your communications up to speed while you are with us, including joining the Fairmont President’s Club:
“Fairmont Hotels & Resorts exclusive guest recognition program, Fairmont President’s Club, offers special benefits and privileges designed to reflect your individual travel preferences and offer an enhanced level of service.
Membership in our hotel loyalty program is complimentary and your Fairmont President’s Club experience begins the moment you arrive at any of our properties with express check-in at our private reception desk and continues during your stay with complimentary high-speed Internet access, free local calls, complimentary health club access, …use of Fairmont Fit and so much more.”
See the Fairmont webpage for more details: http://www.fairmont.com/fpc/
In addition, consider contacting your cell provider to discuss the most economical options for international calling, texting, and data streaming. When I visited in July, I forgot about charges for checking email on my Blackberry and for just about 24 hours I incurred almost $10 in additional charges on my next cellular bill! To avoid this, sign up for the President’s Club and bring your laptop or see if you can add a 30-day trial or other temporary international plan to your cellular device.
Finally, for those of you who are skiers, please not e that Grouse Mountain and Whistler will not yet be making snow during our conference week. Therefore, if you want to go skiing, please do your homework to find a mountain further north or at a higher altitude that will be ready for you.

Cate Smith Uncategorized

Monday was an interesting day. I am sure you all know by now about the important decision announced by the Supreme Court yesterday, that the Court in a 5-4 decision affirmed the 9th Circuit.
The opinion, written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, states “Hastings, caught in the crossfire between a group’s desire to exclude and students’ demand for equal access, may reasonably draw a line in the sand permitting all organizations to express what they wish but no group to discriminate in membership.” Justice Ginsberg was joined by Justices Stevens, Kennedy, Breyer, and Sotomayor, and Stevens and Kennedy also filed concurring opinions. Justice Alito filed a pretty firey dissenting opinion in which Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas joined. It was one thick opinion!
However, this entry is more about the atmosphere that day at the Court. I love hanging out there whenever I get the chance. When I have the time, I love to watch the oral arguments, no matter what case it is. I was happy to have the opportunity (and a reserved seat) for arguments in March so that I could see Justices Stevens and Sotomayor on the bench together. I was also privileged to be sworn in to the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States during the Rehnquist years – in fact, I was in sworn in on December 4, 2000 and for those of you who remember the election, you can imagine there was quite the media frenzy that day as well.
I had a meeting on Monday morning and so was unable to arrive in time to be in the courtroom when the CLS opinion was released. I was downstairs, observing visitors to the Court. Families, student groups, attorneys, interns & clerks were all in the building for different reasons. I am a people watcher to begin with, so this observation was enjoyable. (By the way, the newly remodeled gift shop is really nice!) I knew the opinion was released when the chatter in the hallways increased dramatically. I went to the clerk’s office to get a copy of the opinion and then ventured outside to check out the media field day.

I was able to mingle right into the group of reporters and watch and listen as the attorneys for the Christian Legal Society were interviewed and talking among themselves. They were decidedly disappointed and frustrated as you can imagine, but refused to be defeated, noting there were still other issues and avenues. I heard comments about how things got a little circus-like “upstairs” but since I wasn’t there I can’t comment further with any particularity.
Emotions were running high, and I heard phrases like “upheld in the abstract” and “intellectually disappointing” and of course the repeated ominous warning that this decision means that a white supremacist could become president of the Black Law Students’ Association. There is also the concern that student groups will become homogenized because the competition will be within the organizations instead of among the organizations. However, it can be noted that many colleges and universities across the country have been enforcing a similar anti-discrimination policy on their campuses for years and so far haven’t found that the diversity of the groups have suffered.
I was impressed by how well prepared most of the reporters and commentators were. Many reporters were on their phones, trying to determine how much time they’d have for their segment, and arguing with their producers for an additional ten or twenty seconds to get more of the emotional side of things in to their story. There were so many important stories on Monday (the death of Senator Byrd, the confirmation hearing for Elena Kagen, the McDonald decision) that the CLS case unfortunately got a little lost on the network news, despite how important it is to higher education.

On the flip side, it was just as interesting to realize how many people had no idea what was going on but they knew it must be important and so they were standing around to watch the craziness and take pictures!

It’s hard to find a dull moment in DC.

Cate Smith Uncategorized

Very few people have not felt some sort of budget crunch in the last couple of years, and so here are some tips on how to save money and still attend the conference in Vancouver!

Some attendees will fly in and out of Seattle, WA (airport code SEA) and take the train up. Others may be able to save and fly in to SEA and out of Vancouver (YVR). If the prices hold fairly steady after July 1, this may be what we do as staff members.  When I looked a few weeks ago, the difference was $150-200 per ticket. So, if you have the time in one or both directions, keep this in mind and you can sightsee out the window while meeting a tight budget.

If you want to consider Seattle, here is some information that may be helpful:

You now can catch the new Link Light Rail from Sea-Tac airport to the Seattle Amtrak station. Here’s the Link Light Rail info:

http://www.soundtransit.org/Riding-Sound-Transit/Schedules-and-Facilities/Central-Link-Light-Rail.xml

 And here’s the information on the International District/Chinatown station, which is next to the Amtrak station:

http://www.soundtransit.org/Riding-Sound-Transit/Schedules-and-Facilities/Transit-Facilities/Intl-Dist-Chinatown-Station.xml

 Here’s the info on Amtrak, which takes about 3-4 hours depending on customs:

http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer/AM_Route_C/1241245667297/1237405732511

 Light rail costs $2.50 one-way, and the Amtrak costs $37.50 one-way.

 The light rail trip takes about half an hour, though you need to budget 10-15 minutes or so on each end to walk from the airport to the light rail stop and from the Chinatown station to the King Street Amtrak station.

 A cab or shuttle between Sea-Tac and Amtrak should run about $30-40.

We look forward to seeing you!

Cate Smith Uncategorized

The ELA Board of Directors (BOD) holds an annual mid-year meeting each May, usually here at the University of Dayton.  It was a packed agenda this year since it was my first as executive director.  I wanted to be sure that the BOD was completely aware of policies, inventory, and budget matters, in addition to a lot of other things.

Last year, other than interviewing the candidates for the position of executive director (thank you!), the BOD spent much of its meeting time writing a comprehensive strategic plan with the help of a professional facilitator.  In response to the plan, I wrote detailed goals and action plans which the BOD accepted in early fall 2009. These goals and action plans were aggressive yet realistic.  During this year’s meeting, we reviewed my goals and action plans as a group and the BOD was overall very pleased at the progress made to date.  As I reviewed the list myself, prior to the meeting, I have to admit that even I was surprised at how much my staff and I accomplished this year.  A big thank you goes to Judy and Jody, as well as our student workers Jared, Elizabeth (congrats on graduating!), Sean, and Meredith. We work very well together as a team!

Cate Smith Governance