Full Text of 2009 ESP of the Year Kathie Axtell's Speech
July 4, 2009
Delegates, my name is Kathie Axtell and, like you, I have worn many hats on my journey.
I am a little girl who grew up in public schools in Portland, Oregon.
I was a wiggly one who struggled with reading and an original latch-key child whose mom worked hard to keep her family afloat after our dad passed away. She taught me about compassion and about giving people the benefit of the doubt.
I am a student who was lucky a volunteer mom came in and took time to teach me to read and to believe that what I had to say had value. She also instilled in me a love I still carry each day for books and for learning.
I am a wife who loves her husband and values our time together. I am a parent of a grown son who is home from Iraq, but may be called back any time.
I am a friend; a sister; a paraeducator; a UniServ Council President; a state board director; and a National Education Association Board Director.
Do you understand where I am going?
We all have many roles we play in our lives.
I come to you today in my new role as the Education Support Professional of the Year.
This role comes with new questions and new challenges and new opportunities. For example, will I ever get the chance to talk with 10,000 of the coolest people in the world all in one place ever again?
Remember that volunteer mom who came to my school three times a week and taught me to read and to speak out?
That was a life lesson I never forgot.
While I would never say I am out there in front sharing my opinion about everything, if you happen to get me going about one of my many passions, watch out!
I am passionate that all children deserve the chance to succeed. My students who have had lots of obstacles being held back in life because of a “so-called” No Child Left Behind law have lead me to become deeply involved in political action.
I never considered myself politically active in any way, but the more I got involved in my Association work, the more aware I became of how critical it is for education support professionals to put our face on public education.
It is so easy to bury our heads in our schools and in our work. It is so easy to let someone else worry about legislation and politics and elections—why even bother?
I’ll tell you why.
We all know that the decisions made at our local, state, and national levels impact our work, but more important, those decisions have a direct impact in the lives of our students every day.
As a council president, I know that our ESP members are significantly less involved in the political process than teachers and other certificated
members.
But, I have to say, we all need to commit ourselves to engaging in political action as Republicans and Democrats; young and old; custodian and chemistry teacher.
Nearly 90 percent of the voters in our communities have a high regard for educators. We already are the most trusted group to speak about education reform. We rank higher than the PTA, principals, and school boards.
For the first time in many years, we have a U.S. Education Secretary who wants to know what practitioners need to be successful with students.
We finally have a seat at the table.
I implore you to do your part in your communities—to call on your legislators to provide the funding for resources our students need to be life-long learners.
For our students to succeed, we must have smaller class sizes, up-to-date textbooks, updated labs, and modern technology. For our students to succeed, we must have support for programs we are losing to testing – programs like music, the arts, physical education, foreign languages, and, yes, even recess.
We must engage in debate and discussion—especially when the economy is suffering—to talk about how our teachers must have adequate compensation and how our education support professionals must earn a living wage!
I am so proud of my colleagues in my home state, Washington. We are beginning to build awareness about what all of us who are ESP members already know: it is nearly impossible to survive on ESP wages.
Stories are the most powerful way to illustrate our issues, and we are working hard in Washington to identify members who are willing to share what it’s like for so many ESP members. Rather than try to explain further, I’d like to share one of our Living Wage stories.
As we share these stories, even with our own Washington Education Association members, many of them say they were not aware of just how hard we have to work to have the “privilege of serving” as an ESP
member in our schools.
In my time as ESP of the Year, I hope to share many of these stories with you in your states so you can begin to find ways to share your own stories. I hope to share with you what we are doing to get our living wage campaigns moving.
The night I received the ESP of the Year award, I suggested to my ESP colleagues that it was time for us to live life loud. I suggested we become more politically active in our states, and I am encouraging each of us to live life loud and put our faces on public education.
Live life loud by standing together to say every person who works in our schools deserves the dignity to live their lives above the poverty level.
I am not talking about buying a yacht. I am talking about the ability to live life with dignity and to have enough that we go to bed not worrying about whether we have enough money to keep food on the table or heat in our homes.
Who is the face of the ESP?
We are.
We know the impact we have on students each day.
Finally, I ask each of you, today, to value one another as colleagues, working side by side to meet the goal of giving every single public school student in this country the opportunity to succeed.
My sincere thanks to the Gardner Rich foundation—you see, being ESP of the Year comes with a lovely monetary award. I am using mine to provide resources for the TOGETHER! Foundation in my state which provides after-school activities and homework clubs to students so they can avoid violence and drugs.
Thanks, again to NEA leadership, NEA Executive Committee members, and the National Council for Education Support Professionals.
Thank you to the members of the Washington Education Association for all of your support. Our state president, Mary Lindquist, has been a mentor and a friend.
Thank you to our ESP Action Coordinating Team, chaired by Debbie Chandler, the group that got me started on this amazing journey. And my fellow NEA Board of Directors, represented by Kim Mead.
Finally, I want to thank my husband, Bob.
Again, thank you for this incredible honor. I am humbled to have had the chance to speak with you. You inspire me with the work you do each day for our students in public education.
