Woodard Tapped to Lead School Administrators
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Diann Woodard is the new president of the School Administrators (AFSA). She was elected last week by delegates to the union’s constitutional convention, in Washington, D.C.
Woodard becomes the sixth AFSA president and succeeds Jill Levy, who held the post since 2006. AFSA represents more than 20,000 school principals, assistant principals and other supervisors and education professionals in the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Woodard says the union’s main goal is improving wages, hours and working conditions.
We want to gain the right to collectively bargain for those who do not have it. And we want to improve the contracts for those affiliates who have contracts…we want to help train leaders so that they can build and maintain strong local unions.
For the past three years, Woodard was the union’s executive vice president and has served as AFSA secretary-treasurer. The former assistant principal at two Detroit high schools says she first learned about unions and workers rights’ growing up in a UAW family in Michigan.
Educators Praise Obama’s Choice of Duncan as Ed. Secretary
The leaders of education unions today praised President-elect Barack Obama’s selection of Arne Duncan, superintendent of the Chicago school system, as education secretary in the new administration. AFT President Randi Weingarten, Jill Levy, president of the School Administrators (AFSA), and National Education Association (NEA) President Dennis Van Roekel said Duncan has shown genuine commitment to the key priorities for an incoming education secretary.
In a statement, Weingarten says:
There may be times when we will differ, but we believe we will agree fully that America’s students and teachers need an education secretary committed to focusing on real solutions for closing the achievement gap and providing every child with a rigorous, well-rounded education that prepares him or her for college, work and life.
