UniServ & Organizer Support

NEA’s UniServ Training Program is designed as a “peer-to-peer” learning model. Our Academies are facilitated by a cadre of currently practicing UniServ Directors from across the country, who receive additional training in adult learning theory and racial and social justice. This year’s training cadre members come from the following states: AK, AL, CA, CO, IN, LA, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, NJ, NY, OH, OR, PA, SC, TN, UT, VA, VT, WA, WY. 

Foundations Academy

Designed for affiliate staff in their first and second years of UniServ staff work. The NEA UniServ Guidelines state that all new UniServ staff shall attend the Foundations Academy within their first two (2) years of employment. Based on our experience, UDs who wait beyond their first two years have a more difficult time building basic organizing skills into their routines. All Foundations Academies include a worksite organizing experience, and focus on supporting new staff in their work of building high functioning locals that can recruit and engage members, organize around issues that our members care about, and develop emerging leaders. Foundations Academies are five full days – Monday through Friday, beginning at 8:30 AM, with travel being on Sunday and after 4:00 PM on Friday evening.

Additional Questions and How to Register

January 6-10, 2025, Minneapolis, MN with K-12 Worksite Organizing Experience

February 3-7, 2025, Montgomery, AL with HBCU Higher Ed Worksite Organizing Experience

March 31-April 4, 2025, San Antonio, TX with K-12 Worksite Organizing Experience

UniServ Focus Academies

Focus Academies are designed for experienced UniServ Directors and are on timely topics for our organization. Some of these academies provide opportunities specifically for affiliates that already possess strong leadership, effective structures, and a demonstrated track record of using power to make meaningful change.

Register for a Focus Academy Contact Us!

Online Opportunities

All online discussions begin at 2:30 ET and conclude at 4:00 ET. To Register for any online program you must use a VALID WORK email and follow these two steps:

Step 1 : You must pre-register with NEA POPS https://neapartnerb.learnupon.com/users/sign_in with a VALID work email to enroll in any of our online discussion groups.

Step 2: Click on the Unique Course link in the descriptions below. Upon course enrollment you will receive two invitations. One from NEA POPS and one from Zoom. Both include a calendar invite that you can use to save to your work calendar.

September 26, 2024 - Safe Schools – Promoting Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety

This discussion focuses on strategies and tools to advocate for safer and healthier learning and working conditions. The module empowers participants to identify and address common environmental and occupational health and safety concerns like mold, excessive heat, and poor indoor air quality. Participants will learn about the pathway-to-action tool to support students and educators and will use it in a case study exercise. This module is one of three Health and Safety UniServ Academy sessions that will highlight resources, tools, and strategies for affiliate staff to use with employees, families, lawmakers, and school administrators on how to advocate for and support health and safety in our PreK-12 schools and institutions of higher education.

October 10, 2024- Data for Organizing – Using Excel to Evaluate Membership

This discussion will focus on the skills needed to successfully use Excel alongside data from databases such as NEA 360. Participants will apply basic sort and filter functions and learn more advanced tools such as pivot tables and goal seek. The basic skills needed for each session will be reviewed at the beginning; ensuring participants of any skill level can join at any time. Skill focus - Sort, Filter, Custom Sort, Sort by color, concatenate, text to columns.

October 17, 2024 – Foundations of LGBTQ+ Justice

UniServ Directors and Organizers work with members, colleagues, and community members who belong to and are allies of the LGBTQ+ community. Understanding this community and their issues is critical to providing support and guidance that is not only inclusive but liberating. Participants will learn about critical policies, strategies, and resources that will strengthen their methods, skills, and dispositions for work with this community.

November 14, 2024 – Building Power: Focus on Leaders and Structures

It takes power to win – period. Join this 90-minute virtual session to work together with colleagues from across the country as we hone the skills necessary to build power. We will cover the fundamentals of issue and leader identification, as well as power mapping and planning for escalation. This session is meant for UniServ Directors and Organizers at every stage of this process from those just starting to make the shift in their affiliate to those who feel they have successfully shifted the focus to organizing.

December 5, 2024 - Data for Organizing – Using Excel: Advanced Tools for Power Analysis

This discussion builds the skills needed for successful navigation of Excel to use member data from databases such as NEA 360, import non-member data, and successfully use other forms of community data. This session focuses on tools and functions allowing for analysis and assessment of potential partnerships, shared resources, and opportunities to build power beyond our current membership. Participants apply tools that sort, filter, and track this work allowing for ongoing power analysis and mapping. The basic skills needed for each session will be reviewed at the beginning, ensuring participants of any skill level can join at any time.

December 12, 2024 – Reframing Membership: Focus on Raised Expectations

Critically engage with and connect with colleagues across the country on how we move from the old way of looking at membership as a service or something staff does for our members to more of an organizing model. This session is meant for organizers at every stage of this process from those just starting to make the shift in their affiliate to those who feel they have successfully shifted the focus to organizing. We will discuss the importance of empowering members to view the association as theirs and share real examples of what has worked (along with what hasn’t). This session will focus on continuing to build our skills as organizers to develop leaders, mobilize activists, create and maintain solid structures in worksites, and test our strength continually so that we can win big for public education everywhere, every time we step into the ring.

January 16, 2025 – Winning School Board Elections

School Board Elections are the races that make a huge impact in the day-to-day lives of our members and yet often are overlooked. Join this 90-minute virtual session to critically engage with and connect with colleagues across the country on how we can support our members in organizing around school board elections. We will discuss the key factors to successfully flipping a school board election including working with outside groups, mobilizing voters, and finding candidates. This session will focus on continuing to build our skills as affiliate staff to develop leaders, mobilize activists, create and maintain solid structures in worksites, and test our strength continually so that we can win big for public education everywhere, every time we step into the ring.

January 22-23, 29-30, 2025 – Teacher Unions and Social Justice Series

This series focuses on strategies used by a growing number of affiliate staff supporting the creation of multiracial alliances with communities and the importance of centering social justice in their unions. Social Justice Unionizing seeks to expand how we think about issue identification, power building, bargaining, partnerships, and the wins we achieve. Content and resources from the book, “Teacher Unions and Social Justice,” will be highlighted through a variety of media and discussion formats. The series will provide an in-depth study of the full text, and full attendance is strongly encouraged, but not required. For those who commit to attending all four sessions, and completed the registration at the link below before February 14, a copy of the book will be sent to you at no cost. You will be provided additional information on how to order the book once you register.

• Session 1 : Defining what Social Justice Unionism is and what it takes to achieve this
• Session 2: Broadening union leadership and expectations for what unions can win
• Session 3: Developing and testing leaders, structures, and tactics that result in power building
• Session 4: Using internal and external structures to fight systems of injustice

February 13, 2025 – Safe Schools – Advocating for Educators’ Mental Health and Psychological Safety

This module provides educators with strategies and tools to understand and address factors that impact mental health and psychological safety in education environments – including interpersonal behaviors with students and with other educators, social media, violence, and device use in schools. This session will highlight methods for educators to maintain and bolster their mental health and psychological safety. Participants will learn about the pathway-to-action tool to support students and educators and will use it in a case study exercise. This module is one of three Health and Safety UniServ Academy sessions that will highlight resources, tools, and strategies for affiliate staff to use with employees, families, lawmakers, and school administrators on how to advocate for and support health and safety in our PreK-12 schools and institutions of higher education.

March 13, 2025 – Data for Organizing – Disseminating Information

This discussion builds the skills for successfully navigating Excel to use member data from databases such as NEA 360. This session focuses on the tools and functions that support leader identification, targeted messaging, and activist invitation into mobilization. Participants will look at tools that track this work and create lists based on desired campaign outcomes. The basic skills needed for each session will be reviewed at the beginning, ensuring participants of any skill level can join at any time.

March 20, 2025 – ESP Organizing - Bill of Rights

Affiliate staff representing ESP locals are responsible for identifying and developing leaders, organizing issue campaigns, and understanding and advocating for the unique needs of ESP members. Strong ESP affiliates have a high ratio of engaged leaders to rank and file members and structures that allow for rapid response, relationship development and collective action. This event is a partnership between NEA ESP Quality and the NEA Center for Organizing and Affiliate Services. Participants build skills around ESP leadership identification and development and learn how to establish differentiated innovative structures for increasing member engagement and union presence within worksites of the various job families within ESP.

April 24, 2025 – Leadership Tests and Tactics to Win

Who is doing the work in your union? Affiliate Staff are responsible for supporting the growth and development of strong local affiliates. Strong affiliates have a high ratio of engaged leaders to rank-and-file members and structures that allow for rapid response, relationship development, and collective action. This session is meant for organizers at every stage of this process from those just starting to make the shift in their affiliate to those who feel they have successfully shifted the focus to organizing. You and your colleagues will focus on best practices for engaging in the culture-shifting work of bringing organizing work to the center of our union culture.

April 29-30, May 1, 2025 - Organizing through Advocacy Series

This three-part series will help affiliate staff refocus areas of advocacy through a member-engaged, organizing lens. UniServ Directors and Organizers are the first line of contact between the workers in our public schools and the state and national affiliates. The challenges of workload, shifting priorities, and having an organizing mindset in the face of overwhelming requests for service make the job a challenging and complex one.

• General representation - interrupting the one-person one-problem model
• Grievance processing - interrupting the process and paper tiger approach
• Representing a member at the school board level - interrupting the superhero model
• Letter writing - interrupting the staff only brief
• Organizing around advocacy issues - moving from problems to issues for building power

May 15, 2025 – Safe Schools – Tools and Strategies to Address Gun Violence in Schools

Gun violence has a tremendous impact on the safety and wellness of students, educators, and the school community, whether it takes place in PreK-12 schools or institutions of higher education. This module empowers UniServ Directors and other staff to effectively counter gun violence and support elected leaders in that crucial work. Participants will learn about strategies and protocols to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from incidents of gun violence. This module is one of three Health and Safety UniServ Academy sessions that will highlight resources, tools, and strategies for affiliate staff to use with employees, families, lawmakers, and school administrators on how to advocate for and support health and safety in our PreK-12 schools and institutions of higher education.

May 22, 2025 – Data for Organizing – Campaign Progress Tracking

This discussion builds the skills to successfully use Excel with member data from databases such as NEA 360. This session focuses on the tools and functions that support the analysis of issues, evaluation of likely engagement, and tracking outcomes. The basic skills needed for each session will be reviewed at the beginning, ensuring participants of any skill level can join at any time.