Education Twitter Recommendations

Twitter is a great place to be for today’s educators. The variety of accounts to follow can be overwhelming: STEM ideas, early literacy activities, funding equity–you name it, there are people and organizations to inspire. Never fear, we’re here with a few recommendations from the people we trust for content. So consider this a double whammy: a look at the Twitter accounts @YumaEduSummit loves, plus an extra helping from those very same accounts.

Who to Follow

  • @DaringToTeach Dr. Beth Maloney, 2014 Arizona Teacher of the Year: @MisterMinor Cornelius Minor,  “a revolutionary teacher full of inspiration and experience.”
  • @Almada_Mrs aka Mrs. A, 5th grade educator from East Providence, RI, who loves teaching and seeks to empower all students to love learning: @WeinsteinEdu, “Brad Weinstein’s tweets and retweets serve as a constant reminder of why we must value relationships over policies.”
  • @TheMrsRandolph is our own Megan Randolph, middle school math teacher and Apple Distinguished Educator: @MathBeforeBed, “resources on their site that allow teachers to pull simple math problems to spark a mathematical discussion. I use these when I need my students to think about a concept in its simplest terms and work up from there. My own kids love talking about the problems before bed too.”
  • @MrsHallScholars, LaQuisha Hall with 18 years teaching and founder of @QueendomTEA: @ProjectLITComm featuring high interest, culturally relevant texts to get students re-engaged in reading.
  • @ReadBetterAZ is the page for Read Better Be Better, a fantastic organization that helps improve literacy skills for children: @myvsuw partners with us often and shares all kinds of great resources for a wide audience–community members, teachers, parents, and education lovers.

So tell us, who do you follow for ideas and strength in the education realm?

Mini Grant Help

Education Foundation of Yuma County Presents 2020 Classroom Grants

Applying for a grant can be daunting, so we’re here to walk you through the process. For $500 to spend on an awesome classroom project, spend an extra few minutes to make sure you’re answering all the questions.

We also have a template for your site administrator to easily write a letter showing support. Every bit counts, right?

site-administrator-letter-templateDownload

Still not confident? Drop an email to our resident grant writer at contact@yesyuma.org and we’ll try to help.

Change Is in the Air

Yuma Union High School District #70 will be opening for in person education on September 14. This is welcome news for my high school freshman, and his younger brother is hoping he’ll be able to get to his campus soon too.

Student virtual learning at laptop.

I know our family isn’t alone is having conflicted feelings about this. Teaching this way is depressing and difficult. Learning this way is functional but not ideal. My kids are lonely. They need other people to share their words with. My husband is a teacher as well and, though he’s very tech savvy, he doesn’t feel like he’s building relationships.

If everyone on campus makes good, safe choices, I’m cautiously optimistic about things. I’ve been clear with our family that they have to follow mask and hygiene protocols, even if it isn’t cool, otherwise we’ll all be back at home. Together. Every second of every day.

How are you feeling about this time of transition? Do you feel ready? What are your concerns? Please share.

Top 7 Discounts for Teachers

vintage piggy bank

Check out these businesses that offer discounts for teachers.

There are lots of offers available if you belong to the NEA, but these are open for all teachers (and have been used by team members).

  • Loft: Women’s clothing and accessories are 15% off with your teacher ID in stores. Bonus: they offer inclusive sizing, including petites, tall, plus and maternity.
  • Barnes and Noble: Books galore! Sign up for an educator card and get 20% off list price for anything for your classroom. There are special Educator Appreciation Days where that discount goes up to 25%.
  • Adobe: Photoshop, Illustrator, and twenty other creative tools for 60% off. If you have a design hobby or do anything with pictures, this is an amazing offer.
  • Modcloth: Another site with women’s clothing and accessories. If you’re in elementary, your students will go wild for the fabulous prints available at 25% off. You’ll have to verify your status as an educator, using ID Me which is super simple and only has to be done once to use for lots of sites.
  • Expedia: Travel! Instead of a straight up discount, Expedia offers special deals for teachers and administrators. You can sign up for emails with discount coupons and information.
  • Michaels: This 15% off is good online and in store, but you’ll have to verify your ID ahead of time. After that you can get the discount with your phone number on everything you buy, every single time.
  • Saatva: Mattresses. Wonderful, wonderful mattresses that are frequently rated favorites in reviews. They aren’t cheap but definitely a good deal for the quality. And for teachers they offer $225 off anything over $1000.

 

Working on Equity and Access On Your Own

Having to postpone Yuma Educators Summit 2020 is really terrible for our whole team. This whole pandemic situation is made a bit harder because of isolation–just the thing a fabulous summer conference would have provided! 

There are some opportunities for you to learn and grow on your own though. Many conferences have switched to virtual, most of which are free. And even if you miss the official event webinars and talks are recorded for future use. We’ve found a few resources that tie into YES’s focus: Increasing Equity and Access in Education. There’s a lot out there these days about technology and broadband access, as you can imagine, so we’ve left those off our list.

15th Annual Teacher Leadership Institute: Elevating Student Voice

From the Arizona K12 Center, this year’s event aims to “heighten and provide a platform for student voice, identity and perspectives.” The Institute is slated for June 15-16, and if you register (for free) by June 1 you can request a hard copy of their Teacher Leadership Report.

2020 Share My Lesson Virtual Conference: Teaching for Equity and Justice: A Conversation with Linda Darling-Hammond

Share My Lesson, a website from the American Federation of Teachers, has a whole collection of equity and social justice lessons. This particular piece is a keynote address addressing the history of educational inequity–and what educators can do to be part of the solution.

Comics and Cartoons in the Classroom

NCTE has a vast repository of ELA ideas through their Read, Write, Think site. This is a blog post, technically, with links to great resources to use graphics in writing. 

Being Kind is Not the Same as Being Anti-Racist 

Dr. Terri Watson presents this podcast, episode 136 from the Leading Equity Center (there’s another podcast with a similar name, not from the Center). This may not be a comfortable listen but certainly brought home a lot of good points. The LEC homepage also offers other resources about improving school equity.

Changing Minds Now: Addressing Childhood Trauma for Teachers and School Staff

This is another session from the 2020 Share My Lesson Virtual Conference which was held in March. Speaker Brian O’Connor works with the schools and the Department of Justice on issues about what kids witness in life–and how we can help them heal.

Have you found any valuable professional development lately? Share a link in the comments please!

Sad News & Silver Linings

I’m sure it comes as no surprise that we need to announce a little sad news, BUT we haven’t lost all hope and plan to continue to building collaborative networks for educators in Yuma and surrounding areas.

Here’s the Sad News…

Unfortunately, due to the health and safety concerns surrounding the global COVID-19 pandemic, we have made the difficult choice to postpone our inaugural Yuma Educators Summit initially planned for June 2020. We are excited to continue developing an opportunity for educators in the Yuma area to network and receive quality professional development in June 2021!

We look forward to the continued participation of our sponsors and keynote speakers. Lisa Yee, LaQuisha Hall, and Alma Sandigo all plan to participate in the 2021 summit. For those of you who submitted session proposals, we are disappointed to miss your presentations and hope you will apply again next year. Educators and community members who have registered for the Yuma Educators Summit 2020 can either get a refund or have their registration rolled over to our 2021 event. Send us an email at contact@yesyuma.org if you have questions or want to request your refund.

… and the Silver Linings

In the meantime, we plan to continue spreading educational news, joy, articles, local awesomeness, and more on our social platforms. We also look forward to posting original content written by our Executive Board and guest authors here on our blog. (This is the first time any of us have tried to manage a blog, wish us luck!)

We don’t plan on going on the hunt for guest authors during this crazy time and anticipate really getting things started as we settle into the 2020-2021 school year. We assume you feel just as overwhelmed as us with adjusting to our “new normal,” but, maybe we’re wrong? If we are, please contact us for information about our guest blogger expectations and blog requirements (contact@yesyuma.org).

We look forward to continuing to build connections within our educator community, and, while saddened by the events of this year, are CRAZY OPTIMISTIC about the future!