Jeffco labor leads community drive #‎BooksForAllStudents

The labor community in Jefferson County came together to transform the lives of Jeffco children and elevate the quality of their education. Promoting #BooksForAllStudents throughout the county and in social media, many local unions raised more than $15,000 to give students most in need a free book to take home for the summer. The money raised actually purchased $34,000 worth of materials through the national non-profit First Book, providing a brand new book to each third grader (more than 1,100 students) at all 23 Title 1 schools in the county.

Third grade is widely viewed as a tipping point for reading comprehension. Students who develop strong literacy skills by the end of third grade are generally in a better position to engage a wide variety of school subjects and enjoy success throughout their school careers.

JCEA members Tony Tochtrop, Kimberly Douglas and Mandy Hayes place stickers and bookmarks in donated books.

The book drive also bought new books for the libraries at these schools. Tony Tochtrop was one of several teachers of the Jefferson County Education Association who volunteered to sort through about 4,000 new books at Union Hall of Sheet Metal Workers’ Local #9 in Lakewood, April 22. As the digital teacher/librarian in Lakewood’s Molholm Elementary, Tochtrop was very excited to see some of the books that would soon be coming to his school library.

“The kids love getting a brand new book,” said Tochtrop, who personally donated $50 to the cause. “I’m seeing a lot of great literature the kids are going to get excited about and look forward to reading.”

Members of the Jeffco Classified School Employees Association and leaders and staff from the Colorado Education Association also helped out with the book preparation in April. In each book, they placed a bookmark with friendly tips, printed in English and Spanish, that families could reference to better share in the reading experience with their children. They also fixed a sticker on the inside cover with a place for students to write in their names, showing that book now belonged to a student.

Mandy Hayes, a third grade dual-language teacher at Molholm, enjoyed getting the books ready for students who might not otherwise have an opportunity to own a book.

“When I was a little girl I had a vast collection of my own books and took a lot of joy in reading the same book over and over again, reading them to my baby brother,” said Hayes. “Having the ownership and knowing, ‘This book is mine and I want to take care of it and hold on to it,’ really helped me grow a love of reading.”

Like Tochtrop, Hayes was excited to look through the books that would be heading to her school. She found the selection encouraged authentic literature with relevant cultural themes. “A lot of these books are actually bilingual so the students can use their first language to help them with in their second language.”

Josh Downey (left) at the Lumberg Elementary book delivery, May 11

The delivery of the books to Jeffco schools followed in May. “Who likes to read?” Josh Downey asked to an enthusiastic response from a large group of third graders at Lumberg Elementary, May 11. Downey, the president of the Denver Area Labor Federation, led fellow union members to Lumberg to deliver the books kids received for their home libraries. State Rep. Jessie Danielson joined the event, which was covered by 9News.

“Thanks to teachers and paraprofessionals, thanks to nurses and and janitors, pipe fitters and plumbers, electricians and sheet metal workers, people all across Jefferson County pitched in for these books,” Downey told the students. “On behalf of all the people who helped raise the money, we are so glad to be here today and provide books to all of you guys. It’s really critical that you love reading and keep reading, because as an adult, you’re going to read every single day.”

“I’m thrilled that we were able to put together enough funding to give a book to every third grader, because that supports our Board of Education goal to increase reading ability and proficiency in the third grade,” said Hayes. “Giving an opportunity for third graders themselves to have a book, hold it, and take it home is going to promote that goal.”

JCEA’s Nate Golich passes out the books students get to take home

Educators push high standards amidst high poverty in the San Luis Valley

San Luis, Colo. (photo by Coloradoguy.com)

The small town of San Luis near the Colorado border with New Mexico has already made a name for itself. San Luis has the distinction of being the oldest continuously occupied town in the state. The town was celebrating another distinction when the Colorado Education Association visited Centennial K-12, honoring a student wrestler with a school assembly for a second-place finish in the state.

The school’s wrestling coach, Gilbert Apodaca, has ideas to further distinguish Centennial and San Luis beyond the mat. Apodaca, a member of Centennial Education Association, is the school’s lone high school math teacher, and his employer, Centennial School District R-1, is one of the state’s integration districts that first made the shift to teaching the Colorado Academic Standards for its students.

“I think it’s one of the best things we could have done,” said Apodaca. “We’re expecting kids to be able to describe the mathematics, understand the mathematics, and see how the mathematics are applied. It’s a big change, and we’re hearing feedback from our students and families about how rigorous it is. It’s a struggle, but we want our kids to have access to that struggle. It’s our job as teachers to make it meaningful and give them opportunity.”

‘Struggle’ is not a new concept for students growing up in the San Luis Valley. Costilla County is among the poorest in Colorado. Centennial K-12 serves a growing number of families setting in undeveloped areas, some going without electricity and running water. Valley educators explored poverty issues plaguing area families at a recent conference hosted by the Ethnic Minority Advisory Council of CEA’s San Luis UniServ Unit. Centennial Principal Curtis Garcia was a conference speaker and acknowledges extreme poverty has changed the nature of school work here.

Curtis Garcia and Gilbert Apodaca talk with CEA

“We’re not just focused on teaching, learning and academics, but really thinking about the whole child. So we’re concerned about access to health care, to mental health care, to other kinds of services that these kids need if they’re going to be able to function and succeed in school,” Garcia told CEA. “As a small rural district, we’ve taken on a lot of that initiative, a lot of that work, to identify families and help them get access to services.”

“In the classroom, you know who isn’t engaged and it’s a challenge to figure out why,” said Apodaca. “Is something going on at home? Have they had a good meal since yesterday at lunch?

“It’s not that the kid doesn’t want to try,” Apodaca added. “There’s something going on and we have to get to the root of it. So we have to dig deep, get to know these kids and see what’s going on, see where we can help them out.”

As Apodaca works to meet the needs of his students well beyond the classroom, he’s going through as much training and conditioning as his wrestlers to perfect his professional practice. With support from the Colorado Education Initiative and the Gates Foundation, Apodaca entered into a national math design collaborative to meet math instructors around the country. They share ideas on what’s working well and he introduces the latest cutting-edge strategies on math instruction into his small-town classroom.

Coach Apodaca congratulates his wrestling team at a school assembly

Born and raised in San Luis and himself a graduate of Centennial, Apodaca is unapologetic for pushing his students to reach high standards even when he knows many of them suffer in high poverty. “I firmly believe to give these kids an opportunity to actually succeed in their lifetime, we can’t lower the rigor. We cannot go down to their level. We need to give them an opportunity to succeed in life by raising the rigor… without it, our kids are going to fall behind and it’s going to continue the poverty cycle.”

Garcia enjoys empowering his teachers to push beyond what most would expect from a poor, rural district and create more authentic, relevant learning experiences for Centennial students.

“I see it as an opportunity for us in school to be able to own up to our responsibilities to think about the whole child,” said Garcia. “It’s that impetus that drives us to create change in our community and in our state to really get the resources in place to help these kids learn. The rigorous standards set the expectation.”

“It’s a rough area, but I wouldn’t be happier working in any other place in the state,” said Apodaca. “A lot of our kids come through some big challenges. I know for a fact they can do it, and if they come out of here, they’ll be some of the best out there.”

 

The real issues with standardized testing

The following article was written by Russ Brown, a high school teacher at Poudre High in Fort Collins and member of the Poudre Education Association, and submitted to CEA’s Pathways to Achievement blog by the author.

Russ Brown

Standardized testing.  The words send shivers down the spines of numerous professional educators and create dread in the hearts of students across the United States.  Recently, there have been stories of teachers leaving the profession due to the heavy emphasis on standardized or out-and-out refusing to administer the tests to their students even if it means they will be fired.  Yet, the question of why the US has this obsession with standardized testing remains a largely unexplored topic.

Superficial answers

Many will point to the federal mandates of “No Child Left Behind” and “Race to the Top” as the source of the standardized testing mania.  Yet, this still does not address why these policies heavily emphasized standard testing.  Others will declare that the need for standardized rests of the poor performance of US students on international examinations.  However, nations such as Finland have achieved high results without emphasizing standardized testing so the answer must be deeper.

A flawed philosophy

When someone really looks deeply into the standardized testing mania, a deeply flawed philosophy (or world view) emerges.  The foundation for the push for standardized testing, whether the proponents recognize it or not, comes from a view that students are products of the educational system.  In the students-as-products view, testing (just like with any assembly-line product) is necessary to ensure the quality of the product.  Teachers are semi-skilled workers whose job performance can be measured by their students’ performance on standardized testing.  The reason this is flawed is that students have no responsibility for or any ownership over their own education.  This explains why those teachers who care deeply are speaking out against the emphasis on standardized testing.

Alternatives

Some people will counter that students are not products of the education system by proclaiming that they are, instead, consumers.  In this philosophy, students (along with their parents) are catered to by the education system.  The market place will select those schools that are successful from those which fail the students.  In this marketing standardized testing plays a major role but, in the case of students-as-consumers, the use of standardized testing is to assist the consumers in finding the “best” schools (i.e. the ones with the highest test scores).  However, the consumer motif suffers from many of the same flaws as the student-as-product view.  In both views, students have no control over their education.  They also have no responsibility for their education; if something goes wrong it has to be the teacher’s fault.  After all, the customer is always right, which can be a dicey proposition especially if that consumer is a thirteen-year-old.

A better view

Rather than viewing students as products or consumers, a better way to look at them is to consider students-as-clients of the education system.  In the client view, students have control and responsibility for their education.  This view is consistent with other professional service occupations, such as physicians, attorneys, nurses, and mental health professionals.  For example, if a doctor tells his client (patient) to reduce the use of salt or risk having an unsafe blood pressure level then we cannot hold the doctor accountable if the patient willfully ignores the course of treatment.  Likewise, if students willfully ignore, or even sabotage, the attempts of a teacher then it is dubious policy to hold the teacher solely responsible for those students’ behavior.

The relationship of the student-as-client view to standardized testing is an interesting one.  There is an assumption that students are always trying to do their best on the standardized test.  Yet, having graded AP US Government exams for College Board, I came across dozens of answer booklets that were completely blank with no attempt at an answer given.  If these students, who had the possibility to earn college credit as an incentive, put forth less than their best effort it is reasonable to expect that on other lower stakes tests, such as the PISA, students are not trying to perform at their best levels.  Only the student-as-client view allows for the reality that students do not always try their best on standardized tests.

In addition, not only do students have responsibility for their education, but they should have ownership over it.  However, it is quite difficult for students to have any sense of ownership when the curriculum is being dictated by a standardized test (or series of tests) over which the students, along with their teachers and parents, have no control over.  Simply put, there is a severely limited role for standardized testing when accepting that students are clients.  This means that standardized testing cannot be a driver when seeking to make improvements to the education system.

Solution

The reliance on standardized testing as a driver of reform is akin to a contractor building a house without doing a soil test.  The house of reform will fail until policy makers, the media, and the public at large recognize that the soil around the house is the view that students are not products or consumers, but rather clients of the education system.  Only then, will the misguided mania of standardized testing be brought under control and we can move towards a system that will better meet our children’s needs in the 21^st century.

Stability: School’s underrated X-factor makes Belmont Elementary a shining star in Pueblo

Kaelia and Sunny were called into Principal Stephanie Smith’s office to tell the truth. They weren’t called in to inform on another student’s bad behavior, but given the more unusual opportunity to tell on their teachers.

Sunny: “They work together as a team to find out what we’re going to do, and if we get stumped on something, like we don’t know something, they help us understand it.”

And tell on their parents.

Kaelia: “My mom gets along with the teachers, she talks with them, she wants to be their friend. They think it’s great that I’m learning a lot from this school.”

And talk about the big lessons they’re learning.

Sunny: “If you don’t strive for success, than you might not get to where you want to be, and you’ll just be lonely.”

Kaelia: “You can’t just say, ‘I can’t do this.’ You always have to say, ‘I can do this. I can get through this.’ You can’t just give up right away. You don’t do that.”

Kaelia and Sunny love their school

Sunny and Kaelia haven’t been inside every school in Pueblo, but these third graders have both attended another school in District 60. Even with that short sampling, they’re convinced Belmont Elementary is the best school in the city.

“I love school. I was sick for two days last week and I kept telling my mom that I was better,” Sunny confesses with a sly smile. Not to be out-complimented, Kaelia brags, “I wake up earlier than I should just to get ready to go to school.”

Many education watchers in the city and state don’t share this enthusiasm for Pueblo City Schools. District 60 is better known by the word ‘turnaround,’ a term for failing schools that are on the clock to bring up student performance. Belmont is not a turnaround school even though its staff faces the same Pueblo realities: high poverty and unemployment, low incomes, and great public reluctance to raise revenue for public education with its limited means.

Belmont’s Principal Smith

“In Pueblo we have some of the hardest working educators probably anywhere. We work our tails off, but we don’t always see the results of that in numbers, in test scores,” said Smith, Belmont’s principal of seven years. “I’m not sure that people outside of Pueblo, and even here, get how significantly challenging our schools are as a whole. We don’t have a mix of student needs in Pueblo. We have a demographic continuum that starts high-need, and just gets higher and higher and higher.”

Belmont has not only survived but thrived in conditions where similar schools are struggling. The key to its success starts at the top, with Principal Smith and her predecessors.

“We’ve had four principals in 59 years, which is practically unheard of,” said 4th grade teacher Terry McCanne. “You have to have stability in leadership. A lot of Pueblo schools have had 25 principals in that time, and the average turnover of every two to three years isn’t going to cut it.”

Terry McCanne teaches 4th grade math

“Every time you have a new principal, the programs are going to change, the expectations are going to change, and that is really what makes Belmont good. We’ve stayed stable,” added library media specialist Julie Naccarato. “We’re not a school that gets a new principal every two years. The stability helps.”

Kendra Zerfas, a 5th grade teacher, says principal firing is too often the silver-bullet, quick-fix to whatever issue a school is having. “Administrative offices think, ‘Let’s just get a change of principal in there and it will make the difference.’ That’s the absolute wrong approach to take. The more stable your principal is, the more stable your building is going to be.”

Principal stability has led to teacher stability at Belmont. “I believe having stability in leadership is really important in developing a good school. Once you get a reputation of being a good school, many teachers want to teach there,” said McCanne, who has taught at Belmont for 20 years. Naccarato has taught Belmont students for 17 years, Zerfas for 12.

Kendra Zerfas checks progress one-on-one with her 5th graders

“That is something to celebrate and tell other districts and schools,” Zerfas said of Belmont’s experienced workforce. “You don’t want 90% of your staff to be a first-year staff. You need to have a good mix of veteran teachers because they teach younger teachers how to handle change and problems.”

CharLou Simonson, a kindergarten teacher here for 29 years, is proud to be part of the long history of teachers who have stayed Team Belmont. “That’s been the trend since I’ve been here, teachers stay. It’s a very cohesive staff and that really helps too.”

Principal and teacher stability has led to a solid community reputation that in turn fosters student stability.

“The principals and teachers get to know the families, and the families become very comfortable with them, and that’s what makes Belmont special,” Zerfas explains. “Many Belmont families have their kids come here kindergarten through 5th grade, then their brothers and sisters come here. Even when families move, they still come here because they don’t want to switch schools.”

According to Smith, nearly 200 of Belmont’s 550 students choice-in to attend Belmont from across the city.

“I get challenged here at Belmont,” said Lauren, a 5th grader in the Gifted and Talented program. “If math problems or worksheets are a little too easy, they’ll give me a more challenging one. It really helps because I feel like I’ve grown so much. I’ve been really successful over the years.”

So if stability is demonstrated to be a positive force at Belmont, trickling benefit down from principal to teacher to student, why don’t we see more stability at other Pueblo schools?

“That’s a good question. Because there hasn’t been consistency at other schools, it’s a problem that just keeps feeding itself,” Simonson offers. “The more instability there is, the more people don’t want to stay because it’s not a stable feeling. So then people leave, and then it’s not stable. That’s the real challenge in truly turning a school around.”

CharLou Simonson has taught kindergarten at Belmont for 29 years

Though every teacher CEA spoke with felt fortunate to work in a highly successful school, they have aspirations for working in a better school system. Among the roadblocks they face:

Curriculum: “The powers that be are causing what I call curriculum-creep, where what used to be taught in 6th grade is now taught in 5th grade, and now it’s even coming down to 4th grade. It’s not developmentally appropriate and it’s a huge challenge for us to get kids up to the level that’s expected. It’s gone too far.” (McCanne)

Testing: “Testing has taken over the whole feel of a school in many ways. Here, kids know that tests are important, but we’re not making it into the be-all and end-all of the school year. I think a lot of schools focus way more than they need to on the whole process because they’re scared. They hear rumors of, ‘We’re going to close you down.’ That’s scary. So then they think, ‘We better make sure we’re doing well on these tests.’ That doesn’t necessarily make you do well on tests.” (Simonson)

Funding: “I wish the taxpayers in this city who didn’t have children in school anymore would understand how poor our city is and the majority of our kids are. If they would support a mill levy or a bond, it would trickle into businesses and improve everything else. That’s what I think the everyday lay person doesn’t get. They don’t understand what kinds of financial things we’re seeing here.” (Zerfas)

The education of children like Kaelia, Sunny and Lauren are impacted by these challenges, but Belmont mitigates them better than most through a stable learning environment.

“Schools reflect society. You can’t really change society by changing the schools, and yet we all try to do that,” Simonson reflected. “That’s what we try every day – we try to fix it. I don’t really think we can, but we are a positive force toward that change.”

Kaelia and Sunny certainly appreciate the stable, caring staff. When asked about the lessons and skills they’ll take with them when they leave Belmont, they couldn’t even fathom the thought of leaving.

Kaelia: “I just love this school, I don’t ever want to leave it.”

Sunny: “I’m going to take my principal, my teachers, and my stuff – but mostly my principal and my teachers.” 

Note: Terry McCanne, Kendra Zerfas, Julie Naccarato, and CharLou Simonson are all members of Pueblo Education Association. Belmont Elementary has 27 members of Pueblo EA and classified employee associations.

Teachers lead the training at Edcamp

Class was in session on a clear, pleasant Saturday at Grand Junction’s Central High even though the school’s students were nowhere to be found. More than 80 area educators volunteered for an extra day in the classroom to take part in a teacher-led form of professional development sweeping that nation called Edcamp.

Edcamp participants start the day by choosing their training topics

“It was our very first Edcamp today in Mesa Valley and I was wondering what it was going to be like. I’ve been teaching for a lot of years and I’d never seen one done. I loved it,” said Anne Djokic, a teacher at Clifton Elementary. “My favorite moment was the energy at the start when everybody was talking about education, about students. There was a sincere cacophony of excitement to be here on a Saturday, on our own time, sitting in a high school library and getting ready to talk about what’s best for kids, what’s best for teachers, and how to get there.”

Edcamp bills itself as the ‘unconference’ according to its foundation website (edcamp.org). Unlike traditional conferences, the Edcamp agenda is created by the participants at the start of the event. Built on principles of connected and participatory learning, Edcamp brings educators together to talk about the things that matter most to them: their interests, passions, and questions. The training centers on an expectation that the people in the room will work together to build understanding by sharing their own knowledge.

A group breakout session on student behavior, moderated by CEA’s Casey Kilpatrick

Edcamp in Grand Junction was hosted by the Mesa Valley Education Association for all teachers, student teachers, education support professionals, and administrators throughout Mesa Valley County School District 51. “It’s exciting because the training is timely, it’s relevant, and teachers are getting to choose what’s going to impact their classroom the next day,” said MVEA President Darren Cook. “And it helps kids when teachers get to improve their professional practices.”

The training started in Grand Junction in typical Edcamp fashion with classmates posting notes on a board stating the topics they wanted to learn more about. The day’s courses were decided and people stepped up to teach them. Becky Johnson started with Google Docs and Apps, sharing how the technology is “transforming teaching and learning and East Middle School” by allowing students to create and present in multi-media platforms.

Becky Johnson leads the class on Google Docs

“Our kids just finished a project on plate tectonics, where they developed a presentation, wrote explanatory paragraphs, and made a webpage,” explained Johnson. “They are products that work together and that’s the nice thing about it. Once you are signed into your Google Apps account, you have access to this whole universe.”

“I had never heard of Google Docs before,” said Cheyanne Gentry, a teacher at Grand Junction High who enjoyed the Edcamp push toward networking and camaraderie. “I have lesson plan ideas exploding in my brain.

“This is a great way to energize people,” Gentry added. “I connected with people I hadn’t seen in a long time, I made a new friend. I’m just really excited and happy that I came. Edcamp was worth giving up a Saturday.”

Bill Johnson finds shared interests in Edcamp discussion

“I had a great time today learning new ideas and meeting new teachers, networking with them,” agreed Bill Johnson, a science teacher at Fruita Monument High. “On things that I truly battle every weekend, it’s good to find out other teachers are battling the same problems. I love the MVEA’s new vision and effort in training, and getting proactive in issues that concern all of us every day.”

The Edcampers broke down their issues and concerns in small-group discussions, scattered in classrooms throughout the high school. Topics of interest included navigating Colorado’s educator effectiveness evaluation system, managing challenging student behaviors, and diving into the district’s gifted and talented program offerings. Changing technology, though, is a popular theme throughout Edcamps as educators strive to bring the latest high-tech tool into the classroom that will engage their students and possibly lighten the heavy instruction load. In fact, Aurora Education Association teamed up with its district’s education technology department to host an Edcamp centered on sharing and learning with digital tools and resources.

At the Mesa Valley Edcamp, ‘ActivInspire’ and ‘Padlets’ were some of the brand names seemingly pulled from science fiction that captivated the imagination on what is now possible in classroom management. Younger MVEA members like Katie Allen were often at the front of class explaining their capabilities to older colleagues.

Catherine Gardner (second from right) takes in ideas to bring technology into her classroom

Catherine Gardner, a media specialist at Grand Mesa Middle, sat in on a session to learn about Quia, an online education platform offering 16 types of activities for teachers to customize to their classroom instruction and to create engaging, online practice games that motivate student learning. “I came to Edcamp with an open mind, not knowing what to expect, and I have had a fantastic day,” said Gardner. “I’ve been learning about instructional strategies and websites that I can take back and share with my teachers that will help engage students in the classroom.”

“The reason why this Edcamp was so successful is that every single teacher left with something to take back to the classroom and try on Monday,” added Allen. “It also invigorated the teachers and inspired them. We’re pushing each other to be more excited to get back in the classrooms and pass on that inspiration to our students.”

Joan Axthelm takes new Edcampers through an online orientation

Edcamp’s rising popularity in the United States and in other countries is easy to view by searching #edcamp in social media. Professional development chosen by and led by teachers is getting people excited about what they learn and what they can do to become better teachers for their students. “We had more than 10 groups of people say they will continue the conversations they started today. They’re not just getting information, but using that information and checking back to ask, ‘Hey, how did this work for you?’” said teacher Joan Axthelm, an organizer of the Mesa Valley Edcamp. “Here’s a bunch of folks that came out on a Saturday. They aren’t with their families today, they aren’t relaxing. They’re taking time to make sure they continue to learn and get better as teachers so their students can be the best learners they can be.”

After training, three teachers of Orchard Mesa Middle stopped at the official Edcamp trailer parked outside the school to reflect on the day’s events. “I never had tweeted before – I now know how to tweet so that’s exciting, being old and not social networking much,” Krysti Klueber said with laugh. “Every one of the things I did was beneficial and I’m very excited about this way to do professional learning. It was a Saturday well spent.”

Pittman, Klueber and Nicholson after Edcamp

“I feel like that too. I came away with something from every single session that I can take back to my classroom and use immediately,” Heather Nicholson agreed.

“Some of the content I already knew about, so it was nice for me to be able to help some of my fellow colleagues along,” added Becky Pittman. “I was also excited about the vision and seeing where things need to go in our district.”

The child is the winner when teachers gather together to find best ways to teach and make the best practices even better for students, concluded Djokic. “You want a teacher in your classroom who believes in the Edcamp because that means he or she believes in the profession. This is the wave of the future and the future is here. Edcamp is the way to make sure that students get the benefit from our time spent learning together.“

Teaching on the Plains

In a tiny town where everybody knows every teacher, Cassie Sonnenberg is confident the community holds her and colleagues at Wiggins High School in pretty high esteem. She’s less confident that parents understand the changes rolling through Colorado classrooms. “I don’t think the parents have heard the educators’ side of anything. It’s definitely something we need to work on.”

Cassie Sonnenberg, a member of Wiggins EA, shows editing techniques to ninth-grade students at Wiggins High

Sonnenberg is reflecting on Colorado Academic Standards, particularly the language arts piece she teaches that comes from the national Common Core. She’s playing catch-up to best explain the standards’ intent to parents back in Wiggins, a town of about 900 residents an hour northeast of Denver on I-76. “They’re only going to get what they see on the news, and in our area, it’s going to be FOX News. They really need to see the other side of it and hear it from us.”

She’s in Loveland on this day, attending a ‘Theory into Practice’ professional development course hosted by the Colorado Education Association. The training is designed to let teachers talk through weighty issues such as standards and assessments, away from the distractions of daily school business. The members, through their involvement with the Association, are learning how to make a more powerful difference in their kids’ learning and academic success.

“They’re not really that different,” Sonnenberg says of Common Core standards. “We’re still teaching our kids to read and write well. There’s a lot of assessment I don’t agree with, but kids are still learning to read, to write, to critically think, to communicate with each other – all of the things we’ve been trying to teach them forever. It just looks a bit different now…”

“It’s things that we’ve been doing, but we’ve got to take it a step beyond where we have been,” chimes in Becky Lubbers, an elementary teacher attending the training from Yuma. “We just have to be stronger and more diligent about the communication piece – for the kids to be able to communicate with each other, how to get it down on paper and show their knowledge.”

Yuma EA’s Becky Lubbers guides her fourth-graders through a writing assignment at Morrison Elementary.

In Yuma, a larger town of about 3,500 people more than an hour east of Wiggins, people have trust in Lubbers and her fellow teachers. However, she says more dialogue is needed with parents, particularly those who don’t agree with the changes. “The naysayers are the first ones to tell us that this is what they don’t agree with, and why are we doing that, and then it’s our job to educate them,” Lubbers explains. “We’ve got to build that next level of trust and say, ‘This is where we’re going, the standards are going to work, and they’re going to be here to stay.’”

That’s not to say rural teachers aren’t feeling anxious along with the parents. At ‘Theory Into Practice,’ Sonnenberg is asking about new standardized tests in group discussion and how they’re looking for everyone else across the state. “We’ve had to update a lot of our technology and the updates haven’t worked as we want them to,” she remarked, (getting instant agreement from Lubbers). “Where we are, there’s only so much we can do – there’s only so much bandwidth, there’s only so much money to pay for computers for all these kids we need to be testing. The start of the school year is always exciting and everybody is pumped up, but there’s also this underlying level of stress.”

Lubbers said “a lot of headaches were happening” in her group discussions, with teachers thinking back into their districts about the need to do this or try that. “I’ve taught for 34 years, and I keep thinking, ‘Oh, we’ve done this. This is that pendulum that keeps coming back.’ But this is a different type of pendulum now.”

The focus on standards is what’s coming back around in her fourth-grade class, but with a 21st-century flair. “It’s got more meat to it – the communications piece, the technology piece. Kids have got to be accountable for their learning.”

“And we need the parents to be on board with us too,” Sonnenberg added. “When your kid comes home and says he’s doing a discussion in class or a group project, it won’t necessarily look like the group project that you did when you were in high school, where the A-student did all the work and everybody else sat back and said, ‘Good job.’ We expect more out of everybody now and really working together, not just saying they are.”

Sonnenberg and Lubbers have something in common with each other and with many of the new teachers coming into their schools: years ago, they viewed the beginning teaching job in a small town as a stepping stone to greener pastures. “My husband and I made an agreement when we moved to Yuma that we would be there for two years. We’ve now been there for 34 years. We’ve raised our family there, because we’ve found a community that felt like home,” Lubbers proudly proclaimed, knowing her story is the statistical outlier. “We do a lot of dog-paddling because we go back and retrain our new teachers on what works in our district, what we’ve been doing. We back-peddle with them and sometimes we stay stagnant.”

While Wiggins has been fortunate to keep most teachers in place for several years, it’s hard to bring a new one in when needed. “Last spring I sat on an interview committee for an open position and we had tons of applicants,” Sonnenberg recalled. “Most of them were first-year teachers coming straight out of school from the Front Range, and they thought they were interested until they drove to Wiggins for the interview. Then they see there are no stores here and no mountains here, and it’s hard for us to overcome that.

“When I started – this is my eighth year – I thought Wiggins was going to be a stepping stone for me. My plan was to work a couple of years and then go to Poudre. And then I fell in love with the community and the kids, and now I don’t want to leave.”

Sonnenberg returned to Wiggins this time with a goal to get her teammates involved in answering Theory’s big questions, from how new teachers are treated to how the district uses data. “You would think, in a tiny little school like Wiggins, it would be so easy for us to all sit down together and make sure we’re talking about those things, but we don’t. There’s no time. ‘Theory into Practice’ is giving us a chance to talk about these things, and we each need to bring the conversations back to our own building and to the district as a whole.”

Lubbers said her district helped Yuma teachers adjust to the changing requirements by sending them to ‘Theory into Practice.’ “It’s a big step for our district to do something like this. We have representatives from each one of our buildings here, so six of us. We work pretty well together and we’re excited about taking some of the lessons back.”

With new tools, Lubbers hopes to rebuild school unity and develop a professional learning community among teachers in Yuma “where you can have an opposite opinion and not have it held against you, so you don’t later go to the parking lot, saying, ‘That won’t work in my classroom, this is what we should do.’ We want the open dialogue, not the parking lot meetings.”

National leaders find power of teacher autonomy at MSLA

MSLA roundtable discussion with U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, May 9

The Mathematics and Science Leadership Academy is a teacher-led school in west Denver that states as their motto, ‘Everyone in this school is a learner, a teacher and a leader.’ MSLA doesn’t have traditional school administrators like a principal. Instead, all the decisions – from the length of the school day to color of the chairs – rest with the teachers, who openly collaborate with school support staff, parents and students to drive the direction of learning.

The successes and challenges of running such a unique school model have attracted attention in the education community from Denver to Washington, D.C. During a two-day visit to Colorado, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan made a point to stop by MSLA, May 9, for a round-table discussion with faculty on the importance of teachers having leadership roles in their schools.

Sec. Duncan talks with MSLA staff

“This school is an interesting example of Denver being way, way, way ahead of where the nation needs to be in terms of creating these hybrid roles,” Duncan told the group. “Yesterday I was with a number of teacher-leaders who are now half-time in the class, half-time in mentoring and evaluation. I heard their enthusiasm, their excitement about where this can go… I think this is where the country needs to go and you guys are probably a couple years ahead. I really want to learn from what’s working and what’s not here.”

“What I think is impressive about MSLA is that it lets you hit the trifecta of job satisfaction: autonomy, purpose and growth,” said Pamela Yawn, a bilingual teacher and member of Denver Classroom Teachers Association who was one of several teachers who spoke with Duncan. “It’s not top-down… I can change my practice that day, for that student, for any particular learning. That’s what we’re doing here. We need to know what our students are going through almost minute-by-minute and be able to adjust. My practice has improved 400% since I’ve been here.”

Erika Franco (near right) participates in the roundtable with Sec. Duncan (far left)

“The person who really knows what’s going on in the classroom, who really knows what’s needed for those kids is the teacher. So we are the ones who have the decisions in our hands,” added Erika Franco, bilingual teacher and DCTA member. “This is what we want to do at MSLA, have our teams work so we all have a say, so we all have an opportunity to decide on the future of our school and on the future of our students. What makes us unique is that we are in the classroom, but we are working as leaders as well. That makes a huge impact in education, a revolution in education.”

DCTA member Lynne Lopez-Crowley is one of MSLA’s co-lead teachers. With the power to make decisions, she says the faculty continually looks at practice and what they can do better.

MSLA co-lead teacher Lynne Lopez-Crowley explains school practice to Sec. Duncan, Mayor Hancock

“Today we are looking at next steps – what is working well right now and what we need to change so we can implement that change right away to the benefit of our students. And I think that’s what makes our school different. The district has helped us take away all those layers so we can implement that change without going through this person, this person and this person, so we can always be on the cutting edge.”

Kim Ursetta, a bilingual kindergarten teacher and DCTA member of 20 years, said an important part of teaching at MSLA is holding each other accountable for results.

“We do hold each other to a higher standard, especially as a teacher-led school, because first of all we have that urgency for our students. Our parents expect that and we expect that of each other. So it really is up to us to not only look at that classroom level, but up in the airplane looking down at how do we move our school forward.”

U.S. Senator Michael Bennet also sat in on the MSLA roundtable with Duncan and Denver Mayor Michael Hancock. When he was superintendent of Denver Public Schools, Bennet collaborated with Ursetta, then president of DCTA, to help launch the Academy.

Sen. Bennet lifts the importance of teacher quality in the MSLA discussion

“MSLA is one of those examples, and we have many others across the district, where we’re distributing our leadership, and teachers are able to find rungs on the ladder other than just being a teacher or being an administrator. There are many things in-between they’re now able to do, and I think the craft of teaching, as a result, is getting better,” Bennet observed. “We know it’s good to have a good curriculum, but that’s not what makes the difference. It’s the quality of the teaching that makes the difference. If you’ve got a lousy curriculum and a great teacher, you’re going to be fine. But you’re not going to be fine the other way around.”

Duncan, Bennet and Hancock heard many personal stories with common themes that defined how teacher freedom and empowerment gives MSLA its identity and helps the Academy reach its goals. They learned MSLA has:

• Engaged students (attendance rate above 95%) who can voice opinions to teachers on what they want to learn;
• Highly supportive parents who feel welcome in the school and overwhelmingly turn out for school activities;
• Stronger mentorship practices than teachers experienced in other schools;
• Emphasis on professional development, with many teachers starting advanced degrees and National Board Certification after arriving at MSLA.

Duncan was particularly interested in how the school arrives at decisions without a principal to make a final call. Tara Thompson, kindergarten and 1st grade teacher and DCTA member, calls the process “super-exciting because we are the ones who are getting to make that decision.” She related how the school decided upon use of the DIBELS literacy test.

Tara Thompson gives insight into MSLA’s decision-making process

“There was a lot of disagreement, but man, it was amazing that we were getting to make that decision and I was able to talk to my peers about that and have my voice heard, whereas in other situations, you’re told, ‘You’re doing the DIBELS and find the time to do it.’ We were able to have that discussion, figure out how to do it, and implement it in a way that worked for all of us, not just have it placed on you. It’s very exciting,” Thomson said.

“One of the things I love most about MSLA is the teamwork and that so many of the people have very flexible thinking. It’s the flexible thinking that pushes us ahead,” added Lucinda Bowers, a school social worker and DCTA member with 37 years of education experience. “The strength of our team is in listening to each other, teamwork and collaborating. If we disagree, we talk it out and we keep talking. What comes from that is wonderful and successful.”

The teachers admitted being the only teacher-led school in the district has made it difficult to learn best practices from other schools, and they asked the leaders to encourage the creation of a network of teacher-led schools that could help one another. In doing so, the teachers reasoned more young people could be attracted to the teaching profession if they saw the potential to have greater professional freedom and autonomy in such a school.

Jose Martin tells the story of this journey from Spain to teach in Denver

Jose Martin, first grade teacher and DCTA member, is a good example of how schools like MSLA can attract and develop younger teachers. He came to Denver from Spain three years ago to start his teaching career. “To be perfectly honest, I came just to teach in the sense of, ‘Give me the curriculum, the books.’ But then I found here they are asking you to step up. That first year I tried to hide because I am a shy person.”

Martin soon found he wanted to step up to lead the way in preparing students and giving them the skills to succeed. “For me, it’s very important to be in MSLA, come out of my shell and to be a leader, so I’m very grateful for the opportunity.”

For veteran teachers, MSLA has challenged them to rethink their role in the school.

“Coming here woke up my eyes to see that there is really a leader in me,” said DCTA member Belinda Villalobos, a third-grade teacher. “We know how to motivate students and there is a passion among all of us to do – not having anyone tell us what to do… We want to be able to show everyone that we shine as teachers and we want our students to shine. That’s our passion.”

“I feel like my skills have really taken root here because I’ve been given the opportunity to lead my peers and to collaborate with my peers,” Thompson added. “I have the freedom in my classroom to do what’s best for my kids who I see every day, all day. The first graders that I have – I’ve had them for two years now – and they are shining. I’m so proud of them.”

Thompson is a 14-year veteran teacher, while Villalobos has taught in the classroom for nearly 30 years. Duncan, who spoke to the national need to support great teachers and ‘keep them, not burn them out,’ was mostly surrounded by experienced teachers during the discussion. The high retention rate of teachers at MSLA was pointed out to the Secretary as proof the teacher-led school model is working for them, the students and the community.

MSLA faculty and guests gather for a picture after the roundtable discussion

“Have you heard anybody here say they’re burned out? No, because when you have a voice in something, you have buy-in and you don’t burn out as easily,” Lopez-Crowley said. “When we get new teachers in, they’re scared or hesitant to make a decision. They’re not used to doing it, not used to having their voice heard. After they’ve been here a couple of months, you have a totally different person.”

“This is obviously a huge amount of work, a huge amount of courage,” Duncan said at the end of the discussion. “I’ll try and find ways for other school districts in other cities to look at what is going on here to increase public confidence in public education. There’s some pretty important lessons that others could learn from what you guys are doing collectively. So thank you for your leadership and thank you for your commitment.”

Community rallies to reduce testing time, red tape in education

A community movement known as “Free Our Teachers, Value Our Students” kicked off Feb. 18, with educators, parents, students, legislators, and community members gathered at the Denver Press Club to call for reductions of testing time, educational mandates and bureaucratic red tape in Colorado’s public schools.

Red tape is tying up more Colorado teachers,

“This is a campaign to say, ‘No more mandates.’ Let’s make sure we have all the tools to give students the best education and a solid future,” said Kerrie Dallman, president of the Colorado Education Association, in opening remarks. “We’re seeing actual teaching time vaporize because of increased red tape and testing mandates. That’s not good for anyone. It’s not good for our students and it’s not good for the educators.”

Dallman introduced a new video spot highlighting some of the pressing issues facing Colorado public schools, including anemic funding for a growing student population, a corporate-driven testing culture absorbing classroom time, and the loss of vital instruction time for students. Supporters were also encouraged to share their stories on a new Facebook page, also named “Free Our Teachers, Value Our Students,” which had more than 350 ‘likes’ overnight.

Glass speaks at the kickoff event for “Free Our Teachers, Value Our Students.”

Jason Glass, superintendent of Eagle County Schools, spoke to the enormous amount of change his schools are going through while enduring massive budget cuts.

“The state schools have experienced an historic gutting of education funding while simultaneously being saddled with an unprecedented number of state government reforms,” said Glass. “The combined effect of these two forces puts our schools in a pressure and policy vice-grip that, by the accounts of those actually working in our community schools, makes the goal of becoming a high-performing education system a more elusive endeavor.”

While Glass said he supports the Colorado Academic Standards and Common Core State Standards, he said no other country subjects every student, every year to machine-scored standardized testing and hitches those results to school and educator accountability.

“Of all the international systems which purportedly outperform the United States, and whose results we so often pine after, none of them uses such an approach when it comes to student assessment. Instead, our higher performing global competitors rely on more heavily on classroom level, formative assessments…that are more squarely focused on improving instruction,” Glass said. “The heaping of accountability, and more and more blame and shame-based education policies on this still very unproven assessment system, has generated reactionary fear, and it is that fear that is the root cause of much of the resistance to these new systems.”

Rossi watches her students speak to supporters of less testing, less red tape.

A February poll of 1,200 Colorado public school teachers, released yesterday by CEA, found teachers spend more than 30% of their instruction time with students preparing and administering tests, with a clear majority of teachers favoring less than 10% of instruction time devoted to testing. Several teachers and students spoke at the event who typically spend 50 days during the academic year preparing for and taking standardized tests. Jefferson County EA member Stephie Rossi brought three of her students from Wheat Ridge High School to explain that current standardized testing doesn’t generate critical thinking and isn’t aligned to the skills and knowledge learned in class.

“The test was boring. It wasn’t calibrated toward what I was learning,” said Michael Coyne, who recalled having to re-study material from a previous year just to prepare for a test. “We really need to refine our standardized tests so that they’re more focused to what we’re learning in the classroom, not toward a set standard that really doesn’t reflect the state curriculum.”

Colorado kids are losing teacher instruction time for testing of questionable value.

Are kids just a test score in school today? Dee Blecha, a special education teacher and Wray EA member, asked this as she reflected over the changes she’s seen over a 33-year career. Blecha said what’s missing for her in today’s classroom is the opportunity to form relationships with students.

“A test doesn’t mean anything to students. What does mean something to you is the fact that your teacher likes you, that your teacher cares about you as a human being. And that’s the part that I’ve struggled with,” said Blecha. “How do I find the time – as I muddle through the red tape, as I progress monitor, as I standardize test, as I crunch the numbers, as I look at data – how do I find time to make sure that I continually connect with kids each and every day, each and every hour?”

Rep. Young represents House District 50.

Rep. Dave Young of Greeley, a career junior high school teacher, said he would not choose to teach in today’s high-stakes testing environment.

“Teachers need to drive the instruction, and the sense I have now is, they’re not in control of that,” said Young. “Let’s think about how we can put teachers back in control of the instruction experience in the classroom.”

Young observed decisions on education reform and funding in the Capitol are overly invested in standardized testing and often miss the mark on what is central to the learning experience – the interaction between teachers and students.

“We’re engaged in test preparation, and that’s okay if you agree that the test is what we really want. But I’m not convinced that any test really measures the full scope of what we value, what we want people to learn. I want deeper learning, and that’s hard to measure on a standardized test.”

“We have two backpacks and we’re leaving – now what?”

Education is a people business. Away from they hype around curriculum and test scores, the success of an educator often hinges on the strength of personal connections made with students and their families.

“These are our students, our children. We’re more than just a teacher when we’re at school,” said Mark Bruemmer, a teacher of  construction trades and information technology at Greeley West High School. “Students come to school to have some of that safety, some of that support, some of that comfort.”

The Army evacuates residents of Drake two days after the heavy rains hit (photos from Bruemmer family).

A sense of safety, support and comfort were all in short supply across northern Colorado on the evening of Sep. 11, 2013, when torrential rains pounded the region and unleashed powerful floods that destroyed homes, bridges and roads. Two of Mark’s students still don’t have a place to call home.

“These two students, I’ve definitely pulled in and said, ‘Hey, I don’t know what you’re going through, but let me know if you need something. We can put something together for you,’” said Mark. “They have nothing. Their backpacks, their notebooks – everything is gone.”

Mark knew what these students needed first, because his family needed it too – the gift of time. He gave the students as much time as they needed to get caught up and get family life back in order before worrying about school work.

“And that was very similar to my family as well, and what we received from the administration here – ‘let us know what you need.’ I needed time off to chat with FEMA. I needed time off to figure out where we were going to live. I need some time to process all of this. That’s very similar to how I reacted to what these students potentially needed.”

The rain was coming down pretty hard when Mark and his wife Sarah, also a teacher at Greeley West, made the hour drive home on Sep. 11, west along Highway 34 to the mountain town of Drake. Later at home, the Bruemmers learned the highway had closed, but authorities were letting people drive out of the area. Mark decided to ride the storm out at home. “I didn’t want to be that person who was driving out and never seen again,” Mark laughed.

Mark and Lily go canoeing in their soaked neighborhood.

“That first day (Thu, Sep. 12) it rained like crazy,” Mark recalled. “It kept raining, coming down, sheets of rain. It sounded like hail on the roof, even though it wasn’t hailing, it was coming down so hard.”

The rain let up in the afternoon and Lily, his 5-year-old daughter, asked to go canoeing in the new lake outside.

Lily and Sarah are all smiles as the Bruemmers plan to ride out the storm.

“We took the canoe out, hopped into our little pond and paddled around a bit and made some light of the situation, still again thinking things are okay and we’ll get out eventually,” Mark said. “We might be stuck here for a week or two, but we had enough supplies to survive up there.”

But the rain was still coming down Friday as the Bruemmers monitored the situation at home on the Internet. They found roads were starting to disappear everywhere.

“We drove down that morning and looked at the destruction of our little bridge to get across to Road 43, and it was almost gone. The roadway was gone,” Mark said. “It was just magnificent – the power of the water. And we knew it was more serious.”

Back at home, Mark found the Internet and phone service had died. He also saw an Army Chinook transportation helicopter landing in the distance and went over to ask questions.

“They mentioned they had three helicopters coming and that might be the only trip out for quite some time,” Mark recalled. “Our daughter was running a fever – we need to get out of here.”

Mark and Sarah each loaded a hiking backpack, packed tightly with laptops, business supplies and anything else that would fit.

“I brought a few items of clothes, but thought, what an opportunity to wear shorts and t-shirts to work. I can be casual every day and nobody’s going to argue with me for at least a few weeks,” Mark said with a grin.

Mark and Lily, ready to climb aboard, though not sure where they’re going.

Lily picked one stuffed animal and a blanket. “She was trying to figure out what was going on, and I had to yell, ‘We need to get out of here now – go! Get your stuff, we’re leaving!’ Lily handled it really well. She wasn’t afraid,” Mark said. “We got to talk about the excitement of riding in a helicopter – ‘hey, this is kind of cool.’”

The Bruemmers and their neighbors left Drake on the second helicopter.

“Yeah, it was pretty wild. I’d never flown in a helicopter before. I was a little curious, pulled one earplug out and I was not very happy that I did that. They’re pretty damn loud, so I put the earplug back in.

On the Army Chinook, evacuating to             Fort Collins.

“Our daughter was pretty brave about it,” Mark continued. “She thought it was pretty cool that she got to ride in a helicopter. She definitely told a lot of people about this helicopter ride.”

Mark built their home in Drake and left knowing it would hold up well to the storm. “I wasn’t too concerned about leaving the house other than the fact that we have two backpacks and we’re leaving – now what?”

The helicopter took the Bruemmers and other families to Fort Collins, where they were bused to a church in use as a Red Cross evacuation center.

“That was really humbling,” Mark remembered. “There we are with a couple of backpacks, our only belongings, and people are feeding us like we’re kings and queens. I had a fresh hamburger, they gave us a full-baked pie. Life was pretty good for a few moments there, but we had no clue what was going to happen next.

“What the heck do you do?,” Mark wondered. “It was a little surreal at that point. We were evacuees.”

The Bruemmers arranged to stay with another teacher’s family for a couple of nights, then moved in with Sarah’s father for the next month. The Greeley Tribune ran a profile story on the Bruemmers, and from that attention, a couple who lives in Arizona for the winter offered their house to the family. It’s been a place to call their own while they keep a watchful eye on their home back in Drake.

Many residents stayed in Drake for the long haul and Mark gave the house code to a few people who check on things occasionally. Mark and a friend even made a 16-mile hike up to Drake to winterize the home and grab some more items. So far, so good.

“We have nothing to lose at this point. It’s just things,” Mark said of what they left behind. “We have each other. We have a few of our necessities that we like. There’s a few more necessities that would make life more comfortable, but they’re things.

“We’re not too concerned,” Mark continued. “We’re going to get back home. This is a temporary situation for us, fortunately not permanent. We have a home that’s intact and so do our neighbors.”

Mark and Sarah were back at Greeley West the following Tuesday, Sep. 17. “We felt it was necessary to be back. The students needed us there, they had questions,” Mark said. “Our students rely on us every day to be here, so that was huge for us.”

The Bruemmers showed their students a slide show of their adventure, but that was it for the past. Both teachers were eager to keep their students, and themselves, moving forward.

Mark Bruemmer at his construction trades class at         Greeley West High.

“Day one I think my students just thought I was going to step in, chat about how the flood was,” Mark said of his construction trade class. “They asked, ‘Are we going to do something in here today?’ Absolutely. I’m your teacher, I’m here. Learning still needs to happen. Yeah, so I don’t have a home to go to for a while. Whoop-de-ding. We still need to be in here, we still need to be working,” Mark told his students.

The ordeal even brought something new into the classroom instruction – how to build a floodplain.

“I thought that was appropriate for some of the students down here, in addition to what I was going through, just to touch upon there is building code revolving around building in a flood plane and what that looks like,” Mark said. “It was one of those teachable moments.”

The Bruemmers greatly appreciate assistance from the school and the community. They’ve received offers of places to stay as well as gift cards for fuel, groceries and clothing.

“I really appreciate all the outreach from folks, our local union definitely.” Both Mark and Sarah are members of the Greeley Education Association. “Our local president, Pat Otto, was on the phone right away – ‘Do you need anything? What can we do for you?’ I’ve had a lot of support.

“That’s why you’re an educator. Everybody is here to help each other,” Mark added. “That’s why we’re here. We’re here to take care of each other. I really do appreciate that. It made it a lot easier to be displaced.”

Mark still checks in on his students, especially the two who are also displaced, making sure they have supplies and support. He perceives things are going alright for them under the difficult circumstances.

“They’re smiling every time they’re in class, so I’m hoping that they’re being taken care of as well as they need to be taken care of, if not better.”

“I want to get back into the classroom so I have control of something”

The students tell stories of the flood to Doug and Amy Stahl they call heartbreaking.

Lyons, Colo. in recovery – Bohn Park

Two families living in canyon homes near Lyons, Colo., had their homes and cars washed away the night of Wednesday, Sep. 11, 2013. They made an eight-hour hike up and over rocky terrain, “doing human chains to get over stuff that was blown out,” said Doug, a 3rd grade teacher at Lyons Elementary School. “The boy is eight, has a 6-year-old brother, and it was weeks before they were able to get back home and see what they had left.”

Doug proudly notes his student hiked out with his school work and planner.

“Another kid, when they noticed they had water in their house and decided to leave, got the whole family loaded in the truck,” recalled Amy Stahl, Doug’s wife and a 5th grade teacher at Lyons Elementary. “The truck went nose-down in a sink hole, right there into the river.”

Doug picked up the story. “They couldn’t get the doors open and it wasn’t safe to get the kids out. They called 911 and waited 30 or 45 minutes.”

“The whole time they were thinking they were going to get washed away,” Amy said of the family, eventually rescued by a city utility worker. “There are many of our students who just experienced that fear. It wasn’t that property was going to get damaged. It was true fear for their lives.”

The Stahl family is back in Lyons, taking a walk among damaged roads and structures.

The stories weren’t shared at Lyons Elementary. When school finally resumed Sep. 25, the Stahls, both members of the St. Vrain Valley Education Association, were teaching their students at a makeshift school they call the Longmont Campus. The building holds Lyons’ elementary, middle and high schools, about a 20-minute drive from town. Meals and supplies poured in from other schools, along with stacks of supportive letters and postcards. The school even received encouragement from Newtown, Conn., site of last year’s tragic school shooting.

Despite the unfamiliar surroundings, the Stahls were eager to get the kids talking and return some kind of normalcy and routine to their lives.

“In the first few days back, I had a kid who wasn’t displaced. He just felt the effects from everyone else and just sat there and cried,” Amy said. “He was a little embarrassed, said he had water coming out of his eyes and he didn’t know why.

“The students really felt for one another,” she continued. “The first time it rained, that fear came back. These kids are just dealing with fear all the time.”

“Then for us, I want to get back into the classroom so I have control of something. That was the first time I felt in control of anything,” Doug said.

A Lyons church lost its field

The Stahls quickly lost control of their lives too on the evening of Sep. 11. While their home wasn’t damaged, they quickly found nature had imposed house arrest upon them and their neighbors. The St. Vrain River overflowed and washed out all roads leading in and out of Lyons by Thursday morning, isolating the town from all others.

“The city was divided into six sections that were inaccessible to each other. The river just split it all up,” said Amy. “We couldn’t go anywhere for a while because all our access was wiped out, so we were stuck.”

To complicate matters, Doug’s parents were visiting for the day when the storm arrived. His 96-year-old father can’t walk and only had a day’s medications. Then rumors started swirling that Button Rock Dam, the big dam above town, was going to break.

“If that had gone, there would have been a 20-foot wall of water coming through. With my dad unable to walk, where were we going to go?” Doug contemplated hiking the large hill near his house, perhaps pulling his dad up in a wagon. “The power went out midnight Thursday and I was just lying in bed, freaking.”

“And knowing there was nowhere to go,” Amy added.

The dam did it’s job and prevented a bigger rush of water from sweeping Lyons away completely. The Stahls were evacuated late Saturday afternoon, loading whatever they could into their car, knowing they wouldn’t be able to return to their home for a very long time.

“Some of our students had to be helicoptered out, so their whole family took one bag. Everybody was scrambling,” Amy said.

Doug, Amy and Macy Stahl

Doug, Amy, their three-year-old daughter Macy and the family dog relocated to the guest house of a family they knew through school. Doug and Amy had taught their kids. The same family took in another teacher and her two kids. The three teachers and three kids lived about three miles from their own houses for the next six weeks. And they started teaching at their new school.

“The first thing you do is deal with logistics, and our district came through. They put a whole school together,” said Amy. “They wanted to keep us together and they were able to put that together in under two weeks – a place for us to go that was fully functional with desks, most of the curriculum, computers, wireless networks, fire alarms, evacuation routes for fire drills. They put it together, it was shocking.”

“It was amazing how fast it all pulled together,” Doug agreed, saying the building looked like an empty warehouse at first. “But when we opened the doors a week later, the district had the entire custodial staff moving things, painting things. You walk in and it’s a school. The amazing part is it’s the Lyons town school. The elementary school is on the ground floor, the middle school is on the second floor and the high school is up top. We’re all together.”

Lyons’ roads are a work in progress

Not everyone was together. Doug had 29 students before the flood, but averaged 18 for many weeks afterward. Some of the kids home-schooled, others enrolled in different schools, others moved.

“I try not to take it personally,” Doug said with a smile.

“We’re trying to figure out where all of our kids are – if they’re coming back, if they’re okay, and what do they need,” Amy explained. “There are kids now home-schooled who are going to come back. This is a temporary thing, it’s just too hard to get to school right now. We have to make sure they’re not getting too far behind, that they have access to the curriculum so they can be working on it.”

The Stahls say it’s taken a while for teachers and their students to get into a rhythm, but they’ve found it. The school day is 40 minutes shorter, and time is made for students to celebrate and relax to get through these abnormal times. The teachers credit their principal, superintendent and district with supporting educators and student learning through it all.

“We didn’t need to ask the union to step in and help us with an issue, because people just took care of us,” said Amy.

“I’m glad we haven’t noticed any problems,” observed Doug. “This could have been a time where it got very contentious with the principal or the district, the superintendent, but they just pulled together.”

The Stahls walk along the broken road that used to be the route to drive in and out of their neighborhood.

Lyons is pulling together too as the Stahls and other residents return to their homes.

“The town itself has really bonded and we’re looking out for each other,” said Doug. “The Halloween parade was the first town event since the flood and it was just this joyous occasion of friends seeing friends and neighbors seeing neighbors. We hadn’t seen each other for six weeks. It’s bringing everybody together and I hope we come back stronger.

“It’s going to be difficult,” he continued. “I feel bad for the local businesses that have really taken a hit, some of the families that don’t know if they’ll be able to rebuild yet, but I’m glad that we’re in a small, tight-knit community.”

Amy said teachers and families have always been close in Lyons. They’ve had families and students over for dinner, and have been invited to many birthday parties. It’s not unusual to get a knock on the door from a student looking for extra help on homework.

“This time it’s different because some of our students need help with housing or clothes,” said Amy. “We were all in the same boat this time. We still have that same sense of camaraderie and family. They’re not just our students, they’re our kids.”

Lyons Elementary School, which was used during the flood as an evacuation center, then as the temporary city hall, is scheduled to reopen for classes Dec 2.

“Our neighborhood had become a pond in 10 minutes”

The heavy downpours that unleashed the Colorado floods of 2013 started Sep. 11, but Jessicca Shaffer didn’t notice anything unusual until the next morning. The 5th grade teacher at Longmont Estates Elementary received a call that school was cancelled.

“I was baffled. Why would school be cancelled?” Jessicca wondered. “It was raining a little bit, but I didn’t quite understand. I thought, ‘Great, I get to unpack,’ because we had moved in five days before.”

View from the Shaffer house the day after the flood, Sep. 13.

By noon, Jessicca heard other parts of town were flooding, but her neighborhood in west Longmont near Airport Road was not in the evacuation zone. She and her neighbors were not told to leave, which made the spectacle appearing before them all the more confusing and unbelievable.

“The water started coming up the road, and it was just like in the movies. We could see the water moving. The power had just gone out, and my neighbor yelled to the kids, ‘Go pack a bag – we’re going to go now.’”

Jessicca immediately followed her neighbor’s lead.

“My kids were frightened, and I came running inside and said, ‘Pack a bag, we have to go.’ I told my husband and he said ‘What are you talking about?’ I said, ‘The water is coming now.’”

Within minutes, Jessicca and her family were driving away from their new home with pets and the most basic essentials: some clothes, toiletries, and phones with chargers. The grille of their car was covered in water as they sloshed forward, and they soon picked up a neighbor’s family whose car had stalled out in the water. They only had to drive up a hill away from their long circle of homes to find dry land.

“Our neighborhood had become a pond in 10 minutes,” Jessicca said.

Jessicca points to the water mark on her fence left by the height of the flood.

The Shaffers stayed that night at their prior residence which they had not yet sold, then with her mother for the next several days. During that time, Jessicca and her husband Brandon were allowed to visit the neighborhood and survey the damage. Not only was the water still there – the water was still moving.

“You could see the water flowing, little rapids, and Brandon stopped and said, ‘That’s the river. That’s not standing water. That’s not water that’s been here. That’s the river,’” Jessicca said. “We called the mayor and said, ‘The river is in our yard, and we can’t come home until the river is moved.’”

The St. Vrain River, more than a mile away, had jumped it banks and was flowing through their neighborhood. The mayor explained the Army Corps of Engineers was working on moving the river as soon as possible. “And that blew my mind – the river, really? We have to move the river?”

The St. Vrain Valley School District cancelled school for a week. At Jessicca’s school, about 40 families were affected by the floods, and each was assigned a point person from the school who would remain in contact and see what was needed. The community was receiving donations of cleaning supplies, gift cards and other helpful items, and the point person delivered them to the family.

“My point person was my principal,” Jessicca said. “She would text me and ask, ‘Are you okay? How are you doing? What do you need today?’ So the school was amazing.”

First look into the basement.

The Shaffers returned after six days, not sure what they’d find in the home they had lived in for less than a week.

“We had just bought this beautiful house we were so excited about, and I kept thinking, ‘It’s a little bit higher, maybe it will be okay.'”

The first floor was unscathed and Jessicca felt fortunate that everything was dry. And then they opened the door to the basement.

“And all we could see were three steps. They were all white carpet, and then it was just all brown from there, from the mud and the water.”

The fully-furnished basement, with a guest room, walk-in closet, full bathroom, oak bar and office were fully consumed in a tank of water seven feet deep. Jessicca couldn’t remember exactly what was in the basement, using the space below to hold things while figuring how to arrange the new house.

“So we didn’t lose as much as might have if we had lived here longer,” Jessicca said, looking on the bright side. “My neighbors have been here 25 years – they lost 25 years’ worth of stuff in their basement. So we were fortunate in that regard.”

Jessicca then received the first of many generous offers to get their lives back to normal. A stranger came by and offered to pump the water out of the basement.

“And we said okay because we don’t know what we’re doing. We have no idea. And then when I would talk to people, none of us knew what we were doing,” Jessicca said. “We never had to deal with this before. This is new for everyone.”

Jessicca in her ruined basement – the water crashed through the window.

On Sep. 18, with the water pumped out and school still postponed, Jessicca estimates 75% of the school staff showed up at her house, “just clamoring to help” clean out her basement.

“All the teachers weren’t working, and so everybody came here. If we had too many people, I sent them to my neighbor’s house, or to another family down the road that needed help. We had so many volunteers. They ripped out all the carpet and all the drywall, and took all of our personal things out to the front yard.

“We had quite a few new teachers at our school this year and they were here,” Jessicca continued. “They don’t even know me, and they came to help. One of them brought me 18 rolls of toilet paper because she didn’t know what else to do, and I said, ‘Great, I’ll take it.’”

Outside of her school, Jessicca said support from fellow members of the St. Vrain Valley Education Association and the Colorado Education Association “was amazing.” Members kept showing up to carry buckets of muck out of her basement, or to buy anything the family needed – from D-size batteries to replacements of the family board games lost in the basement.

“Everybody has just been wonderful,” Jessicca added.

Longmont Estates Elementary reopened Sep 19, and Jessicca was back in class to support her students, three of whom were evacuated from their homes.

“It was really important for me to go back into the classroom to make sure that they knew I was okay and we were going to be able to move forward after this. But also, especially for the kids who had evacuated and who had a lot of damage to their homes too, I wanted to just give them a hug.” Jessicca said. “It was important to know where they were in their personal lives outside of school to make sure I was being attentive to their needs.”

A new hot water heater is about all the assistance the Shaffers received in replacements costs.

Since the flood, the Shaffers are planning how to rebuild the basement, the fence and the yard. A claim to FEMA paid for a hot water heater, but they weren’t covered by flood insurance and will pay most costs out-of-pocket.

“We never thought that the river would be able to get here,” Jessicca explained. She was not amused by a CD she found in her yard while cleaning the debris. Its title: Bridge Over Troubled Water.

Despite the losses and setbacks, Jessicca said the experience brought out the best in everyone and enjoys that her fellow teachers are now closer together, knowing each other better than before. She says the same bond is shared with the students.

“We all have this huge thing in common. It’s not a great thing, but we have this huge thing in common. My daughter was saying that she’s part of history now,” Jessicca said. “Years from now we’re going to be talking about ‘The Flood’. Not a flood, but ‘The Flood,’ and it’s just going to be around for a long, long time.”

Members in Colorado and across the country have asked how to help. At CEA, we have set up the CEA Disaster Relief Fund, a specific fund for the benefit of CEA members who have been impacted by the September 2013 floods. Find out more at www.coloradoea.org/cea-disaster-relief-fund.

 

The case for kindergarten

Passing Amendment 66 in November will give free, full-day kindergarten to every eligible child in Colorado. Colorado Education Association’s member magazine, CEA Journal, paid a visit to Janet Snow, Jefferson County EA member, and her kindergarten class at Secrest Elementary in Arvada. Snow, a teacher with 18 years of teaching experience, told us why early childhood education is so critical for a student’s success in school and life.

Journal: “Take me through the activities you did today.”

Snow: “Our class today was working on learning letters and sounds, and learning to be writers by communicating ideas through drawing pictures, then putting labels and words with those pictures. They’re learning fluency for reading in a listening center activity, and they’re also doing tactile, fine-motor activity with some glue and feathers.”

Q: “So it’s not Play-Doh and naptime. What’s the public’s perception of kindergarten compared to what it is?”

A: “When I was in kindergarten, we learned the Pledge of Allegiance, we learned our address and telephone number, how to write our name and tie our shoes. We were there two hours, then went home, ate lunch and took a nap. And everyone has that first memory of school in their head, and so they hold onto it. Nowadays, that’s not what kindergarten is. It’s changed a lot.”

Q: “How has kindergarten changed?”

A: “We’ve dropped that bar down to where kindergarten is really what first grade used to be, and our outcomes are reading at a pretty proficient level, and learning to write a cohesive five sentence story with a topic sentence, three supporting details, and a closing sentence. We count, do number computations – quite a few things across the board.”

Q: “Now we’re trying to pass Amendment 66, and one of the things it would fund is full-day kindergarten across the state. What kind of a game changer would it be for Colorado education if every child attended kindergarten?”

A: “Every child needs to attend kindergarten, for sure. I think that there’s no way you’re prepared for first grade if you don’t. Our first-grade team spends a lot of time trying to catch up students who are not fully prepared. The ones that came later to our program and didn’t start kindergarten until January or February were that much further behind. And so that intervention and that catch-up starts, and it’s very frustrating for students to enter first grade and be behind.”

Q: If students miss that year of kindergarten, how do you think it affects them when they’re in fourth grade, eighth grade, maybe even when they’re a senior in high school?

A: “If you get behind at the beginning, it affects you for the rest of your life. I think that you would consistently say, ‘I was bad at school. This is hard for me. I can’t do what my peers can do.’ People judge themselves by the bar of others, and so that would be consistently a problem for them, even later on in life. I hear parents tell me, ‘Well, school was really hard for me.’ So that is still something they remember as a negative. We can’t be feeling that way about ourselves as good, positive, productive community members.”

Q: “Right now in a lot of places in Colorado, full-day kindergarten is something parents pay for. How does that sit with you?”

A: “I don’t like that model, because it comes down to the haves and the have-nots, and that consistently is a problem in education. We need to make appropriate public education available to all students.”

Q: “If your students in this school did not have free full-day kindergarten, what would they be missing today?”

A: “They would be missing their socializing time with a curriculum piece that we call play centers, where they do free play and some imaginative play, working on problem solving skills with their peers. They would be missing social studies content and science content, and they would not have opportunities for enrichment, or for intervention if they fall behind.”

Q: “I counted 24 kids in here today. Is that a lot for kindergarten?”

A: “That’s actually a breath of fresh air. We had 32 in kindergarten last year, so eight fewer is a relief. This is one of the lowest years I’ve had in the seven years I’ve been here. It typically fluctuates between 27 and 29 students. Getting some legislation to mandate kindergarten in the state would help us to keep instructional levels low. Right now, the numbers just depend on need in the area and how many people are choice-enrolled. It can be a big group of students. I would say that the perfect number is 21 to 24.”

Q: Tell me a little bit about that breath of fresh air. What were the struggles you went through last year in managing that many students?

A: “Management was a lot more difficult. Meeting individual needs was a lot more difficult. Assessment and reporting was a lot more difficult, all of those things. You can give me as many hands on deck in this classroom to come in and help, but at the end of the day, I’m the only one who’s filling out report cards, I’m the only one who’s doing interventions, and I’m the one who’s responsible for that classload. And that’s a lot of individual people to serve on a one-on-one basis.”

Q: “You can watch sixth graders who used to sit in this classroom a few years ago. What’s it like to see them?”

A: “It’s emotional. You remember them as very small, young children. I tend to check in on my students periodically every year, keep tabs on how they’re all doing. It’s rewarding to see them grow up and become so much more mature. And then it’s also emotional – it’s sad to see them change so much and be so grown-up and mature.”

Gov., CEA officially kickoff campaign to increase investment in Colorado schools, students

CEA leaders turn out for the campaign launch

Top leaders of the Colorado Education Association, from the Denver metro area to Fort Collins to Colorado Springs, gathered at Green Mountain High School in Lakewood, Aug. 15, for the official campaign launch for “Colorado Commits to Kids,” an education funding ballot initiative that will go before Colorado voters in November.

Gov. John Hickenlooper, Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia and other political and business leaders spoke at the campaign kickoff, explaining the necessity to increase Colorado’s investment in public education to give students the skills and tools they need to compete for jobs, achieve their potential and make a better life.

CEA Pres. Kerrie Dallman thanks Gov. Hickenlooper for his support of Colorado Commits to Kids

Hickenlooper called the initiative “the single-most comprehensive education reform initiative in the history of the United States” during his remarks.

“We’re not going to get anywhere without an educated workforce. Colorado has got to be ready to have those jobs filled in the 21st Century,” Hickenlooper said about the impact increased education funding would have on energy, aerospace and other sectors that drive our economy. “With the Colorado Commits to Kids initiative, we get to build a better Colorado for our students, for our families, for our businesses, and for every future generation that’s going to come after us.”

The “Colorado Commits to Kids” ballot initiative would generate $950 million annually to improve public education under the provisions of the Future School Finance Act (Senate Bill 213). The State Legislature passed and Hickenlooper signed SB 213 in May to bring badly needed resources to our public school system. Over the past five years, lawmakers cut more than $1 billion from our schools and Colorado now spends $2,000 less per student than the national average.

SB 213 begins to address the shortfalls by overhauling a school funding system that has not changed in nearly 20 years. In his remarks, Garcia highlighted some of the benefits of SB 213, which calls for increased funding for all students with targeted resources to students who need help the most: at-risk preschool, full-day kindergarten, special education and gifted and talented, and English- language learners.

Lt. Gov. Garcia speaks at the kickoff for the ballot initiative campaign

“We know that not all kids enter school on equal footing. We know that not all kids speak the same language at home. We know that not all kids have books in the home. We know that not all kids make the same progress when they show up at school,” said Garcia. “If we want kids to graduate and all be ready for higher education, we need to make sure we can provide the level of individualized support that most district cannot now afford to offer. That’s what is key, and it’s key not just for those students, but for the long-term good of this state.”

Two days later, CEA held a statewide leader conference in Denver to plan how its Local Associations will reach out to members and voters with the facts on “Colorado Commits to Kids.” 

CEA VP Amie Baca-Oehlert reviews campaign materials that show how “Colorado Commits to Kids” funding will better serve all students in all communities

At the conference, more than 70 leaders and staff affirmed “We’re All In” on passing the ballot measure and engaged in table discussions on how educators can drive voter support in their communities. They reviewed the success of the summer signature drive, in which CEA leaders, members and staff collected more than 19,400 signatures toward putting the initiative on the November statewide ballot, and they looked at ways to engage more CEA members to become involved in the campaign.

“This is about our students,” CEA President Kerrie Dallman told the conference participants. “A lot of us have talked over the last several years about the importance of taking action on social justice issues. I can’t think of an issue more important to us and our organization than the future of our kids and the investment in our kids’ future. Securing their future is exactly what these dollars are going to do.”

School year-end profile: Ann Benninghoff gives students focus through martial arts

The Colorado Education Association celebrates the hard work and dedication of all teachers and education support professionals at the end of the 2012-13 school year with a visit to Dutch Creek Elementary School in Littleton, where paraprofessional Ann Benninghoff volunteers her time before school to give her students a great start to the learning day.

Parapro Ann Benninghoff leads yoga stretches

“Dahn Mu Do is the art of limitless energy,” explains Ann after a 45-minute session with students before school on a Friday morning. Ann, a paraprofessional of more then 30 years at Dutch Creek, says a personal interest in yoga led her to the energy-based, non-combative martial art from Korea. “It is non-contact martial arts where you use energy to focus and concentrate.”

Ann started leading students in the stretching and breathing exercises of yoga last school year after noticing many kids were showing up to school early with nothing to do. “I saw there were a lot of kids hanging around before school, and so I thought yoga would be a good thing to bring in.”

Black belt instructor Jim Caudill

Ann soon enlisted the help of Jim Caudill, the instructor of her adult class, to teach children the Dahn Mu Do movements made with wooden swords. Jim had never worked with kids before, but he needed to do an outreach project as part of his second-degree black belt program. Ann suggested he come help her at the school.

“Jim said, ‘Okay, I’ll do it a couple of times.’ Well, he’s been here ever since. He loves the kids and he’s very good with the kids,” Ann said.

Ann and Jim run the class three mornings each week, and have seen it grow from a handful of students to a group of 20. Victoria Rodriguez attends the class with her older brother Joaquin.

Joaquin and Victoria Rodriguez

“It’s a place that helps you calm down in school and have a little bit of fun,” Victoria said. “It helps me calm down in school when something is really hard.”

“You come here to relax,” said Joaquin. “All the things we do are kind of like brain teasers that wake my brain up and get me ready for the day.”

The power of martial arts and yoga to relax and focus students before the start of the school day is helping them to succeed in classroom studies, according to classmates Garin Brown and Alysha Price.

“I think it really helps me get my work done,” said Garin. “It relaxes our brains in the morning so we can have a fresh start in the day, a better start.”

Garin Brown

“I have a hard time remembering things,” Alysha admitted, but credits Dahn Mu Do exercises in the morning with helping her concentrate later in the day. “Remembering all my forms really helps me to think in school, because I have to think of this really early in the morning.”

“If you get really good at memorizing the things in here, it gets easier for you to memorize other things,” Garin added.

Ann said teachers of her Dahn Mu Do students tell her about the positive changes they see in the classroom.

“When the kids come to class, they’re more ready to settle down, they’re more ready to get to work, they’re more focused,” said Ann. “Some of our kids in special reading groups have seen a marked increase in achievement. Some of them have achieved to the point of being able to get out of the special reading class.”

Math scores are up as well.

“It helps with their reasoning abilities,” said Ann. “They learn certain steps and certain sequences of [Dahn Mu Do], it just goes over into math and the sequencing of math steps.”

Alysha Price

And while the martial arts and yoga routines are enhancing the students’ abilities in the academic world, they also have a bit of fun doing them.

“We’re hurrying to do this, and we’re hurrying to do this, and Dahn Mu Do gives them a little bit of a breather where they can just have some fun in an academic situation, and get settled down to do the academic,” Ann said.

When asked about his favorite part of Dahn Mu Do, Garin said, “I like the swords part, and I like to do it really fast because it feels fun.”

It’s also fun to tell other kids you get to use a sword in school.

“People kind of look at me like I’m crazy when I say that,” said Alysha.

Ann thanked parents for supporting the program by getting their kids to school early, noting some parents are already looking to sign their kids up for a summer martial arts program. See video of Ann Benninghoff’s Dahn Mu Do class at Dutch Creek Elementary on CEA’s YouTube channel.

Thank a teacher today

We appreciate America’s public school educators who educate, believe in, care for, and protect their students. Who are they? Classroom teachers, specialists, interventionists, paraeducators and teacher assistants, counselors, nurses, speech and language therapists, preschool teachers, music teachers, art teachers, PE teachers, media specialists and librarians, school psychologists and social workers, and faculty at colleges and universities…

We join America in thanking ALL educators – and all school staff who support students, their families, and our schools – for all they do for students.

Public school employees give selflessly. They work long hours, including evenings and weekends outside of school, to mentor, tutor, and coach students, plus plan and prepare for their work with students. They reach into their own pockets, spending nearly $1,000 on average every year to pay for things their districts do not provide.

Public school employees believe in every student’s abilities and potential. They inspire self-confidence and lifelong learning in their students. They strive to provide a safe learning environment, and they collaborate with peers, parents, and the school community to support students and their families.

During the National PTA’s National Teacher Appreciation Week, we salute America’s teachers and all the school employees who dedicate their lives to helping our students thrive.

We encourage you today, on National Teacher Day, to change your Facebook status to thank a teacher who made a difference in your life.