Welcome NEALS members,
What a year for NEALS as we initiated, created and then embarked on our strategic plan! Surveying the membership in October, we learned what NEALS means to you: who we are, what brings us together, and what we can achieve. The clear priority is to keep learning how to best serve our students. Your generous responses helped to craft our clear and defining new mission statement which includes our three core values: Promoting professional development for learning specialists through collaboration, support, and advocacy.
Impressive leaders in the field, your NEALS Board members tirelessly led many initiatives this year. Thanks also go to a number of people. Sarah Eslick advised us concerning institutional advancement. Beth Conners brought her considerable marketing skills to the NEALS Mission & Vision Task Force. Jeff Ross searched out new members at other NAIS schools and served on our hard-working strategic planning committee alongside Melissa Rubin, Liz Radday, Jen MacMahon, and me.
At our conference in April, the Board proudly unveiled our new NEALS logo. (Check it out at the top of this letter!). It highlights our vision statement of NEALS’ aspirations. Some ask "why the compass rose?" The answer is emblematic: YOU are a compass rose, a hallmark of each student’s road to success. You offer direction. You map out the way. We invite you to read our revised bylaws and the strategic plan in your members’ Google folder.
In his keynote talk, “Unveiling the Gifts of ADHD,” Ned Hallowell shared his own experiences in school, as well as those of the many students who have sought his support, informing his work and ours every day. His was such an important topic, as we move toward redefining classroom activity and exploring maker-spaces where our students find new opportunities for success. It was certainly fitting for him to be our speaker on such a special day for NEALS! The afternoon provided another rich opportunity for professional development, as we enjoyed hearing Amity Kulas speak about the revised WISC-V. This new edition offers important changes, and we came away able to make effective interpretations for our students' sakes.
As we reach new heights, I thank you all for sharing your wisdom and devotion to NEALS. We begin this school year with a new website and new benefits. To support these and other initiatives, we will raise our membership dues in January, Thus, we recommend that you update your membership before then at https://old.nealsonline.org/join/
On behalf of the Board, I wish you all a wonderful school year and look forward to continued collaboration among us, a devoted group of NEALS Learning Specialists.
Sincerely,
Susan