i'm just a teacher...with a voice...impacting wherever possible.

i did not sign up to teach with the notion that i would be in a classroom spinning my wheels because of our broken system, but that is the reality i walked into. now i need to do whatever it takes to make a difference.

i will preface this with: this is not a normal blog post for me-it is a description of what i have been involved with lately in the realm of education reform policy, because the past couple of weeks i have been breathing this stuff..it's like glue (i think...i don't know, i've never sniffed glue-i kinda like my brain cells). i described a little of what we did last week here.

ok, so..some of you may not really understand what i have been doing with the ed policy fellows, through the Teaching Trust. it has been a wonderful opportunity to learn about policy that is affecting teachers and policy that has the potential to affect our students. we have looked at local, state and national policy. we've had a LOT of reading and some writing assignments to flesh out our views. teachers have more of a voice than i think they realize, it is just a matter of looking into the issues and working together to try to promote changes that will help close the achievement gap in our schools.

the discussion panels have been enlightening-board members, SMU professors, advocates from various groups such as Educate Texas, Dallas Kids First, Stand for Children, the Dallas Regional Chamber, William McKenzie of the dallas morning news, recruitment personnel from disd and uplift education, and a few others.

after making contact with one of the advocates from dallas kids first, our group was invited to go to austin to meet different senators and discuss our program and our views in regards to one of the bills that was crafted around the texas teaching commission report of 2012. a couple of them were asked to testify on a bill that was up on the floor, impromptu, and they loved it!

about a week or two later, erika was contacted to see if we could come down again, so three fellows prepared to go back and had a great showing in the senate again. we were then contacted again to testify on two accompanying bills that dealt with smaller pieces in the house of representatives before the education committee.

the first bill that we testified on was hb 1751. the strengths of this bill are that it allows for development in a school district in various areas such as: building a strong mentoring program for the first 3 years of teaching, stronger teacher eval systems (including observations, teacher self evaluations, multiple points of student data including learning and growth), restructuring school days for collaborative communities, and instituting alternative teacher compensation-retention system, with a requirement of approval by teachers and school board.

while it certainly has its areas for improvement, it is a great jumping off point to begin dialoguing about.

the second bill is hb 2977. this bill could prove to be especially beneficial to students in the long run, by ensuring that we place an effective teacher in front of every student! It is powerful because it includes student achievement AND growth as one of the multiple evaluation measures, evaluations should inform individualized professional development plans, the commissioner must include teachers in the consultation process to review the evaluation framework, and all teachers would be evaluated at least once during the school year.

if i had students in school, i would be happy with both of these bills because they would impact the quality of teacher in the classroom. that is the goal of our program to look at policy, and learn to advocate on behalf of the teachers that are making a difference in order to impact our students.


i received a couple of thank you emails for being a part of advocacy in the capital. it takes a bit to turn a large ship, but if you don't even put your hands on the wheel, the ship will continue to trudge along in the same direction, and currently that direction is not producing thinking, cutting edge students who can thrive in today's college and workforce. we must do better!

CHECK OUT PICTURES OF OUR VISIT AND LIKE THE TEACHING TRUST FACEBOOK PAGE HERE, AND IF ANY OF THIS SOUNDS INTERESTING TO YOU (AND YOU TEACH IN Dallas ISD, DeSoto ISD, Irving ISD, Lancaster ISD, Grand Prairie ISD, Uplift Education, and KIPP DFW), there are links to apply for this program.

julie

i kept my scissors, i am a rebel...their fault!

has it really been over a week? crazy! i meant to post sooner, but i was tired (all week) and then when i finally got un-tired on friday, i realized that i left my usb-phone charger/connector at school and had no way to download pics. so today i went to radio shack for a second cord. which is fine, because i like having an extra to pack in my bag for emergencies!

so i got to radio shack and the guy at the counter showed me the cords that he had, and i opted for the cool enercell retractable one-so smart. and of course, he tried to talk me into getting a new phone (which i need to do, but i need to be prudent with my money more than i need new gadgets). 

well, last sunday p.m. i had a meeting with 5 fellows from our ed-policy class, and erika, our fearless leader. we had a lot of discussion about the bills that we would be testifying on. it was a good meeting, and i was home by around 9 ish...late enough not to worry too much about my observation the following day.

the observation went fine-i was pleasantly surprised when they showed up for science instead of reading...

then the next day i woke up early, went to school to pick up keys to drop the boys off at my principal's home because she was so gracious to spend time with them while i was away! they were a little skeptical, but i think they had a good time! had they stayed longer, they might've even become friends with her silkies. smile. my favorite part was the thoughtful updates that evening.

after i dropped them off, it was off to the airport. per usual, i was early (punctuality is everything..especially when flying!). so i went straight up to the gate. while i was up there i whipped out my scissors to cut some papers up, as i heard the lady on the intercom say no knives, or scissors beyond the security checkpoint area...not my fault they didn't catch it. or the knife in my purse...oops.

the others arrived shortly before boarding..after we boarded the plane and got settled, i was sitting beside a couple who were going beyond austin. so while we were waiting, the lady forced me into small talk, and found out why we were headed to austin. she proceeded to let me know that she knew one of the senators from fort worth, so she gave me her card in case we met the senator. then the pilot let us know that there had been a bird strike on the way in, so they were going to have to maintenance the plane to check its integrity, and we were going to have to switch planes.

so glad we didn't go american-they were grounded for several hours!

so we did just that-hoofed it to the other gate and got in line on the "honor system." fortunately this plane was bigger than the previous, because i was able to actually get a seat by the window this time, even though i was at the back of the line. and the inflight service was worthless, because i pretty much got my coffee, took 3 sips, and they came around to collect our trash because we were already on descent. boo.

at this point, we were running behind schedule, so there really wasn't time to grab lunch. we went straight to the hotel and dropped our stuff off in our rooms.

i've not seen this before, but they had a little model to show people how to draw the curtains and open the door...they must get a lot of idiots in their hotels...

 then we walked up to the capitol building. what a beautiful building!

and once we went in, we found a couple of the people from Educate Texas, who were waiting for us. they helped us get registered to testify and then we went to some of the offices to meet with the representatives or their spokespersons. it was very interesting. each office that we went into, it pretty much turned into a continued conversation as we explained why we were there.

erika was communicating with some of the advocates who were actually monitoring the session to let us know when we would be up...as 20 minutes turned into umm...3 hours..but it's ok, because that gave us a chance to stop and get a bite at the cafeteria. a salad and a coffee to tie me over until dinner, surely. well, we went to the session and listened in on some testimony for a couple of different bills, and finally our first bill was up. we gave our testimony to the education committee (there are 9 or 10 of them), but some were present, some stepped out (rude). it went well, and then we knew that we wouldn't be up until the last bill, so we left and went to get dinner at a little mexican restaurant across from our hotel, and two of our advocate friends came to join us and the conversation was good.

we still had plenty of time left, so we went back tot he hotel, and at about 11:45 we met back in the lobby to go back to the capitol building to testify for our last bill.

two of the gals had gotten there before us, and they had actually kind of cornered the chair of the committee, who had stepped out to meet them because another rep slipped him a note. so we walked up just as they started speaking with him-perfect timing! apparently, on previous visits, erika had tried to set up appointments to meet with him, but to no avail, so this was a plus.

then we went in to sit and wait a little more for our chance to talk about hb 2977. it was quite empowering to stand in front of the reps and state our position and give testimony as to why we support our position! good times. well, hopefully we had coherent arguments..the fact of the matter is that we were not finished until about 2-2:30, i am pretty sure i laid my head down on my pillow at about 3 a.m. and my roomie had to be up at 4:30 because she was leaving on an earlier flight. so i was able to go back to sleep for an hour before i had to get up and at 'em. we arrived at the airport, and guess what, my scissors and knife made it through again! (i was pretty sure that the rules had changed-maybe they just hadn't changed the announcements yet).  

at that point, we were on the lookout for breakfast food. all we found was a little mexican fast food, and a burger/sandwich joint. so we got a couple of egg and bacon tacos. the flight was on time, and we were off without a hitch...until we landed and the gate we were supposed to pull into was full, so they had to wait for permission to park it elsewhere. (this is where it comes in handy to have worked for the airlines before, things like this don't phase me too much).

then i went to get the boys, and bring them home. they were talking nonstop about how much fun they had at the sleepover.when we got home, they crashed with me for a 40 minute power nap, and then i was up to shower and get to school before noon.

the rest of the week went by fairly quickly and i enjoyed tutoring science...i think sandra learned some stuff too! 

and yesterday it hit me that we are two weeks away (and counting) to wicked!!!

i'm so excited!! my principal went and thoroughly enjoyed it-she let me look at her playbill, and i am even more excited than ever!!

well, i think that pretty much catches us up!

evening!
julie

my coworker now has a white elephant gift for next Christmas...and i have a warm fuzzy!

 WAIT! I MISSED IT! apparently today was national grilled cheese day....and i MISSED it!! boo. sigh. tear.

and moving right along..remember those squirrel underpants i got? no, seriously. well, today i gave them to a co-worker with a similar sense of humor to start friday out right! and in return i got a warm fuzzy! i remember hearing the story about warm fuzzies when i was younger, and i loved it, so when i saw them in her room a couple of months ago, it made me happy!

ahhhhh. warm fuzzy.

i seriously do love the idea of having the warm fuzzies as a special reward in class...

yesterday, as i was getting ready to go into a data meeting that we had already kinda discussed, i got an email about a spot observation on monday. i might not have been as focussed as i could have been. hmm. good times. so i had to clean up my room a bit. it's like mom's coming over, so you make your bed and pick up your socks. only no bed and no socks...and it's not my mom...

so that was the key pressure point of preparation and then i got an email this morning. i was very excited to get it! it was a request for ed-policy fellows to give testimony on the two bills that we called austin about on wednesday! they called the teaching trust and asked our group to go down again! how cool is that? this time we will be giving testimony for hb 2977 introduced by Villalba and Patrick's hb 1751. very exciting! this means that i will be using this weekend to read up and work on my testimony. a group of us will then meet up to talk over our work and our plans.

monday observation...tuesday testimony...wednesday morning fly back and pick up the latter half of the day and tutoring.  wednesday night 5 pm advisory committee for policy ed...busy week.

 so i need to think of some way to make it up to the boys..we're going to need to go to petsmart or something tomorrow, i think.

oh, and fyi, the diet is going great! no sugar except an occasional dark chocolate piece...no diet coke-no craving, no breads or chips...feeling like a cave man....can't wait till my 31 days are up. i want a slice of pizza. and the cake that i saw my assistant principal carrying yesterday!

'sweet' dreams (for everyone else),
julie