News from the Southern 1 Region
Susan Birnie, Southern 1 Regional Director
Fall 2011

As we approach a new school year, we have much to celebrate. We are in an exciting time in mathematics education. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for math have been adopted by all states except Alaska, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, Texas, and Virginia. The website where you can find complete information is: www.corestandards.org. To think that we have most states committed to ...

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As mathematics leaders in our communities, we have the challenge of supporting and encouraging excellence and equity in mathematics education. NCSM is a highly respected and well-established organization that provides the resources needed to achieve this goal. Just recently at the national conference in Washington, D.C, there were multiple opportunities to gain the latest in research, to learn about upcoming opportunities for enriching our leadership skills, and most importantly to network and collaborate with colleagues and mathematics education leaders at all levels. Each year, this conference offers me the time to learn, refresh, and renew my focus on achieving excellence as a leader of mathematics. The three days are always packed full and this year was even more so. At the end of the conference, I have my list of new tasks that I want to achieve, teaching strategies that I can't wait to share, and the latest ideas of how to support children's learning of mathematics. As I leave the conference, I am exhausted and energized and I loved every minute of it. And I always ask myself, how can I get more of my colleagues to join me in this exciting opportunity?

In 1987, I had just started working for Alexandria City Public Schools as a math specialist in an elementary school. The K-12 mathematics supervisors at that time encouraged me to join just before an upcoming NCSM conference. She said that if I wanted to be a math leader in our community that attending this conference was very important. I always suspected that she asked me so that she had a "buddy" at the conference. I loved being her math buddy. After that, for many years, each spring the two of us would have great fun attending the sessions, learning new things, talking about math incessantly, and networking with our other math buddies. Now as a math supervisor, I bring a whole new crew of math buddies each year to the conference and we continue this cycle of learning and networking.