Welcome Aboard!

After years in the private sector, Prudence Stuto accepted a job last year as an education support professional in Jamesburg, New Jersey. She had a choice: To join or not?
NO CONTEST. And, with her registration in the Jamesburg Office Personnel Association, Stuto became New Jersey’s 50,000th ESP member.

“I came from private industry, so it’s new for me, but I wanted to be supportive of all the other workers,” said Stuto, who works as a board secretary. For many reasons, she resembles the “average ESP”—who is likely to be a 44-year-old woman living in the Northeast and working full-time as either a paraprofessional or clerical worker, according to NEA. (For more information on ESPs, including average salary—which was about $26,000 in 2005–06—go to www.nea.org/ref?3524.)