NEA Executive Director addresses delegates to the 105th Representative Assembly

Wow - look at you. Beautiful, smart, creative, passionate educators and public employees. Right now, you could be home planning a barbecue. You could be with your family, your friends, your kids. And instead, you're here - as the highest governing body of our glorious union. That's a choice. That's a big choice. And it says everything about you.

I feel it every time I am with you, your dedication, your love - for this work, for your students, for your communities. I feel your hope.

And I feel - your - power.

I love this organization. I love every single one of you. I need you to know that before I say anything else today. Educators changed my life, and every staff person at NEA has a similar story.

I love the mission of this organization - it is my heart and mind's moral compass. I absolutely believe in the power of this organization - in the power of the millions of educators you represent, to protect public education, advance your professions, and make public education what it should be for every student in this country. That's our mission. It is literally why I wake up every morning.

I don't have to tell you what this year has felt like. You've lived it. You've felt it in your buildings, in your budgets, in the calls you get from parents who are scared, in the hugs you give your students to soothe their fears.

I share many of those same fears. I lay awake at night worrying about whether I'm going to get a call or text about an educator who has been wrongly detained. Or hear about yet another senseless and preventable school shooting.

You know, I've kept a journal since I was a little girl - something my mom and my grandmother taught me to do. It's the one place I always go to capture what's in my heart. I don't usually talk about it much. But I want to share this with you - because there's something in these pages that belongs to you too.

Yeah, sure my worries are in here. But there's something so much stronger: every time one of you has given me a reason to hope, I write it down. I've traveled to a lot of states, a lot of locals - and these pages are full of your stories. This is where I go to feel hope again. I open them, and I find you. I find what you've done. And I feel stronger - because of you.

I've written down the small things. A ride home for a student who needed one. A lunch quietly paid for that no one ever saw. Extra hours counseling someone about a thesis or a career path.

And I've written down the more visible things. Locals banding together, shoulder to shoulder, at the bargaining table and at school board meetings, refusing to be ignored. Thousands of you in the streets. Educators standing between power and the people they are trying to silence.

Small acts of compassion. Major acts of solidarity and defiance. Both are in here. When you stand up together, you are magnificent. I hope you are proud of the union you belong to. Proud of the delegates sitting next to you. Proud of the members you represent. And behind all of it - your family, your community.

You belong to the most noble professions on the planet. And I need you to hear that - without you, none of it is possible. Without you, there is no future full of engineers and artists and musicians and nurses and educators. You are the foundation everything else rests on. So you're not just noble. You're powerful - because you build the future.

And do you know what your secret sauce is? It's the love - unbridled, boundless love that no one has to ask you to give, because that's how you're built. It's walking kids to school to keep them safe from ICE. It's educators delivering groceries to people too afraid to leave their house. You're magical. You've been heroes and lifelines - because of your love, your passion, and your unbelievable courage. That is your superpower. Putting your love, passion, and collective power into action. That's the superpower of this union.

There are so many stories in this journal. Pages and pages of you. But as I flip back through it, one name keeps coming up, over and over again. One person who has been a force for this union - and of this union. Her name is Becky Pringle.

She took office in September of 2020, in the middle of a raging pandemic. She touched people's lives at a time when we couldn't be close to each other.

And in the years since, in every pillar of our union, thanks to you, we have gotten stronger.

You modeled what it means to be a distributive leader. You championed dynamic alignment with our affiliates. And you invited me -and the NEA staff - to be your partner through it all.

Under your leadership, our organizing chops got stronger. In partnership with our affiliates, we built a national Member Organizer program - nearly 2,400 of you strong - growing and strengthening locals from the inside out and worksite up. We've worked with affiliates to expand collective bargaining rights, increase their density, add new units, expand action-ready training, and we've increased the number of locals bargaining for the common good. More and more states are running statewide advocacy campaigns. Like North Carolina's Kids Over Corporations campaign. Like the 18 states running ESP Bill of Rights campaigns. And the 19 states running campaigns to fully fund public education. And we've won 83 percent of all the ballot measure fights we've taken on.

But we're not doing this alone. Becky, you had a vision of a campaign to Promote, Protect, and Strengthen Public Education so we could mobilize folks across the country who support public education. We created a leadership pipeline with partners to recruit and train Public School Strong champions. In a short time, we've trained over 5,000 Public School Strong advocates and supported statewide coalition building in scores of states and locals across the country.

NEA, under Becky's leadership, our professional excellence chops got stronger. Working with 26 state affiliates, we've built one of the most powerful portals for professional learning. Courses designed by members, for members. We've also become the market leader in micro-credentials - credentials created by members, for members - so you have access to continuing education credits that can advance careers.

Becky, you championed our partnership with CTA to build a strategic campaign institute that exponentially increased the number of community schools. Our friend and NEA Board member Grant Shuster has played a leading role in creating a hub in his Anaheim school district for other states and locals to come and learn. Maryland and Vermont are also driving statewide expansion of community schools.

Together, we built a new health and safety team that has helped countless state and local affiliates win huge increases in resources for mental health supports and improved air quality in schools and on campuses.

We passed two Policy Statements - the Safe, Just and Equitable Schools Policy Statement and the Policy Statement about Artificial Intelligence, after working with brilliant task forces and groups of our members to guide the organization's thinking.

And Becky, with you, our commitment to racial and social justice has grown stronger and more impactful than ever. Ten years ago, this very body passed NBI B and made a promise - that this union would fight for every student's freedom to learn, no matter their race, their background, or their zip code. That promise didn't sit on a shelf.

There are education justice activists within every single state that we have engaged and trained. We created a member-led program called Leaders for Just Schools - and those LJS graduates have gone back to their locals and enacted equity-based practices and policies for all students. Local affiliates across the country have taken NEA tools to pass safe school zone policies and conduct Know Your Rights trainings, so immigrant families don't have to choose between their safety and their child's education.

Becky, you demanded we equip members and affiliates with the tools they need to ensure LGBTQ+ students and educators can show up as their whole selves.

And while the White House spends its time - and our taxpayer money - on building gold ballrooms and banning books, NEA continues to stand in our values and fight back.

When they tried to ban the honest teaching of our history - Becky didn't send a statement. She put her own name on the legal declaration that Alice and our lawyers took to court. She made herself a target, so every one of our students could still learn who they really are and where they really come from. I need you to understand the hateful, threatening, vile insults that have been hurled at your president. And her message to us is that of Harriet Tubman, NEA: "Keep Going."

Delegates, I also want to convey something to you about the staff of your union. I have heard from countless staff how proud they are to work for an organization that boldly stands on the side of racial justice and refuses to tolerate the censorship and whitewashing that too many other companies and organizations have cravenly engaged in.  

Some leaders understand how important true liberty is.   

Becky and I have a saying between us. It was inspired by her father, and she taught it to me. When one of us is having a hard day, the other one says: "When I am weak, you'll be strong." That's six years of holding onto each other, so we could fight like hell for you, for our students, for our union, and for this country.

That's what it's meant to serve beside Becky Pringle. Not simply a long list of accomplishments. It's a promise - and she has kept it, six years running.

NEA, we ARE organizing for power to make change for our students, educators, and communities.

A few weeks ago, I was proud to be with leaders in Florida - thank you Andrew, Carole, Nandi, and Tanya for inviting me. FEA took another devastating legislative attack, and instead of retreating, you came together - I sat in that room with so many local leaders, inspired by watching you craft the plan to rebuild your union stronger than before.

In Alaska, Idaho, North Dakota, and South Dakota, you built powerful coalitions, fought off anti-labor attacks, and are engaging in smart, strategic, political campaigns to elect pro-public education champions across the political spectrum.

Pennsylvania - you got paid student teaching, so the next generation of educators doesn't have to choose between their rent and their calling.

California - eighty thousand of you strong, fighting for fully staffed, safe, stable schools through the We Can't Wait campaign.

And at the national level, after a forty-year fight and the incredible leadership of NEA-Retired, working with countless numbers of NEA Board members, state presidents and executive directors, seven NEA Presidents, and hundreds of thousands of rank-and-file members, we repealed the Government Pension Offset and Windfall Elimination Provisions! So retired educators finally get every dollar of Social Security they earned.

That's organizing for power to improve education for students, to improve the lives of educators, to make communities stronger, healthier, and more vibrant. Delegates, every one of you are a part of those victories.

Now, you know as well as I do that we have a lot ahead of us. Urgent, important, and life-changing.

We have two fundamental choices in America today. Do we roll up our sleeves and do the work necessary to rescue our democracy - or do we choose authoritarianism? Do we keep building the coalitions and partnerships to save and strengthen public education - or do we let the tech bros and exploitive billionaires buy our schools and turn our kids into centers for profit? Those are the choices.

That's why this week - and this union - matter so much. That's why I hope you'll submerge yourself in the Days of Learning. These Days of Learning were built for you - by your colleagues, your union siblings, by members who've been through it, lots of it, and who are sharing their lived experience with you. Because that's what we do in a union. That's what solidarity looks like. It looks like learning together, growing together, standing together, fighting together, winning together, and building together. It's how we turn every win - or loss - into the tools we need to meet the next challenge. And Becky - you gave us this gift - this space to learn and grow by restructuring this RA to create that space, to strengthen our organizing muscle and meet the fights ahead.

And there are some fights!

We've held the line on voucher ballot measures. But now, for the first time ever, we're up against a federal voucher program. This is a corrupt system, bought and paid for by billionaires who see education as a commodity and don't care whose future they trade away. We need more governors willing to reject it, state by state - like Minnesota, Wisconsin, Oregon, and Rhode Island - and I hope more will say no.

This week, go learn how to build the accountability campaigns that roll vouchers back. That session - your siblings - are waiting for you.

And you know we're up against a social media machine built by the people who are trying to privatize public education, rig the economic rules and shred voting rights. They are flooding our communities with disinformation about who you are and what this union does.

This week, go learn how to counter that disinformation, and take your own lived story straight to your community. Fellow delegates who are brilliant content creators are waiting for you.

And back by popular demand is a session about what authoritarianism actually looks like, and how we defend democracy against it. That session is waiting for you.

Take all the skill-building, all the learning home with you. Because one of biggest tests is right around the corner.

We have to create a movement to win up and down the ballot, so we have pro-public-education, pro-worker majorities at every single level - local, state, and national.

And notice: I didn't mention party. Pro-public-education majorities can look different in every single state. We need champions willing to stand with us, and hold the line. We can't leave any race uncontested. And we must hold people accountable when they walk away from our students and our members.

We don't just need to be at the table. We need to own the table. And you know what? In the last four years alone, over 4,000 NEA members have run for office and won. See Educators Run. See Educators Win. See Public Education Improve.

Now, here's an assignment: There are ninety million of our fellow Americans who didn't vote in 2024. We are the most powerful messengers in every precinct in America. I know you know someone who didn't vote. They may be the parents of your students. You may go to church with them. You may see them at the grocery store.

Well, guess what? This week, we have a session to help you talk with your friends and neighbors about the importance of voting - and make sure they know how to get to the polls.

We need to be the inspirational leaders who encourage Americans to reclaim our democracy - to participate in the act of making us a more perfect union.

And let's make NEA - let's make us - a more perfect union, while we help America become one too.

You have everything you need. Because you have each other. This week, you're going to walk out of here with the tools to prove it.

• • •

So I'm looking around this room again. Thousands of you, making a commitment to be here - to strengthen your skills, to lead your union, to shape where we go next.

This week is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate and lift up the legacy of our incredible president, Becky Pringle. But I'm not just talking about her legacy as if it's hers alone. It's yours. You helped build it - by answering the call of an incredible leader, and by making your own choices to lead. The future is, and always has been, in your hands.

You are how we make NEA a more perfect union. And you are how we help make America a more perfect union.

Someday - twenty, thirty, forty years from now - someone is going to pick up one of your journals. And when they open it, here's what they're going to read.

They're going to read that you showed up - not just in November, but every day thereafter.

That you knocked the doors. That you made the calls. That you helped reach some of the ninety million neighbors who never voted - because you knew them. Because you were their neighbor, their child's educator, the person they trusted.

They're going to read that you fought for every student, in every classroom, in every state, in every city, town, and borough - red states and blue states - because you never believed any child was someone else's fight.

They're going to read that when they came for our union, you didn't back down. That you organized. That you built power where there wasn't any before.

They're going to read that you chose public education. Not privatized. Not segregated. Not sold to the highest bidder. Public - for every student.

They're going to read that you chose democracy. That when it was tested, you didn't look away. You didn't shrink. You showed up for democracy the same way you show up for your students every single day.

That will be your legacy in this moment.

So go write it. Go write the future - starting today.

Start the moment you walk out of this hall and go home. Write the pages that your grandchildren, your students, your students' students, will someday hold in their hands - and know: this is who saved public education.

This is who stood up for me. This is who saved democracy so I could be free.

This is you. This is us.

Let's go, NEA. Let's go.