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The Maricopa County School Superintendent is statutorily responsible for providing services supporting school governing board elections, bond and override elections, appointments, school finance, and maintaining homeschool and private school records. The superintendent also oversees the Maricopa County accommodation district.
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Are you looking for a way to promote problem-solving and collaboration while having fun? Former Pendergast teacher John Carlo Tuliano grabbed random objects from unlikely places & had students research, learn and present about them in a classroom version of Shark Tank!
Read MoreWhen you are a teacher, lunch is super important. It not only gives you food fuel which is a thing we are told we need, it gives you a moment to check out of the kid head-space and take a breath. Sadly, many schedules prohibit a proper sit down, napkin on the lap, water in a glass with ice, kind of lunch. So we put together this list of lunch ideas you can make ahead of time, and grab in a hurry at school. Oh, and they don't require utensils. Because who has time for that?
Before you roll your eyes and dismiss this traditional kid food, try making a sandwich with almond butter and some really great jam. Artesian jams are typically much lower in sugar than jelly, and almond butter is a great source of protein. Pair it with some baby carrots and a bottle of water, and you are good to go until happy hour! Shape.com has a list of other great nut butter sandwich ideas.
Combine together protein-rich edamame hummus (Trader Joes has a great one!) with cabbage, bell peppers, scallions, and parsley. Roll it in a spinach tortilla. It's delicious, good for you, and won't kill you if you can't get it in the refrigerator. What's even better, tortilla-wrapped foods make a great tool to wave at a kid when you're trying to get her off the top of the monkey bars!
If keeping your food refrigerated isn't an issue for you, and you need big chunks of meat to complete any meal, this wrap is an alternative to the veggie one above. Left-over grilled chicken breast combined with nonfat plain Greek yogurt, onion, bacon, and lettuce is super yummy! Eating Well has a recipe you can follow.
Sticking with chicken, this pocket full of goodness is crazy good and only 344 calories. Just stuff 1/2 cup chopped leftover chicken breast, 1/2 grated apple, and 1 tablespoon low-fat Greek yogurt into a whole-wheat pita. Bam!
This last one is for you fancy people. It requires a little bit of preparation, but you will have the satisfaction of lunch-shaming your colleagues. Divide 12 large cooked shrimp and 1 cup each bean sprouts and shredded cabbage between 4 rehydrated rice paper sheets. Wrap them up burrito-style. You're going to want to keep these cold. Eating shrimp that has sat out all morning can make for a very unfortunate afternoon in the classroom.
The right playlist can do wonders for foggy-brained mornings. If you find yourself struggling to point the car in the direction of your school, give the following playlist a try. It's an upbeat, poppy kinda collection of songs to put you in the mood to bring the instructional magic that lurks in your DNA!
Even If I'm Loud It Doesn't Mean I'm Talking To You - Tove Styrke
Brighter Than The Sun - Cobie Caillat
Girls Chase Boys - Ingrid Michaelson
Shut Up And Dance - Walk The Moon
Cooler Than Me - Mike Posner, Big Sean
Whether this is your last weekend of summer break, or you have several more days, there is still time to check-out and binge watch a show. The following are some of our favorites:
If you enjoy poking fun at hipsters, this show will fill your snarky heart! If you are a hipster, you may want to skip it. It hits a little close to home. Although not meant for kids, you can watch it if kids are lurking around.
A true crime drama about the indictment, trial, and conviction of crime author Michael Peterson for the death of his wife, Kathleen. In December 2001, she was found dead at the bottom of the staircase in their North Carolina home. Peterson was the only person in the house at the time. But that’s just one part of what’s turned into a three-part story... Pull the blinds, fix a snack, and settle in!
The best way to describe this show is, "a supernatural Western horror." Wynona is the great, great granddaughter of Wyatt Earp. She fights the reincarnated bodies of the men he already killed using her “Peacemaker” revolver. Come on, it's creepy and fun!
GLOW
Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling is a comedy featuring the lives of female professional wrestlers in the 80s. You don't have to like wrestling, or the 80s to be entertained by this inspiring comedy. Great writing is always enjoyable, and this show has it!
For a complete list of Netflix shows, check out this page.
This post is part of TXTS4 Teachers. A weekly teaching (and sometimes vacationing) tips service. Sign up here to receive a tip each week via text messaging. Choose SMS/text messaging as the subscription type.
Teachers share a love of many things. One of the best is happy hour. Affordable food and drinks with good colleague friends at the end of a week. Who can scoff at that? But where to go? Who has the best deals? We got you covered. The following are a few of our favorites:
905 N. Fourth St., Phoenix
A casual environment just north of downtown. Great patio during the cooler months.
11 a.m.-6:30 p.m. weekdays; all day Monday; reverse happy hour 10 p.m.-close Thursday-Sunday.
$4 well drinks and all beer; $2 off select appetizers, glasses of wine and premium spirits. More
3603 E. Indian School Road, Phoenix
An upscale environment in Arcadia. Their happy hour lets you feel fancy without paying fancy prices!
5-7 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday
$3 beer, $5 wine and $7 cocktails; $5 small bites. More
5223 N. Central Ave., Phoenix
An upscale yet very casual pub in central Phoenix. Aggressive happy hour pricing all day until 5:00. Perfect for teachers who can get out of school by 3:30. Great patio and attached to the best ice cream shop in the area.
11 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays; 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekends.
$5 cocktails, wine, and pitchers of beer. More
4800 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale
Great food on the happy hour menu.
4-10 p.m. Sunday-Monday; 4-7 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday.
$5 specialty cocktails; $5 wine by the glass; $10 or less soup, salad, and appetizers. More
There are so many more, and our friends at the Arizona Republic put them all in one giant list. You can see it here.
This post is part of TXTS4 Teachers. A weekly teaching (and sometimes vacationing) tips service. Sign up here to receive a tip each week via text messaging. Choose SMS/text messaging as the subscription type.
There's something special about staying in a room you don't have to clean and hanging out by a pool where people bring you drinks. It's called a vacation. And in Phoenix in the summer, we call it a staycation! Take advantage of that final chill-out experience you deserve before heading back to school!
The historic west valley resort is within walking distance of local restaurants and bars, making this a great place to stay without having to pay resort restaurant prices. Summer resident rates starting from $99 Sunday – Thursday. Learn More
Newly renovated, this iconic Phoenix resort is a sleek, hip, retro marvel in Paradise Valley. $119 on select dates, May 28 through August 31. If you like to golf, it offers a fantastic 3-par, 18-hole course. Go early to avoid the heat. Learn More
If you have kids, this is the place to go. With suite deals starting at $129 a night, you get access to the water park and mini golf (call to see what the current resort fee is). Even better, get a group of friends together and book an entire casita. The rooftop patio on the casita makes a great place to hang out in the evening, and each group of casitas has their own pool and bbq area. Learn More
For a more comprehensive list of summer deals, check out this article from The Arizona Republic.
This post is part of TXTS4 Teachers. A weekly teaching (and sometimes vacationing) tips service. Sign up here to receive a tip each week via text messaging. Choose SMS/text messaging as the subscription type.
There are 17 days until most teachers report back to school. Don’t despair: there is still plenty of time to get in some epic summer adventures. For starters, you can do a 36-hour beach trip for under $300! Check out our plan:
6 a.m. - Noon
Pack a cooler and drive to San Diego ($120 in gas, round trip)
Listen to these podcasts to pass the time:
Noon - 12:30 p.m.
Grab a couple of tacos at City Tacos ($8)]
12:30 p.m. - 2 p.m.
Visit the tide pools at Cabrillo National Monument. It’s also a great photo spot if you are looking for that “look at me rocking summer vacation” photo. ($15 entrance fee)
3 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Beach time! Drag out that cooler you packed and have a picnic on the beach. Stay for the sunset.
Find a hotel away from the beach and downtown for the best prices. Pick one with free breakfast. ($100)
9 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Boat ride across the bay. Take the ferry from downtown San Diego to Coronado. ($10, round trip, plus a few bucks for parking downtown)
Walk around Coronado. Grab a slice of pizza on Coronado at Village Pizzeria Bayside ($15)
Noon - 6 p.m.
Drive back to Phoenix. Listen to those podcasts you didn’t finish.
This post is part of TXTS4 Teachers. A weekly teaching (and sometimes vacationing) tips service. Sign up here to receive a tip each week via text messaging. Choose SMS/text messaging as the subscription type.
Arizona educators have found themselves in a historic moment. At the time of this post, most schools in the state are shut down for the fourth day in a row. Educators and supporters have been gathering at the capitol to protest low pay and school funding.
If you are one of those educators, and you desire to have your voice heard, the following information can support your efforts in connecting to the right people.
We also included a summary of the Governor’s budget proposal provided by our friends at Expect More Arizona.
What Legislative District (LD) Do I Live In/Work In?
Voterpop.com is an interactive map of Arizona. It shows the representatives for each LD, and provides information to where they meet (LD meetings) and other contact information. (It works best on a desktop computer.)
How Have State Legislators Voted On Education Issues In The Past?
Friends of ASBA compiled a document titled How Arizona Legislators Voted in 2017 on High Priority K-12 Education Bills. The information is separated into two pages. The first includes data about the legislative district itself with the names and party affiliation of each elected representative, the partisan split of registered voters, and data regarding voter turnout in the 2016 general election. It also includes race/ethnicity of the total population, and the population under age 18 within the district. Also, note the number of school districts within each legislative district and the student enrollment of each.
The second page displays the voting record of each legislator in that district on key K-12 education bills. These are grouped into three focus areas: funding, vouchers and local control.
If you are not familiar with Gerry Brooks and his videos for educators, you have to check out his You Tube channel. You can see all of his videos here.
This is just a 25-second glimpse into what he has in store for you:
The chances that you have, or will have, monolingual students in your class are pretty high. If you do have monolingual students, you know the value of modeling. Monolingual students benefit from:
Modeling a process — how to do something.
Modeling a product or performance —an exemplar that shows the end result of the completed task.
A good model is:
Explicitly constructed—it uses intentionally, concrete examples and/or visual images.
Free of distractions—there isn’t any extraneous information or verbiage.
Labeled with precise academic vocabulary for each step or part.
Exit tickets are a quick, easy, and great strategy to check for understanding and plan for next steps. The following are some things to keep in mind when using exit tickets:
Begin with the end in mind. Ensure your questions are precise enough for students to give you the information you need. Write questions that assess understanding, apply the concept, or demonstrate the concept.
Keep it brief. Exit tickets are intended to challenge your students while providing you feedback for planning. They should be able to be completed in under five minutes.
Examine the tickets carefully. Sort tickets into groups based on what you need to know. For example: students that understand the content, students that don’t understand the content, and students that you are unsure about. However you organize the data, make sure that it gives you an overall picture of your classroom.
Sample Exit Tickets (Fisher & Frey, 2004):
Write one thing you learned today.
Discuss how today's lesson could be used in the real world.
I didn't understand…
Write one question you have about today's lesson.
Did you enjoy working in small groups today?
I would like to learn more about…
Please explain more about…
The thing that surprised me the most today was…
I wish…
For more on Exit Tickets, watch this video.
You are back in front of the classroom and ready to rock the new school year! You most certainly have gone over your classroom procedures. But if things aren't clicking along as you had hoped, it's not too late to set yourself up for the best year ever. Legendary teachers, Linda Kardamis and Viki Davis, chatted about this very thing on the Cool Cat Teacher podcast. Here are some takeaways:
1. Spend more time on procedures than you think you should. You don't teach division, grammar, or the scientific method once and move on. The same goes for procedures. If your students don't master your procedures in the first few weeks of school, it sets the tone for the rest of the year.
2. Task analyze every procedure. We can't take for granted that students know how to successfully complete a procedure. "Pass your papers to the front of the room," can be done many ways. Be specific and teach each step.
3. Don't let the little things go. Note the student actions you find yourself redirecting over and over. Those are areas where a procedure may need to be taught.
4. Be a mentor, not a buddy. It's important that students like you. However, students can like you without you being their friend. Students like mentors that are "both kind and firm, personable but not a pushover, understanding, kind, compassionate, and who deal with issues."
5. Prep for procedure violations. A lot of emphasis is put on prepping for lessons. But we must also be prepared for when kids break a procedure. Think about it ahead of time. "What will I do when a student runs through the classroom when the bell rings?" Being prepared keeps us from under or over reacting.
Adapted from, "5 Mistakes Teachers Make the First Week of School With Linda Kardamis." - The 10-Minute Teacher Podcast, by Viki Davis
Follow Linda Kardamins @LindaKardamis
Follow Viki Davis @coolcatteacher
If you haven't seen Rita Pierson talk about being a champion for kids, watch this eight minute video. If you have seen it, share it with someone that hasn't. Have a great day being a champion!
Teachers constantly nurture the relationship between motivation and engagement. Knowing how to design learning experiences using strategies that build learner self-direction and ownership of learning sets great teachers and great lessons apart. There are many tools that can support the facilitation of authentic engagement where students are not just compliant, but can see a connection between the assigned task and the results. The following three are just a few of them:
Padlet - www.padlet.com
Padlet empowers collaboration across distances without much set up. Think of Padlet as an electronic Post-it note wall. The difference is, the Post-it notes can be text, images, and videos. Visit the website for an example of how two teachers in two different classrooms use Padlet to facilitate student-to-student interactions.
Socrative - www.socrative.com
Socrative enables students to use any internet-connected device with a web browser to become a student response system. Socrative empowers the teacher to receive real-time data about what students are thinking and understanding.
PowToon - www.powtoon.com
PowToon is an engaging, easy to use publishing tool. It allows students to tell animated stories quickly and easily without a lot of knowledge about video production.
When considering creating authentic learning experiences for students, think about the following five levels of authenticity:
Level One: Student produced a product that is not relevant to objective.
Level Two: Student produced a product that is relevant to objective only.
Level Three: Student produced a product that has value inside the classroom.
Level Four: Student produced a product that has hypothetical value outside the classroom.
Level Five: Student produced a product that has value outside the classroom.
The higher the level, the more authentic the work.