I hope that everyone had a pleasant holiday season.
Now that we have returned to the daily grind, I wanted to update all of you on some issues of importance that affect our district. In this week’s newsletter, I will be talking about the Weatherization Assistance Program and its impact on our local job market. I will also be discussing the NC Teaching Fellows Program and how it is improving the quality of education for our students. Finally, I will discuss my new appointment to an important study committee, the North Carolina Institute of Medicine (NCIOM) Access to Care Study Group and its role in the healthcare discussion in our state.
JOBS — Weatherization Assistance Program
The North Carolina Weatherization Assistance Program is an effort to improve the energy efficiency of low-income homes in our state. I want all my constituents to be aware of this service, as I feel its benefits can be of a tremendous value.
The weatherization program has been around for over 30 years, but it received a significant increase in federal funding this past year. The program’s mission is to improve energy efficiency, increase household safety, and to educate families about maintaining energy efficiency. The services are administered through Weatherization Agencies, which service specific areas of the state. For our district, the Weatherization Agency is Franklin-Vance-Warren Opportunity. You can visit their website here to learn more about the agency and some of the other programs they offer.
If you qualify for the program, the Weatherization Agency will come out to your home and do an “energy audit”, where an inspector will analyze how energy efficient your home is. Then the agency will perform minor repairs, such as replacing weather stripping, installing smoke detectors, and installing or replacing insulation. The program does not replace doors or windows, or make any other major home repairs. The goal is to create an energy efficient home, not to rehabilitate homes in need of major repairs. You also don’t have to own your own home. The program is available to renters, with permission from the landowners, and even can be used for mobile homes.
In addition to expanding a valuable service to additional low-income citizens, the increase in funding also helps in the creation of more jobs in our area. The Franklin-Vance-Warren Opportunity has already hired new employees as a result of the additional funding. As the demand for weatherization services increases, so will the need for new employees
If you would like to learn more about the program in general, you can visit this website. You should contact the Weatherization Agency in your area if you feel you are eligible for this service. It is wonderful social service that every eligible citizen should take advantage of.
EDUCATION — NC Teaching Fellows Program
In 1986, the General Assembly enacted an ambitious teacher recruitment program, the NC Teaching Fellows Program, in an effort to improve the quality of our schools. It was, and still is, widely acknowledged that the quality of our schools is directly tied to the quality of the teachers in our schools. The Teaching Fellows Program seeks to recruit talented high school graduates into the teaching profession. Once they the new Teaching Fellows are accepted, the program helps to facilitate their development into exemplary teachers. The program is now considered a prestigious award for North Carolina’s high school seniors.
The benefits of this program are two fold. First, high school students are given the opportunity to earn a hefty college scholarship. This allows some students to attend college when they would otherwise not have had the ability to do so. Secondly, because these students are required to teach for a total of four years in a North Carolina Public School following graduation, it provides a unique benefit to the students that they eventually teach.
By teaching in schools at such a young age, the Teaching Fellows graduates offer not only quality instruction but they also present these students with a wonderful role model. They show our children an example of what hard work and dedication can produce. They are intelligent and successful young people whom our children will then aspire to be like. These teachers are examples that many of our students will not have the opportunity to come in contact with, and the effect of these role models cannot be understated.
Above is a picture one of the graduates of the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program who is currently teaching in our District. Her name is Natalie Duffield, and she is a Kindergarten teacher at Youngsville Elementary School. I asked her to talk about how the Teaching Fellows Program affected her, and here is some of what she had to say:
“The Teaching Fellows program helped me immensely to become the teacher I had dreamed of being since the age of 5. The preparation began while I was still in high school and applying for the program. I had to do several interviews which helped me prepare for the interviews I would later go on when applying for jobs. While in college, as a Teaching Fellow, I was given more opportunities to work with students in the classroom than my fellow education majors that were not part of the program. Our director would regularly have former Teaching Fellows come and talk with us about their experiences in the classroom and allow us to ask questions and learn from them. We took trips to Washington, D.C., to visit schools and talk with teachers and students as well as a week long tour of North Carolina communities to see and meet the people we would be working with in the next few years. In addition to the knowledge we gained in the classroom, the Teaching Fellows program set up conferences and trips for us each summer where we participated in more hands-on learning.”
“The knowledge and experience that I gained through the Teaching Fellows program has been passed on to my students. I feel it all came together to make me a much better teacher than I could have been without it. Our community benefits from having children that are being educated well because one day those little minds and hands will be leading us.”
“I am very thankful for all the Teaching Fellows program has allowed me to learn, do, and give back to North Carolina, and I hope I am able to teach here for a very long time. I can’t imagine doing anything else anywhere else.”
I share Ms. Duffield’s sentiments. Children are our future, and we must invest in them. The Teaching Fellows Program does this, with tremendous results. Our district and our state are the better for it. If you know of any students who may be interested in applying for the Teaching Fellows Program, please visit here.
HEALTHCARE — Access to Care Study Group
The past November I was asked to serve as a co-chair of the North Carolina Institute of Medicine (NCIOM) Access to Care Study Group. Representative Hugh Holliman, of Davidson County, and Dr. Allen Dobson Jr, are the additional chairmen of the committee. Dr. Dobson is the Vice President of Clinical Practice Development with Carolinas HealthCare System.
During the 2008 Short Session, the General Assembly asked the Institute to convene a study group whose purpose was to review and recommend potential options for expanding access to appropriate and affordable health care in North Carolina. In response, the Institute issued a report in March 2009. Several of the Study Group’s recommendations were taken into consideration during the 2009 Long Session, and you can review them here.
This past session, my colleagues and I asked the Institute to do a deeper analysis of access to affordable health care. Since that request the environment surrounding health care has changed dramatically, and consequently some of the Study Group’s goals have changed. The Study Group will now also focus on the imminent passage of Health Care Reform on the federal level and how that will affect North Carolinians.
While many of the provisions of the Health Care Reform legislation will likely not go into effect until 2013 or 2014, there are some provisions that may go into effect immediately. While no one knows exactly how the Health Care Reform legislation will look until it has been finalized by the conference committee, there is little doubt that there will be immediate changes to how the insurance industry is allowed to practice, in addition to immediate improvements in public health programs.
Our first meeting will be January 20th at the North Carolina Institute of Medicine’s Morrisville office. These are all public meetings and you are welcome to come and participate in these discussions about establishing access to affordable healthcare in North Carolina. I will be happy to forward the specifics about the meetings to anyone interested in attending.
I look forward to being co-chair for the NCIOM Access to Care Study Group and will take this charge very seriously. Our goal is one of great importance, and it is the duty of our state to work diligently to ensure that these reforms are implemented in a way that benefits all citizens.
On a side note, I know that many of you may be confused about the exact consequences of the Health Reform Bills. It is impossible to know how the bill will turn out until it is finalized, but I think these materials will provide some assistance, if only as examples of what could happen. This is a timeline of the how the House version of the bill would be implemented. And this is a side by side comparison of the House and Senate versions of the bill. Of course, we will have to wait until a final bill is presented before the actually consequences of the legislation are realized.
As always, I look forward to your thoughts and comments on the issues discussed in the newsletter. Please feel free to respond to any issue whether it was covered in the newsletter or not. It is an honor to serve as your State Senator, and I will do everything in my power to live up to that honor.
Sincerely,
Doug Berger