A New Purpose for the Affiliate Community

As an affiliate leader, your role is not to have all the answers, but to ask the right questions.

To support you in your work, we have gathered tools, resources, and information into one location, a new Affiliate Community, designed to help you ask those questions to get you acquainted with your affiliate. Check out each of the sections, five of which align with the component areas of the Affiliate Developmental Continuum (  51KB):

• Communication and Publications
• Influence and Policy
• Leadership and Governance
• Membership
• Programs, Products, and Services

The Affiliate Community is intended to aid new and experienced affiliate leaders in understanding the magnitude of affiliate operations and practices and acclimating to their respective roles more quickly, and to provide examples of practices from all affiliates to facilitate the sharing of ideas between affiliates. We will add to the content regularly and share document samples from you, with you.

Your responsibility as an affiliate leader is to

• Seek the answers to the questions at the beginning of each section if you do not already know them. This will help you to get to know your affiliate and what makes it unique.
• Use the resources listed in each section according to your affiliate's needs. E-mail Constituent Services for access to these materials.
• Develop content ideas—and even write a section or two! You are the experts!
• Submit examples of best practice documents to share with other affiliate leaders.

Get started today! If you have any questions, e-mail us.

Support Whole Child Education

Today you can make a difference! Use the new Whole Child Resolution Tool Kit to ask your local school board, town council, and other policymakers in your community to support a resolution that addresses the needs of the whole child. If students are to master world-class academics, they need to be physically and emotionally healthy. They need to be well fed and safe. They need to be intellectually challenged and have supportive adults who know them well and care about their success. And they need to be interested and engaged in what they're learning. Our children need hope. Our children need you.

Learn more at WholeChildEducation.org.

Upcoming Events and Meetings

 Annual Conference and Exhibit Show—Reinventing Schools: Courageous Leadership for Positive Change, March 15–17, 2008, New Orleans, La.

 Affiliate President-Elect Orientation, May 4–5, 2008, Alexandria, Va.

 Summer Conference on Differentiating Instruction, Understanding by Design, and What Works in Schools, June 27–29, 2008, Nashville, Tenn.

 ASCD Virtual Symposium, available online now through June 30, 2008

 Conference on Teaching and Learning: Professional Practices That Work, October 24–26, 2008, Los Angeles, Calif.