AFT member elected to Wis. Legislature

The final results make it look like an easy campaign: 81 percent of the vote for Democrat Barbara Toles versus just 19 percent for independent Wendell Harris in a January special election for the 17th district seat in the Wisconsin State Assembly. But for Toles—a former executive board member of AFT Local 212, which represents faculty at the Milwaukee Area Technical College—that impressive victory was the result of lots of hard work knocking on doors in the middle of a brutal Wisconsin winter.

“I never took it for granted,” says Toles, a community outreach coordinator and adjunct faculty member making her first run for office. Her many house visits “let the voters know what I stood for and why I wanted to be their representative. That was the fun part of it.” Toles admits that when she has to run again this fall, she’ll enjoy being outside in warmer weather.

While active in her local union and in politics for many years, especially through the League of Women Voters, Toles was a bit reluctant to seek office. When a long-serving incumbent left office to run for the state Senate, several people approached Toles about running. “I was very flattered,” she recalls, “but initially I thought I didn’t want to do it.” She realized those doubts had been put behind her when she started waking up in the middle of the night thinking about the possibilities. “Then I knew it was something I wanted to do.”

Toles’ campaign focused on three issues: high-quality education, affordable healthcare and jobs to support families. “These are major issues not just in Milwaukee but in the whole country,” she adds.

In addition to being a newcomer, Toles joins an assembly in which Republicans hold a strong majority. “That does make it tough,” she says. Initially, she plans to learn more about the issues and keep up with her constituents’ concerns. Assuming she wins re-election to a full term in the fall, she’ll be ready to move forward with more of her own legislative initiatives.

“I feel good about the election, and I think the people in my district feel good about me,” she says. “I’m really looking forward to serving them.”

Rebecca Palacios plans to take NBPTS message nationwide

If organizations take on the personalities of their leaders, then it’s a good bet that the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards will remain as focused and successful as it’s ever been. Those are, after all, the professional strengths that AFT member Rebecca Palacios brought to the table when she joined the board more than a decade ago—and they should shine brightly in the future now that Palacios has been named teacher-leader for the NBPTS.

A dual language prekindergarten teacher at Zavala Special Emphasis School in Corpus Christi, Texas, Palacios has a passion for the profession that extends well beyond her 28 years in the classroom.

“I always wanted to be a teacher,” she remembers. As an elementary school student growing up in a Texas neighborhood that prided itself on education, Palacios was already preparing for entry into her dream profession. “I’d say to myself, ‘I’ve got to remember that song, that project, that piece because I want to use it when I teach.’”

She got her chance in 1976, when she accepted an elementary teaching position in the Corpus Christi public school system. For Palacios, the first-year assignment also was a good introduction to the value of high-quality professional development. Using federal funds from Head Start and Project Follow Through, the school system worked in concert with the Southwest Educational Developmental Lab (SEDL) to offer both rookie and veteran teachers a strong menu of professional supports. “I had a lot of mentoring and induction assistance, and I attribute a lot of my early success to SEDL and Follow Through,” she says.

The experience stayed with her 12 years later, when she became a founding member of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Nominated for the position by the AFT affiliate in Corpus Christi, the position was a chance for Palacios to work with other educators to develop a voluntary system of advanced certification for teachers. For her, the big question at the time was, “How do we turn this into something that teachers would want to seek out, something that gives them insights into how they work in the classroom?”

Palacios also was one of the first NBPTS consumers: After leaving the founding group, she became one of the first 10 teachers in Texas to earn board certification. That experience taught her how important it was for NBPTS candidates to have supports such as cohort groups—and the active involvement of local universities, community groups and other education stakeholders in supporting the NBPTS process.

That will be the message Palacios takes to districts nationwide now that she has assumed the mantle of NBPTS teacher-leader. As an ambassador and representative for the group, Palacios will focus on community outreach and civic engagement in supporting the work of NBPTS.

“Everybody has a connection to education” and supporting NBPTS is a great way to strengthen that tie, she says. It’s a message that Palacios has spent much of her life both shaping and living.