Thanks to a grant from the National Education Association, the Ogden-Weber UniServ unit has established two chapters of the Future Educators Association (FEA) — one at Ogden High School and one at Ben Lomond High School.
The goal of the program is to find high school students who are interested in the teaching profession as a career, according to Ogden-Weber UniServ Director Rick Palmer. “I first heard of [the] FEA while reading a National Education Association student magazine about a FEA chapter in Roanoke, Virginia. The FEA is sponsored by Phi Delta Kappa International and has chapters all over the country,” Palmer said.
Chapter activities so far have included speakers from Weber State University, who talked to students about how to prepare to go to college, and a reading workshop designed to provide students with tutoring skills that might be used with elementary schoolchildren. Advisors include Suzy Davis, an Ogden High School School-to-Career coordinator, and Jann Lee, a Family and Consumer Science teacher at Ben Lomond High School. A service project as Odyssey Elementary is planned for Valentine’s Day 2008.
The Ogden High School group will also visit the College of Education at Weber State University. Stephanie Heath, WSU College of Education recruiter, “has also been a huge supporter of our efforts,” Palmer said. “She has worked with the Davis and Weber School Districts to offer a concurrent enrollment class, Ed 1010, to high school students.”
Palmer said Heath and Davis will be attending the FEA Conference in Chattanooga, Tennessee in February. “We expect them to bring back lots of good ideas as we expand the program into other districts,” Palmer said. “Davis plans to organize a district chapter and Weber is interested in starting their own FEA chapters. We think that by ‘growing our own’ teachers we will be able to survive the teacher shortage that is coming.”
For more information go to http://www.pdkintl.org/fea/feahome.htm or contact Rick Palmer at rick@ogdenweber.org