The AASA Governing Board delivered its marching orders to the members of the association’s three-member public policy staff at its meeting Wednesday in New Orleans.

Those orders outline the legislative agenda that superintendents want to see pushed hard on Capitol Hall during the year ahead. The agenda was adopted in a voice vote by the 100 members of the governing body at the meeting.

“We are calling 2017 the year of superintendent advocacy,” Noelle Ellerson Ng, who heads the public policy team, told the board. She explained her team would provide members with monthly topics and content to personalize in their outreach to elected officials on the federal level.

Previously reviewed by the AASA Executive Committee in January, the legislative agenda provides guiding principles for federal education policy in ways that best level the playing field for all students.

The agenda covers the federal/state/local balance, support of special populations, personnel support, strengthen district operations, technology infrastructure and student data privacy.

(By Jay P. Goldman, editor of Conference Daily Online.)