A Message from Your Executive Director

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What an exciting, milestone year PAGE is experiencing as we celebrate 50 years of excellent service to Georgia educators. In 1975, PAGE began as a big idea to found a Georgia-focused, non-partisan association emphasizing educators’ roles as experts working to improve the profession in the best interest of students. How far we’ve come since then! From initial meetings in Paul Copeland’s living room and only a few hundred members to more than 92,000 today. Extending and enhancing membership benefits in response to educators’ needs propelled PAGE’s phenomenal growth. Initial services that included liability insurance and legislative advocacy quickly grew with the addition of on-staff legal representation, professional learning, student programs, and scholarships. The most recent benefit enhancements provide 1:1 coaching and $100,000 in annual educator grants.

Throughout each decade, PAGE staff, the Board of Directors, and many volunteers and partners have been proud of what we’ve built.

Throughout each decade, PAGE staff, the Board of Directors, and many volunteers and partners have been proud of what we’ve built. It has all happened because PAGE is an association created and sustained by educators for educators. Thank you for being central to our success and for trusting PAGE to serve you as you serve others. You can review some of our history at www.page50.org. Further, you can share your experiences with PAGE at www.page50.org/submit. I hope you’ll contribute your story to our history book.

This edition of PAGE One highlights just a tiny fraction of the quality content shared with members since 1975. Since its founding, PAGE One Magazine has been a trusted resource for Georgia educators, addressing legal, legislative, and policy issues and championing great educators who are leading the way in areas including instruction, technology, and relationship building.

As we consider our next 50 years, the leadership team continually thinks about how to serve you better while being good stewards of our resources. In keeping with that commitment, this issue of PAGE One is the final regular edition. It will be followed by a Special Anniversary Edition later this year that will celebrate the association’s five decades of service. PAGE One is not going away. Rather, the delivery method of the award-winning publication will be changing. Early next calendar year, it will transform into a web-based digital magazine with the same level of quality content you’ve come to expect.

This decision has not been an easy one. It has been difficult and deliberate, especially for someone with more than 35 years’ experience writing, editing, and producing printed communications. The three most pressing reasons are resource-related: paper, postage, and production. Those three “P’s” add up to substantial cost. As we have all experienced in recent years, the cost of goods and services has increased significantly. While costs have gone up, so has the content volume over the past 5 years as the page count has increased from an average of 32 pages to 60 or more. That requires more staff time to research, write, edit, and produce. An interim step to address these costs was reducing the annual publishing schedule from five regular issues to three plus a New Member Special Edition.

Two additional non-production reasons are pace and postal service. With our 24/7 connectivity and the speed at which issues affecting education occur, a more dynamic mode of communication will keep you informed with greater timeliness than a traditional magazine which takes many weeks to produce, print, and mail. The recurring features readers are accustomed to from the PAGE Legal and Legislative staff will still be shared, along with stories about all our services from Membership, Coaching, Professional Learning, and the PAGE Foundation.

The PAGE Communications team and I look forward to this new iteration of PAGE One. We’re committed to enhancing the methods by which we inform you about critical issues for educators, highlight member accomplishments, and share PAGE services.

Thank you for choosing to contribute to the PAGE story and our success together.

Craig Harper

Executive Director

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Executive Director Craig Harper joined PAGE in 2015 after more than 22 years in Georgia public school leadership positions, including experience with human resources, professional learning, school safety, student services, and policy. Harper holds a master’s in public administration from Valdosta State University.