2008-09 ATPE Sam Houston Award for Political Involvement

Prior year award recipients

Award Details
The Sam Houston Award for Political Involvement is designed to recognize individual members’ outstanding achievements in five major areas and for overall excellence in the growth and development of individual grassroots involvement (regardless of local unit size).

One recipient will be presented with a special gift and a stipend (up to $500) to attend ATPE’s Lobby Day or another political involvement event.

Criteria and guidelines
Award applicants are judged on their individual efforts in one or more of the following areas.

1. Local school district policy involvement—Activities may include attending school board meetings or serving on campus- and/or district-wide committees.
2. Legislative advocacy involvement—Activities might include personal letter writing or phone calls, attending Lobby Day or an ATPE political involvement training seminar, and meeting with your legislators.
3. Election involvement—Activities may include local school board and legislative election involvement such as working in a candidate’s campaign, attending a candidate’s fund-raiser or attending a precinct convention.
4. ATPE-PAC fund-raising—Judges will look at organized fund-raising and individual donations to ATPE’s political action committee.
5. ATPE Legislative Alert Network involvement—Judges will consider membership in the ATPE Legislative Alert Network (LAN) and LAN recruitment.

Judging process
The ATPE Political Action Committee will review all applications in April and select up to three finalists. The recipient will be recognized at Leader U 2009.

The recipient of the Sam Houston Award for Political Involvement is ineligible to apply for the award the following year.

Timeline

1. Entries must be postmarked by April 6, 2009, if mailed, or received by midnight on the same date if faxed.
2. Finalists will be notified in May so they can make travel arrangements for Leader U.
3. The award will be presented at the awards dinner during Leader U 2009 in Austin. The Leader U registration fee will be waived for each finalist.
4. Funding for travel, food and housing must be arranged through the local unit.

Application Form (MS Word file)
Application Form (PDF file)