"Devoted to providing leadership, professional learning, resources and support for middle level education." NJAMLE
On March 6, 2019 NJAMLE was ready and poised to provide middle school educators in the state of New Jersey and surrounding areas with a professional development experience for the ages. All of the boxes were checked, everything from the venue to the keynote speaker to the presenters to the caterers were ready to go. Truthfully, it was about managing the final days leading up to our State Conference and then running the conference. Confidence was high that we had put ourselves in position to provide a special event for the middle school educators who committed to attending our event. We were sold out and we were ready! Unfortunately there were catastrophic events that were rapidly unfolding in the world that ultimately would have a preemptive impact on our plans.
Just two days later, a virtual meeting with our NJAMLE leadership team was convened. The Covid 19 virus was worsening daily and a national quarantine was a definite possibility in the upcoming days. Postponing, even cancelling the conference now, just five days away, was on the table for discussion. Arriving at the decision to cancel was difficult emotionally because of the hours of preparation and the passionate effort that had already been put forth by the organizational team. There would be economic consequences that would result from the decision to cancel as well. Ultimately, although a difficult decision, there was only one right decision to make. Do what was in the best interests of our members and attendees and cancel the conference. The response to the cancellation from the majority of the attendees was extremely supportive and positive. There were monumental tasks to complete as a result of the decision, but they would be completed efficiently in the days ahead. We were moving forward, confident that the right decision had been made.
We all know what happened next, as five days later on March 13, ( the scheduled conference date) we were all at our respective schools drafting remote learning plans for a three week period that would keep learning fluid for our students. What we didn't know at the time was that the three weeks would become the norm for the duration of the school year. As dedicated professionals and caretakers of children we immediately began to consume our efforts with finding the best methods to teach our students remotely. As a result of the resilient, committed and crafty leadership efforts of our President Tina Monteleone we continued to meet remotely as an executive board, first in an effort to support each other professionally, socially and emotionally, then as time went on we shifted our efforts to our membership. We focused on and discussed how we could best serve them during this crisis brought on by the Pandemic. Slowly we began to travel the road back and develop a plan full of strategies that could help educators manage the crisis and provide support for them as we continued to move forward.
Moving forward into the summer months NJAMLE continues to be committed to providing first class, cutting edge professional development for our members and middle school educators in the state of New Jersey. We also know that we have to modify the manner in which we provide these experiences knowing that quarantine restrictions still in place prohibit us from utilizing physical space for large groups of people. Our message is clear " We are Still Here" for you. We appreciate your needs and we appreciate your consistent support of our organization. We are all in this together and in continued recognition of this, the organization is providing all existing and new members for the current membership period, (now through June 30 of 2021) with Free Membership to NJAMLE. We are all traveling the road back together and we will continue to be there for you as the navigation continues.
Implementation of various ideas generated by the NJAMLE brain trust continue to evolve. Our Summer Newsletter is currently under construction and will be available during the early part of the Summer. Beginning on July 6 we are launching a mini professional development series of short videos called the Middle Ground Minute. They can be found on our Twitter handle on Monday Wednesday and Friday thru August 28 and are designed to share wisdom from our executive board members on various educational topics that hopefully will prove beneficial to beginning, new or even seasoned educators. We have two Twitter Hashtag Chats scheduled, one for July 21 from 8- 8:30, focusing on Building School Culture in a Remote Learning Environment hosted by Joe Pizzo (using the Hashtag NJAMLEchat) and then another focusing on Transitioning Back into the Classroom, to be held in August on a date and at a time to be determined. We also continue to share an almost daily dose of articles and blogs on various educational topics written by experts in their fields. Finally, the centerpiece of our efforts culminates on August 5th with our Virtual conference that is the masterpiece of designer Christina Requa.
The conference will be conducted virtually on August 5th from 9am-12pm and is free to all educators. There will be a series of relevant and fantastic pedagogical workshops, including but not limited to the following content areas, SEL, Virtual Instruction, Foreign Language and more. There will be a focus on interdisciplinary teaching strategies and resources. The session board is currently live on Twitter and we have over 450 people registered for the event already which will be provided in a Zoom room format. The event should provide a great deal of inspiration and multiple tools in which to help attendees confidently follow the road back to their classrooms in September.
We all continue with this personal navigation of the road back to our respective schools. While the road has been cracked and requires rebuilding, we will continue to navigate it together. We will provide guidance and support, while utilizing and sharing resources with each other as we go. Because that is what we do, we are NJAMLE, and "we are all better together".
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