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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 2, 2002

News Release

NEA Elects Math Teacher from Arizona as New Vice President

Dallas -- The National Education Association today elected Dennis Van Roekel, a high school mathematics teacher from Phoenix as vice president of the 2.7 million member NEA, the second-highest post in the country?s largest professional organization.

The easy going, 25-year teaching veteran will assume his new office in September 2002. Van Roekel currently serves as secretary-treasurer of the NEA, a post he has held since 1997. He succeeds Reg Weaver, who finishes his second consecutive term as vice president in August 2002 and is running for president.

Unlike the candidates running for other seats on NEA's nine-member executive committee, Van Roekel faced no opposition. As secretary-treasurer, he has been widely recognized and applauded for his steady manner and exemplary efforts to align NEA's $255 million budget and other resources with the organization's priorities of improving low-performing schools by enhancing teacher quality.

Van Roekel's consistent championship of professional development and appropriate compensation for school personnel comes from his personal experience as a teacher and as the son of a teacher. "For my first eight years as a teacher, I worked a second job on evenings, weekends, and summers -- pumping gas, as an auto mechanic, as a painter and in a warehouse," Van Roekel explains. "I actually came close to taking a job out of teaching in 1976. I was on my way to this final interview, when I suddenly made a U-turn."

But while his love for the profession and advocacy for public education overcame the financial obstacles to a teaching career, Van Roekel took up the mantle of working for improvements for more than two decades, including two terms as a member of the NEA executive committee, president of the Arizona Education Association, president of his local, the Paradise Valley Education Association for six years, and as treasurer of his local for two.

Of the many education projects on which he has worked, Van Roekel is especially proud of his service on the National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century in 1999, at the request of then-Secretary of Education Richard Riley.

Van Roekel was born in LeMars, Iowa. He earned his bachelor of arts degree at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, and his master's degree in math education at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.

He and his wife, Julie, have two adult sons, Brian and Chad.

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The National Education Association is the nation’s largest professional employee organization, representing 2.7 million elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty, education support professionals, school administrators, retired educators, and students preparing to become teachers.