I left for work the other morning and realized that I would not see my son for another 12 plus hours. He would be at home, on his own, working through his junior year. Leading a district in COVID times
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Helping Parents Be Less Helpful
I was doing a virtual walkthrough in a Kindergarten teacher’s Zoom classroom. The lesson was on high frequency words. The teacher led the class through her lesson with an energy unique to Kindergarten teachers. She had them working. They began
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How to get your Students to Stop Trolling
Ughhh, that was tough! That was all I could say as I wrapped up my second week of virtual teaching. The first few weeks have been nonstop: professional development, grade level collaboration, individual Zoom meetings with each student and their
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Returning to “Normal”
Four excruciatingly long weeks ago, we left our classrooms. So much has happened in those four weeks. Educators, meaning all of us who work in the school system, have scrambled to find ways to maintain connections with our students while
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A Plea for Play
When I was little, I used to say to my friends, “Meet me at my swing set.” My daughter says, “I’m meeting my friend at the left corner of Stomp io” (an Internet game). This is true for many parents
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Responding To Not So Nice Emails
Chances are, you have been on the receiving end of an email from a parent, a colleague, or someone else that is less than kind. I‘ve worked with many teachers who need help responding to these emails and I’ve devised
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Lessons in Loss, Failure, and Apathy: The Dysart Override/Bond Election
Our bond and override election didn’t pass. Initially, I didn’t know what to say when everyone asked me in an incredulous tone “So…what happened there?” I’m trying not to be bitter about my hours of door-knocking. I’m trying to ignore
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How I Connect With Families
How often have you lost precious planning time because you were busy communicating with parents? How about getting so caught up in lesson planing that you completely forget to get back to parents? Too many teachers face this problem daily, and I
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Story from the School Garden
In 2008, Lisa Moberg, now an NBCT and once a blogger for Stories from School Arizona, was teaching on a third grade team in a West Valley Title I school. The team had heard about the Western Growers Foundation grants
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Lessons Learned from Missing the Mark
Parent teacher conferences are right around the corner. It’s the time of year when connecting with our families is the school-wide priority. As we prepare for the busy days and long nights, I’ve been thinking about the home/school connection. One
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