Posts By : “Sandy Merz”

Some months ago, in The Last Walk to the Parking Lot, I described how a long tenure at my previous school ended and what working there had meant to me. Now, in this season of thanksgiving and hope, it seems

Hang around a group of teachers and it won’t belong before you hear one say something like, “Only a teacher is expected to grade 135 papers on their days off.” There’s always some truth to the complaint, but whenever I

A Return to Work (RTW) teacher in Arizona is one who retires, begins to receive their full pension, but stays on in their teaching position earning a percentage of their salary. This is legal because the RTW teacher technically becomes

In Tony Hillerman’s (and since his death, his daughter Anne’s) detective fiction, the Legendary Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn and Officer Jim Chee solve crimes, mostly murder, on the Navajo Reservation. Chee follows the Navajo Way, and in many books reflects on

In August 1987, I drove into the parking lot at Naylor Middle School for my first day ever as a professional teacher. Chances are that  I’ve had the time of my life with you blasted from my radio, because it was

“I don’t want to do this anymore.” In over 27,000 class periods I’d never thought those words before, but recently, I’d been thinking them before my three seventh grade math classes everyday. Our seventh grade is a singularly rich combination

The following was written with gratitude to restorative practices expert, Monica Kaminski. I bet you can name a close colleague to whom you’ve lent a gentle ear as they transitioned to a new professional or personal identity. Maybe they were