Executive Viewpoint Dr. Mike Hernandez, AAEA Executive Director
New School Year Insights Well, that was quick! Summer is just about over, and we now have the promise of a new school year. Hopefully, you were able to attend the AAEA conference this summer. It was one of the largest groups ever, with many participants and vendors. That is a credit to you for wanting to get quality learning and networking and to our constituent boards and staff for putting together a conference full of great information. Many things compete for your attention, and I hope our summer conference is viewed as a great option that serves your needs. The message of our theme this year was purposeful to help you begin or continue to change the narrative about public education in your communities. There are so many wonderful things going on in your schools, and we must let that light shine. AAEA is already planning for the 2023 conference. There will be many opportunities to shine this year. Surely, we will begin this year without the threats of major Covid outbreaks that will disrupt how we do school. This reprieve will allow us to get back to consistency with our schedules and plans to educate our students. The 94th General Assembly will convene this year, beginning on January 9th, 2023. This session will bring many challenges, I am sure, but also opportunities to improve the educational process in our state. We must continue to work with our community and locally elected officials to express the needs we have and the challenges we face due to policy restrictions and funding. The AAEA Legislative committees will continue to meet along with some other ad hoc groups to determine what policy changes might be needed to better educate students who are products of our ever-changing society. I know you all welcome these students with open arms. Some early focus areas discussed are reading, career and technical education, fiscal responsibility, family and community engagement, and school safety. School safety has been a massive topic of discussion in our state due to the recent events in Uvalde, Texas. The Arkansas School Safety Commission will submit its initial report to the Governor this month, and a final report will be finished by October. The initial discussion has been around ascertaining how schools have been able to institute the previous 2018 recommendations and develop new possible recommendations based on further information from Uvalde. You should expect to see new survey questions asking you to respond. There is hope that new money will be made available to schools through the adequacy study and the special session on August 9th. The two main ideas I have gleaned from all this discussion are that districts should have safety procedures that
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