Earlier this month, in consultation with NESEA’s Board of Directors, I decided to eliminate NESEA’s K-12 education programs. Although this was a difficult decision, I am confident that it will ultimately make NESEA stronger.
So what does this mean? This will be the last year that NESEA will host the Northeast Regional Championship of the Junior Solar Sprint, which will take place on June 12th in Springfield. We hope you’ll join us for our last hurrah, and make this year’s event our best ever. In addition, Arianna Grindrod and Susan Reyes will be working to deliver the last of our Wind Wisdom and Solar Sense educator workshops, and to report back to our key funders and supporters by June 30, 2011, the end of our fiscal year.
Background and Rationale for the Decision
As many of you know, NESEA’s mission is to advance the adoption of sustainable energy practices in the built environment. We do this by connecting professionals to each other, to ideas, and to consumers.
For many years there has been confusion about exactly how NESEA’s K-12 programs fit within this mission. Certainly, through these energy efficiency and renewable energy programs we educate professionals – teachers – and connect them to each other and to new ideas. Yet, despite our best efforts, we have never effectively integrated these programs, or their attendees, into the rest of what NESEA does. We have never been very successful in getting educators to join NESEA or in persuading educators and the rest of our community of practitioners – architects, builders, engineers, contractors, policymakers, investors, and others – to network with each other, to share ideas and information, in order to advance sustainability in the built environment.
In addition, over the past year, although we have diligently sought continued funding for our K-12 education programs, we have been unsuccessful in securing it. We have been able to secure funding for only one of our three programs – the Junior Solar Sprint – and that funding has been reduced dramatically over the past year due to a restructuring of the grant. So the bottom line is that with our current funding streams, we would be forced to operate these programs at a significant loss.
Finally, much of the type of work our K-12 department does is also being done elsewhere (although perhaps not as capably as our wonderful staff does it). Most of the states within NESEA’s territory have followed our early lead in the teacher training arena, and have launched statewide energy efficiency education programs. So we believe that, increasingly, this landscape will be adequately covered.
None of this is to say that our K-12 programs are anything but excellent. Classroom teachers and non-formal educators have long given our curricular units and our educator workshops rave reviews, and have shared with us how they have incorporated what they have learned into their own lesson plans. We can be proud of the curricula we have developed, and of the excellent manner in which our staff and partners have delivered it over the years.
We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Education Director, Arianna Grindrod and Science Educator, Susan Reyes, for their dedication and hard work. You have done a wonderful job over the past several years raising NESEA’s profile within the K-12 community. We will miss you, and hope to have the opportunity to collaborate with you again.
p.s. – For those of you who are interested in joining us, we will be planning a special send-off for Arianna and Susan in mid-to-late June. We’ll keep you posted so that you can help us celebrate their accomplishments at NESEA, and wish them well on the next leg of their journey.
About Jennifer M.
