Teachers & Certified Staff
Grow your Career with Missouri NEA.
Missouri NEA and NEA deliver the support you need to be successful in your career. Backed by the 3 million-member NEA, MNEA offers more to support your professional growth than any other education organization. Missouri NEA offers a membership package second to none. Not only do you get the tools, resources, and community of a national organization, but you are also a part of the nation’s and state’s most powerful voice for public education and the education profession.
Managing time and your classroom
Managing time and your classroom
Get ideas for your classroom at NEA’s new School Me. The site, http://neatoday.org/school-me/, offers tips, tricks, and guidance for new educators, but there is something there for all educators. Access content several ways—blog posts, podcasts, videos, and webinars.
MNEA’s Start Smart publication provides support for new teachers. Quickly find what you need now on a variety of topics. Ask local MNEA leaders for a printed copy, or find it at Classroom & Professional Resources.
“I Can Do It” is a workshop designed for teachers in their first year or two of teaching and those who want to brush up on classroom management. This workshop is MNEA’s Beginning Teacher Assistance program, offered in partnership with Maryville University. It fulfills one requirement for upgrading the initial teaching certificate.
Grant opportunities
Grant opportunities
The NEA Foundation provides resources to help educators pursue grants. Use the Writing Tutorial found at www.NEAFoundation.org to help you draft an effective grant proposal. Explore grant opportunities from other organizations as well as projects of past NEA Foundation grant recipients.
Learning and Leadership Grants enable individual educators or groups of educators to develop their professional practice to improve student learning. Student Success Grants fund projects that help students think critically and solve problems. Both grant programs offer $2,000 and $5,000 grants.
Through its Humanitarian Outreach Project for Education Fund, Missouri NEA assists students and schools in financial need.
Thanks to funding from Reliant Financial Services, MNEA members who are probationary teachers or education support professionals can receive a $500 tuition grant toward the cost of a three-hour graduate course.
Teacher evaluation
Teacher evaluations
Get help writing your professional growth plan on a teaching standards indicator. MNEA compiled Marzano, Lemov, and Hattie strategies, which align with individual indicators, into a single downloadable document. Open the one for a teaching standards indicator in your professional growth plan.
Use MNEA’s Observation Log to record your own brief notes after an observation by your evaluator, however brief. These notes are valuable during follow-up discussions, especially if a summative conversation or document references that observation.
Log in to Members Only and find the documents under Classroom & Professional Resources.
Advancing your career
Advancing your career
National Board Certification is one of the best professional growth experiences for teachers. More than 70 Missouri school districts provide a financial incentive for NBC teachers. To help you in your NBC efforts, MNEA offers these training opportunities:
- Exploring National Board Certification (1.5-hour regional and online workshops)
- Jumpstart to National Board Certification (summer training for candidates)
- Three free Candidate Boost Days facilitated by the MNEA NBCT Network
- Professional Learning Facilitator training for NBCTs Teacher Leadership Initiative Competencies Find them at www.nea.org.
Teacher Leadership Foundational Competencies - Teacher leaders must constantly grow in their ability to engage effectively with diverse people and groups who differ from them culturally. They seek to understand the culture and its predominant impact on individuals and groups of people, yet also understand how the dominant culture can privilege or oppress individuals and groups of people. Finally, teacher leaders must develop the skills to challenge inequities and work with culturally diverse groups to create equitable learning environments for all students. Learn more >
NEA Micro-Credentials offer personalized learning experiences for educators, on-demand, and can be accessed online, anywhere, any time. Created by educators, for educators, and assessed by educators, each micro-credential is designed to take 10-15 hours to complete. They support educators in developing skills and acquiring knowledge to improve classroom practices that support student success. Micro-credentials are free for MNEA members, non-members pay a fee. MNEA members can get one hour of graduate credit for $70 after achieving a micro-credential digital badge. Visit nea.certificationbank.com to create an account and browse available micro-credentials.
Earn up to nine graduate credits for $200
nine graduate credits for $200
For one low annual fee of $200, Missouri NEA members may take one course each term (fall, spring, and summer) to complete up to three graduate courses in 12 months. Each course is two or three graduate credit hours. Choose from more than 30 self-paced, online courses for professional growth or salary advancement. MNEA partners with Avila University and Virtual Education Software to offer these courses. We recommend members check with their school districts to be sure these courses will be accepted for salary schedule credit before signing up.
Courses include:
- Advanced Classroom Management: Children as Change Agents
- Behavior is Language: Strategies for Managing Disruptive Behavior
- Teaching Diversity: Influences & Issues in the Classroom
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Information & Interventions for Effective Teaching
- Teaching Elementary Math Conceptually
- Talented and Gifted: Working with High Achievers
- Understanding Aggression: Coping with Aggressive Behavior in the Classroom
- Other courses address traumatized children, educational assessment, learning disabilities, inclusion, substance abuse, violence in schools, harassment and bullying, child abuse, autism, and Asperger’s.
Meeting the needs of your students
Lesson Plans for Learning Standards
NEA and Better Lesson joined forces to build a free website devoted to helping teachers succeed in English language arts, science, mathematics, and blended learning. The Better Lesson Master Teacher Project, brings together K-12 Master Teachers, sharing focused lessons just as they teach them in their classrooms every day, from the first day of school to the last. Do you have students who are not on grade level? Use the "Browse the Standards" tab to drop down a grade or two to find lessons to build missing skills, or go up a grade to challenge advanced students. The site currently features more than 16,000 comprehensive lessons and plans.
Global Learning Resources
The NEA Foundation provides global learning resources. Find engaging global lesson plans adaptable for different grade levels here, as well as links to many other resources to connect students to the wider world. Find resources and lessons about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, known as Global Goals, to give your students real-world context for your content and opportunities for critical thinking. Go to www.neafoundation.org under For Educators and then Global Learning Resources.
MNEA Connects Podcast
Missouri National Education Association believes that education is one of the greatest connectors in our individual communities and Missouri as a whole. We believe education is one of the most crucial functions of our society, which is why MNEA brings to you MNEA Connects. A podcast to help you connect…
- Policy to Practice
- Educators to Educators
- Professional Learning to Better Practice
- Missouri Communities to Missouri Education
Episodes are released once a week.
Join the state and nation’s leading public education advocate.
Your voice at the Capitol
MNEA membership gives you a voice in policymaking and decisions that improve education, fund public schools, reduce class size, ensure safe schools, secure technology resources, protect your retirement and the education profession, and expand community involvement in schools. In addition, MNEA delivers:
- Full-time lobbyists working on your behalf in the Missouri legislature and U.S. Congress.
- Online Legislative Action Center that makes communication about education issues with your legislators easy.
- Daily and weekly state and federal legislative updates when legislators are in session.
- Campaigns to elect pro-education lawmakers and work to defeat dangerous ballot issues aimed at destroying public education.
Big discounts
- Access to exclusive online shopping offers every day and 300,000 discounts ranging from hotels to local dining, shopping, cell phones, rental cars, travel and recreation, oil changes, and new and used vehicles.
- Smartphone application with 150,000 discounts just for MNEA members.
- Two free legal consultations and discounts on legal services for personal matters.
- Experienced financial planning consultants to help with retirement planning, college savings, and budgeting.
- Credit cards, money markets, personal and home loans, discounted auto, home, and life insurance
Legal perks
$4 million liability
Educators’ employment liability coverage, automatic with membership, includes up to $4 million in damages and legal fees for the defense of most job-related civil lawsuits and up to $35,000 reimbursement for attorney fees in defending criminal charges arising out of job-related incidents.
Free job protection
- Every probationary teacher-member who is non-renewed has the option of receiving a legal consultation with an attorney to discuss the legal issues surrounding the non-renewal.
- Members who have a child abuse or neglect-related complaint filed against them are entitled to legal advice/representation.
- Members who are subpoenaed to appear in court or administrative hearings related to what they might know or have seen in their jobs as teachers are entitled to consultation prior to testimony.
Free and discounted personal legal services
Members also get two free half-hour consultations with an attorney each year for personal matters, such as traffic violations, consumer protection, domestic relations, real estate issues, and wills and estates. Additional time needed beyond your “free” time on these issues is billed to you at a 30 percent discount.
Help when you need it
Full-time trained professionals in offices throughout the state are your front-line defense team to help deal with a wide range of problems. Call your UniServ director at the first hint of trouble. Many situations can be resolved informally in the early stages when you have an experienced advocate by your side. MNEA offers collective bargaining assistance for your salary, benefits, working conditions, and job security. No other organization matches MNEA’s expertise and experience on this issue.
Professional Growth and Classroom Resources
MNEA and NEA offer a wide variety of programs to help you grow your career. Take online training to improve your skills with NEA's micro-credentials, receive a boost from an NBCT mentor, learn how to manage your classroom and student behavioral challenges, or take graduate credits to advance on your salary schedule.
Members will receive monthly updates of MNEA's professional development opportunities and new classroom resources in MNEA’s e-newsletter In the Loop. Find details about all the programs at MNEA Professional Development.