September 2021 IL Newsblast No images? Click here Teach Plus IL Welcomes its New Teacher Leaders!Congratulations to all of the new Teach Plus IL Policy Fellows, Early Childhood Education Fellows, Change Agents, Senior Fellows and Change Agents, and our new teacher leaders from our partnered school in District 89! We are ecstatic to have another year of meaningful and impactful work that will serve our students and state! Pictured: Policy Manager and Teacher Leadership Coach, Bill Curtin with new K-12 Teaching Policy Fellows at their in-person Kickoff. From Teach Plus Illinois Dear Teachers, Teach Plus Illinois begins the school year--as did many of you--with both high hopes! We kicked off all of our programming last month, with a large group of Change Agents in Chicago, a team of teacher leaders in Melrose Park, a revitalized Network for School Improvement in Chicago, and two statewide policy fellowships for K12 and ECE teachers. In total, this year we’ll be directly supporting over 100 teacher leaders, and we’re thrilled to welcome them all to the Teach Plus IL family and help them build their skills to change education, both at the schoolhouse and the statehouse. Despite the hopeful beginning, we know there will be bumps in the road this school year. Already, many of us have experienced staff or students who have tested positive and have to quarantine, and some teachers’ entire classes have had to isolate themselves because of an exposure. Even so, Illinois is doing much better Covid mitigation in schools than many other states, according to data coming from the Centers on Reinventing Public Education. However, one place districts have room to grow is in developing robust remote learning plans for students who have to isolate; we all know how disruptive it is to have a student miss a few days of class, and because of quarantines and isolation requirements, districts in Illinois need to plan for these more frequent absences from in-person learning. Switching gears from Covid and reopening, I want to share with you an excellent resource that just launched last week. As you know, there has been a lot of misinformation about what is being taught in our classrooms, which is fueling efforts to monitor what teachers teach, limit teaching of parts of history, and restrict conversations about race in our classrooms. That is why Teach Plus has joined the Learn from History Coalition, a broad-based bipartisan coalition of school system leaders, educators, parents, and students across the country. This coalition is developing resources to explain the vital importance of students learning thorough, accurate, and fact-based history and that racism is wrong. They have developed toolkits and messaging that can help you to become an advocate on these issues in your community. Here’s to keeping kids, teachers, families as safe as possible while teaching for justice, Josh Senior Executive Director The Practice Corner Dear Teachers, I hope everyone had a restful and rejuvenating summer and that back-to-school has been as smooth as possible for all of our wonderful teacher leaders across Illinois! As we enter (yet again) another unprecedented school year, welcoming the majority of students back to full-time, in-person learning, there have been mixed emotions among educators. On the positive side (no pun intended), teachers have reported the excitement and gratitude students have been showing about being able to be in school with their friends and teachers again. The ability to physically be present in the room with students and address their social emotional needs in the moment has been a breath of fresh air after months of isolation. But worries about the Delta variant and how it spreads/affects kids, combined with things like bus driver shortages, over-packed classrooms that make social distancing impossible, and the inevitable quarantines that will happen within schools, have already started filling teachers' minds. As anxiety-inducing as all these things are, I've had to tell myself and the teachers I coach, "Take a deep breath, a step back, and let's think about what we can plan for." While we can enforce proper mask wearing and where students sit in the classroom, we ultimately will not be able to control positive cases in our schools. But we can plan for how we'll deal with quarantined students in a way that's helpful for all of our kids and sustainable for ourselves. I'm going to be honest--I tried to find some online resources for individual classroom teachers in this situation, but there aren't any yet (only district/school recommendations by Edweek and Chalkbeat)! So we'll do what teachers have always done--figure out a system that works for your classroom. If you haven't already, find out what your school's policy and expectations for student quarantining. Then think about the things you already do when students are absent--do you have a make-up binder or a class catcher-upper (I always gave that job to a high-achieving student who enjoyed talking)? Do you already employ a system for housing assignments that's electronic, like Google Classroom? What structures/times already exist in your classroom for independent work that might be leveraged to conference or do small group check-ins with quarantined students? Having a blueprint of a plan now and thinking about what you're already doing can help mitigate some of the anxiety you may be feeling currently (or the stress that will come when students are out). I would love to hear from any of our teachers about what they're doing/thinking for quarantined students--feel free to shoot me an email at kciciora@teachplus.org. Happy Fall, Kristen Ciciora Director of Instructional Programs OpportunitiesAdvance Illinois' Educator Advisory Council: Apply by September 24th! Advance Illinois is seeking accomplished, innovative, and passionate educators who have made a significant impact in the lives of students, peers, and/or their community to join the 2021-2023 cohort of the Educator Advisory Council. The Council gathers on a regular basis to build an understanding of the education policy landscape in Illinois, share the vital perspective of educators to inform Advance Illinois’ education policy agenda and statewide policy broadly, and build members’ leadership in advocating for issues that advance educational equity statewide. Read more about the Educator Advisory Council and Advance Illinois. Nominate an Educator! If you know outstanding educators that would be great candidates, please let us know by nominating them! Click to apply for the 2021-2023 Educator Advisory Council Cohort. Deadline to apply is September 24 Begin Your Journey to Becoming a National Board-Certified Teacher! Closes October 11th! The state fall subsidy window for Professional Educator License (PEL) holders opened Sept. 1 and will close on Oct. 11. This subsidy pays for all fees related to the process. There is a $75 nonrefundable registration fee. This is the only cost a PEL holder with a teaching or school counselor endorsement will incur. Visit the National Board Resource Center website to learn more about the subsidy. Free support is available throughout the certification process and support sessions are anticipated to begin toward the end of September. Please contact the National Board Resource Center at nbrc@illinoisstate.edu to sign up for support. For more information, view this updated 15-minute presentation and brief video from National Board Certified Teachers. ISBE Announces October Dates of Fiscal Year 2023 Budget Hearings. Register for a Hearing! ISBE is excited to invite educators, parents, students, and community organizations to give their input on state funding for public education at three budget hearings, which are set for Oct. 4, 14, and 21. The input ISBE receives will inform the Board's advocacy for equitable funding for all students in fiscal year 2023 and provide the basis for ISBE's budget recommendation to Governor JB Pritzker and the General Assembly in January 2022. Testimony at past hearings has led to increased investments in Evidence-Based Funding, parent mentoring, and after-school programs. Please visit ISBE.net/budget to fill out a budget request funding form and to register for one of the hearings. Those wishing to participate must submit their testimony in writing by completing the form at www.isbe.net/budget. All participants will be allowed three minutes each to speak. Only one person from each organization will be able to speak at one of the hearings. Job Opportunities for Teachers: Please Share! Teach Plus is proud to be partnered with School District 89, Melrose Park Elementary School. The district is seeking new hires for additional teachers, support staff, an instructional lead, reading specialists and more. Interested, qualified candidates should apply online and reach the human resource department with additional questions via email at Amy.warke@maywood89.org. A complete list of available positions may be found here.
Good Reads Teach Plus IL Alumni and 2020-21 Senior Policy Fellow Krista Siems Wilson published an article featured on Crain's Chicago Business forum. Her piece, "Focus Less on ‘Learning Loss' and More on Learning Leaps" observes how much her students advanced in areas that no tests can measure, creating an opportunity to rethink education. "When I read that a student is behind, my first question is, behind whom? The students I taught last year learned differently than those I taught the year before. However, among their peers, my students all performed at the same level. In the spring, as I looked at 60 Zoom squares, I saw learners mastering complex skills, like solving systems of equations by graphing on a computer." Read the full op-ed here. Take a read on a how a recent study conducted in a ninth grade ethnic studies course could prove beneficial for both longterm student engagement, and advance the efforts to teach critical race theory in classrooms. "The study, published Monday in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that a ninth-grade ethnic studies course in San Francisco was associated with significant, long-term benefits, including improved high school graduation and college enrollment rates. The results, which were released during a moment of divisive backlash to schools’ use of what’s broadly referred to as critical race theory, suggest that students who struggle in class become more engaged in school when lessons reflect their lived experiences." Read the rest of this article here. Teach Plus IL in the News Teach Plus Names Lindsay Sobel Interim CEO. Teach Plus is excited to share that Lindsay Sobel, Vice President of Policy and External Affairs, has been named Interim CEO by the Teach Plus Board of Directors. She will succeed the immediate past CEO, Roberto Rodríguez, who has been nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as Assistant Secretary of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development at the U.S. Department of Education. "It has been an extraordinary privilege to spend the last decade at Teach Plus working alongside excellent, equity-driven teachers who are dedicated to leading on behalf of their students,” said Sobel. “We need teachers' expertise now more than ever, and it is an honor to lead Teach Plus as we ensure that teacher leaders shape the education system’s next chapter.” Read the full Teach Plus press release here. The Daily Herald featured one of the winners of Teach Plus Illinois' Project SPARK innovation contest. For more information about the other winners, along with recommendations from Teach Plus Fellows about how to create schools flexible enough to meet students' needs, see our full report: The Flexible Future. Read more about the winning Teacher here. Alumni Spotlight Teach Plus IL alum Lisset Rosales (2020-21 Senior Policy Fellow) and current Teach Plus Illinois Teacher Leadership Coach, was recently named to ISBE's Illinois Advisory Council on Bilingual Education Task Force. Congratulations, Lisset! Teach Plus IL alum Shayla Ewing (2020-21 Senior Policy Fellow) was named as one of 24 educators chosen as part of ASCD's International Emerging Leaders Cohort. She writes “There are also opportunities to work with their policy platform, which is why I applied!” Congratulations, Shayla! Teach Plus IL alum Bob Chikos ( 2019-2020 Policy Fellow) has worked for years to advocate for an equity audit to be held in his school district. Over the summer, the district announced it would complete the audit, and has asked Bob to serve on the Diversity Equity Leadership Team. He is also working with the school social worker to lead training at for four schools within the district, to support this effort. Congratulations, Bob! If you are an alum of any of our Teacher Leadership programs (K-12 Policy Fellowship, ECE Policy Fellowship, Change Agent Fellowship, or partnered school) please share your good news with us. Promotions, and other celebrations of note may be emailed to cjameau@teachplus.org. |