In recent years, I have made strengthening the culture of my school one of the core elements of our plan for success.  I wanted to ensure the “family oriented environment” that I was able to experience when I attended NFL YET 17 years ago, would be preserved both now and in the future. I had the privilege of experiencing the warmth of my teachers, administrators, friends, and parents.  I was continuously encouraged, protected, and cared for by all during those important formative years.  With the same focus in mind, I felt it incumbent upon myself to ensure the “family oriented environment” would remain vivid among both my staff and students.  My entire staff contributes to this environment, and in order for them to transmit this communal atmosphere they need to feel a sense of ownership in the school as well.  I actively encourage my staff members to participate in the local decision making of the school so that they have a keen understanding of the importance of their roles and how they contribute to the culture.  We celebrate each other’s accomplishments as well as embrace each other’s shortcomings.  What binds us all together is the undying love we have for the families we serve.  It is this unconditional love among the entire school community that ultimately serves as the foundation of our entire body of work and sets the tone for the family atmosphere.

NFL-Yet is a Charter School serving 300 plus students in the South Mountain Community with a focus on instilling servant leadership in their student body. This means that students take a curriculum where they  learn to demonstrate the desire, ability, and heart to change the world. Students must demonstrate mastery in leadership formation, community development methodology, and project management. NFL-Yet has a warm family atmosphere where students are encouraged to be both  servant leaders and academic champions.

NFL-Yet is a partner school working with Teacher Retention Project to support Special Education Services.   

Follow this link to see a video highlighting NFL-Yet and some of their Servant Leaders in action:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxMGet0Etc04ZHNzXzloWUxueW8/view

Contributors:
Stefani Blaylock, Rio Salado College
Tiffany Sandoval, Teacher Retention Project.
 
For the past several years, Arizona has experienced a teacher shortage. Teachers are leaving the profession because of low pay, increasing demands, and isolation. According a report compiled by REL West from state workforce data, between 2010-2014, approximately 24,422 teachers left the Arizona Education Workforce. This trend reflects the nationwide statistic that approximately half of teachers leave the profession within their first 3 to 5 years of teaching (National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, 2007). This trend, called teacher turnover or attrition, drains limited school budgets and negatively affects student achievement.  To compound the issue, a large number of teachers and school employees are expected to retire in the next few years. A 2015 Arizona Department of Education study found that more than 26,000 public school employees, including teachers, are eligible to retire in 2018.
 
The Teacher Retention Project (TRP) offers a solution for keeping Special Education Teachers in the classroom and bringing new teachers on board. TRP provides individualized coaching and professional development for Special Education Teachers. The TRP model gives new teachers a year of time to focus completely on direct instruction while a Special Education Director with expertise in the field handles case management. Through both instructional coaching and case management, teachers are given time to learn both with strong supports in place.  TRP partners with Rio Salado College in working to combat the shortage by enrolling TRP intern teachers in one of the “Grow Your Own Teacher” programs Rio Salado College offers. Rio Salado offers three different pathways to teacher certification which gives career changers and those with a day job the opportunity to earn their teaching certificate in an online format. TRP specifically partners and enrolls new teachers in the Teacher- In-Residence Program. Through this program, teachers enter the classroom and enter their teaching certification requirements at the same time. All classes are online with the exception of in-person field experience hours.


 
"By offering flexible and affordable programs, we can assist schools in identifying potential teachers who are already embedded within their community,” said Dr. Jennifer Gresko, Educator Preparation Program's faculty chair. “When drawing from your own community, the likelihood of the individual teaching for the school long term is greater.”
 
 
 
 
 
 

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurologically-based disability that affects a child's social skills, communication, and behavior. Most children with ASD will sit, crawl and walk on schedule, so its easy to miss delays in social and communication skills early on.

Some of the very common early signs of ASD are speech/language delay and poor social interaction as infants. ASD affects 1 in 68 children with a higher predominance in males. Boys are five times more likely to be diagnosed than girls. 

Below are some common behaviors exhibited by children with ASD. Every child will have different symptoms and varying degrees of ASD, which makes diagnosing ASD very difficult. Early intervention with intense therapies, such as physical, speech and occupational therapy have been shown to lead to better functioning for children with ASD individuals as they grow older. 

Ultimately, as an educator,  trust your instincts and refer any concerns that you may have to the parents to have a full evaluation done by a Developmental Pediatrician. Autism can often present with other medical disorders including ADHD, Intellectual disability and other Hereditary disorders. A full evaluation is necessary to adequately diagnosis the child and begin early intervention. An evaluation may include hearing and vision testing, blood work and Psychological testing. 
Early diagnosis, early intervention and treatment will lead to a better outcome for children with ASD and provide them with  greater life opportunities .

Parents and teachers spend the most amount of time with children and, therefore, play an essential role in addressing developmental concerns when they arise. In many cases, children with mild ASD, may not be diagnosed until they start school and a teacher notices that a child doesn't behave as other children and brings their concerns to the parents. Teachers play a vital role in identifying children with ASD and other developmental/behavioral problems. 

Social Differences in Children with ASD

• Doesn't keep eye contact or makes very little eye contact
• Doesn't respond to a parent's smile or other facial expressions
• Doesn't look at objects or events a parent is looking at or pointing to
• Doesn't point to objects or events to get a parent to look at them
• Doesn't bring objects of personal interest to show to a parent
• Doesn't often have appropriate facial expressions
• Unable to perceive what others might be thinking or feeling by looking at their facial expressions
• Doesn't show concern (empathy) for others
• Unable to make friends or uninterested in making friends

Communication Differences in Children with ASD

• Doesn't point at things to indicate needs or share things with others
• Doesn't say single words by 16 months
• Repeats exactly what others say without understanding the meaning (often called parroting or echoing)
• Doesn't respond to name being called but does respond to other sounds (like a car horn or a cat's meow)
• Refers to self as "you" and others as "I" and may mix up pronouns
• Often doesn't seem to want to communicate
• Doesn't start or can't continue a conversation
• Doesn't use toys or other objects to represent people or real life in pretend play
• May have a good rote memory, especially for numbers, letters, songs, TV jingles, or a specific topic
• May lose language or other social milestones, usually between the ages of 15 and 24 months (often called regression)

Behavioral Differences (Repetitive & Obsessive Behaviors) in Children with ASD

• Rocks, spins, sways, twirls fingers, walks on toes for a long time (past 5 years old), or flaps hands (called "stereotypic behavior")
• Likes routines, order, and rituals; has difficulty with change
• Obsessed with a few or unusual activities, doing them repeatedly during the day
• Plays with parts of toys instead of the whole toy (e.g., spinning the wheels of a toy truck)
• Doesn't seem to feel pain
• May repeat words or behaviors over and over again (like saying the same word from a sentence they hear repeatedly)
• May be very sensitive or not sensitive at all to smells, sounds, lights, textures, and touch
• Unusual use of vision or gaze—looks at objects from unusual angles

By Ugonna Soribe Woods MD, FAAP

Higher education has been seen as one of the best ways out of poverty.  However, connecting low-income student to universities has always been a challenge. This is a a challenge that Phoenix Collegiate Academy has taken on as our mission and driving force for our students, their families and the community in which we serve.
    PCA began its journey in August of 2009, with our inaugural class of sixth graders, who will now be our first graduating class of PCA in May of 2016. These students will not only make history for our school, but also for their families.  Many are first-generation college bound students who have relentlessly worked to see this dream come to fruition. The preparation starts early and continues throughout their educational journey with us at PCA; a seamless path to college is what we are establishing for our students and their families. 
     At PCA, we strongly believe that each step of our process needs to be  intentional. We have developed curriculum that we stream through our advisory classes, which meet in small groups within grade level four times per week.. On Thursdays, we have College Thursday Curriculum, a series of year-llong units and lessons that are tailor made for each grade level to learn about the road from high school to college. On College Thursdays, students delve into topics ranging from how to read and pull information from their high school transcripts to how to create a scholarship resume. In addition to our advisory lessons, we also take year-end field trips, starting in 6th grade through 12th grade, taking our students out of state to visit various college campus around the nation. Students have visited Stanford, University of New Mexico, and Georgetown to name a few. This year, our 11th graders will have the opportunity to visit the U.S. Air Force Academy as well. The students are eager to take these field trips each year and return with amazing stories and great determination on how they will one day attend one of our visited colleges. 
    The beauty of our seamless path, being in a K-12th grade school, means that we can readily share data about our students and begin preparing early to meet all of their different educational needs. We have all of our students take the MAP test, a standardized, computer based exam that is correlated to the ACT exam. Teachers use the data from this exam, along with other critical data, to customize and tailor their academic plans and curriculum for our students. It also allows us to see students' progress as they work to become college-ready. During every parent-teacher conference we share this information with our parents and provide them with the knowledge and tools to help their students at home.  We provide parents with access to weekly academic reports, websites that they can use at home, workshops after-school that provide valuable information regarding college access, and financial planning.
     At our High school, we start our freshmen with Advanced Placement classes, preparing them for the rigors of the college curriculum early. Our student to counselor ratio is 1:188, in comparison with other districts schools, where it is 1:500. This means that our counselor is able to meet with each and every student individually, knows them personally, and can truly be an advocate for them as they embark on their college journey. We know that it “takes a village” to help raise our children, so we have established, nurtured and maintained partnerships with some amazing programs like, STEP Expedition Program, ASU's Barrett Summer Scholars, ASU's Juaquin Bustoz Math-Science Honors Program, Be a Leader Foundation, and AGUILLA to name a few. It's programs like these, that help us and our students be accountable. 
    As we approach our final semester of the school year, we've reflected on the amazing strides our school and students have made along their path to college. Starting in 2009 with one class of sixth graders and now fast-forward to 2016, with 100% of our graduating class committed to attending a post-secondary school, 67% already admitted into a four-year university and thus far receiving over $80,000 in merit-based aid. We are beyond excited but also know that this is just the beginning, each new year will bring new challenges and rewards, and that's what makes our long days worth it. 
-Andrea Glenn, Phoenix Collegiate Academy High School Counselor

According to a recent Education Week study, schools spend “between $6,000 to $8,000 a year per teacher” on professional development. However, in order for this significant investment to be worth the cost, schools must see increased student outcomes as a result. 
The Center for Student Achievement has partnered with The Teacher Retention Project and other schools across the state to ensure that each site is seeing systematic increases in teacher effectiveness as a result of custom-created professional development and coaching plans.
Here’s what we have learned from schools that have seen amazing results:

• Each training session must have one to two specific, measurable objectives and a deliverable
• The cognitive processing is the responsibility of the participants, not the facilitator
• Improved outcomes are dependent upon a pre-planned system or accountability structure
• It is important to consider peoples’ needs, what the product of the professional development will be, and the appropriate process for accountability

This year TRP has included custom designed sessions from The Center for Student Achievement as part of our two cohort wide professional development events.  Following the Center for Student Achievement’s model of professional development, teachers in our cohort are presented best practice strategies as part of our professional development sessions.  Then, teachers are able to try out new strategies and skills learned for a week following professional development events in their classrooms. Last, Center for Student Achievement Presenters and TRP Coaches continue the professional development by visiting the teacher in their classrooms to observe and debrief the professional development in practice. TRP Coaches are able to integrate new skills into coaching plans. What is unique about this model is that professional development doesn’t end when the day is over. To borrow from the great Paul Bambrick-Santoyo with UnCommon Schools, professional development only matters if it translates from paper to practice, driving real improvements to student learning and that is the thrust of the partnership between The Center for Student Achievement and The Teacher Retention Project.

Justin O'Connell, Center for Student Achievement

STEM curriculum is based on the idea of teaching science, technology, engineering, and math in an integrated format with real-life applications. Across the country, there has been a push in developing students that are equipped with the knowledge and skills to enter the workforce in high demand careers many of which require proficiency in STEM competencies. According to the Department of Education, we know that only 16 percent of American high school seniors are proficient in math and interested in a STEM career. Motivating our students to study professions in science, technology, engineering, and math are imperative to meet the growing demand for well-prepared professionals and to keep our country in a top position of innovation.
 
Western School of Science and Technology is working hard to provide a quality STEM education for students in West Phoenix. Western exists to transform Maryvale by improving low-income west Phoenix students’ opportunities for advancement in the global technological economy by providing needed preparation for the academic rigors of college graduation leading to career success. What does this look like in the classroom? Spending time in Ms. Paul’s Engineering class, you see students designing their own projects, reflecting on their work, and initiating improvements. They think about what is working and what isn't.  Students are problem solving in teams learning the necessary academic skills, and in addition, "soft skills" like communication, leadership, and interpersonal skills. There is a lot of deep thinking and problem solving happening in each class period.  

​Recently, The Warriors’ science, technology, engineering, and math (“STEM”) accomplishments received national recognition. Western: CFA is featured in the “Play Space: How We Play” Exhibition at the Center for Architecture in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which “will showcase over 40 designs from cities around the world for outdoor play spaces that offer young children diverse experiences and  opportunities for interacting, exploring, creating, and growing.”   Western: CFA’s contribution, recognizing the “Building Warriors” program, highlighted students’ work designing, engineering, and building safe play structures on and around the Western: CFA campus. In addition, the “Building Warriors” program was featured in Teach For America’s national magazine, One Day, that highlighted students’ contribution to their community through design thinking and maker education. Kudos to STEM Program Director Allison Paul and our Building Warriors for their accomplishments!
​

Peter Boyle, Principal for Western School of Science and Technology
Tiffany Sandoval, Director of Operations for The Teacher Retention Project

It seems like 30 years ago, as I was beginning my entrepreneurial journey, multiple people said that education was broken and needed fixing.  Since then, education has changed a whole bunch, but it still has a long way to go.  
 
As an emerging leader in the temporary (aka substitute) teaching arena, I would like to shake things up.  Big time.  And I need your help to make it happen.
 
Our children need quality teachers.  Our children need teachers who INSPIRE.  Our children need capable substitutes so that every single day can be a productive learning experience. Shaking things up, means equipping our teachers with the knowledge and skills to allow them to be the best teacher that they can be. 
 
This can be achieved by providing targeted training and ongoing professional development for our teachers. This training will come through a partnership with the Teacher Retention Project. The Teacher Retention Project’s mission is to provide Arizona’s most effective teachers with resources, support, and recognition to ensure they make a long-term commitment to the classroom ensuring our students receive a quality education.  In alignment with that mission, TRP will be providing training in preparation, instruction, and classroom environment.  In addition, TRP will support on the ground through individualized coaching in an effort to develop both the instructional and content domains.  Together, we will ensure that all substitute teachers are prepared to successfully instruct and manage classroom conduct.
 
Our goal is that our teachers are able to be a part of the schools and communities where they instruct and that the substitute teaching experience is an opportunity for passionate individuals to make a difference in the life of a child. Deciding to spend one day a week in the classroom for a motivated, caring individual can make a big difference in our schools. Substitute teaching is an excellent way to give back to the community and create memorable moments for both substitute teachers and their students. For more information please see our website at http://www.teachersoncallaz.com.
 
Dan Nienhauser
Executive Director
Teachers On Call Arizona
 

Vista Grove is a K-8 public charter school in Mesa, Arizona and part of the Leona Group. We are in our 7th year as Vista Grove. We do not allow academic, social or economic challenges get in the way of our belief that ALL students will succeed. Our students are 90% in poverty, 30% homeless, and come to us 76% behind grade level. 

Those statistics have not slowed our school wide focus of academic and social growth. In fact, we have moved from a D school to most recently a B school while facing soaring rates of student homelessness which topped out in the 2014-2015 school year at 40% of our student body who were homeless.

We have several key areas that we believe lead to our success with our students.

First, we live the belief that ALL students will succeed. Every teacher and staff member hired at Vista Grove come to their jobs with a growth mindset and aware of the fulfilling hard work and hopeful perseverance needed each and every day. Second, we do not allow  economic need be a barrier to entry for any child. As we have grown from 100 to nearly 400 students, we transport over 75% of our students. We communicate with all parents, even if we have to make home visits or provide transportation for parents to and from the school for meetings and/or school events. We also provide wrap around support for our students to ensure their academic success, but importantly for the their socio-economic needs as well. We have regular dialogue over student academic and social growth between all staff. We provide academic intervention with Title I, MOWR and ESS support, strictly scheduled and revisited as progress or change in needs arise. We provide socio-emotional interventions with an elementary and middle school counselor, provided by a grant secured by Leona Group, along with a PBIS team supporting students with crisis, intermittent and maintenance interventions. All teachers and staff are involved in the intervention process. 

Last, We have a structured and active campus.  Students wear uniforms. We provide PE, a sports program, theatre program, choir and music program. We also provide  with late bus service for ALL students. Our families feel love and support we strive to make each student and family believe in themselves, together - we are a democracy of high expectations in one K-8 school community.