Teachers and students in Davenport are headed back to school tomorrow. The start of school always brings excitement and new challenges for both the students and teachers after several weeks “off” in the summer. For teachers, though, summer is not several weeks off entirely. They might not be teaching classes (though some are indeed teaching summer school), but they are still working. Teachers might get a few days of actual vacation in, but most teachers are spending much of their summer doing professional development, writing curriculum, planning for the new school year, coaching, working with the association, or even working a second (or third) job.
Here are just some of the things that Davenport teachers did over their “summer off.”
Maggie Rietz spent a week in Dallas with a student at the Speech and Debate National Tournament, as well as attended the NEA Representative Assembly in Houston, along with Lori Palmgren, Monike Hill and Mike Reinholdt. Mike was a first-time RA attendee, who said, “This summer, I was fortunate enough to be elected to represent the DEA at Representative Assembly (RA). Based in Houston, RA was truly democracy at work. Meeting other teachers from across the country, actively debating the direction of our union and being surrounded by passionate educators was an experience I will never forget. I truly hope every educator has the opportunity to see this process and engage in the largest democratic body in the United States.” Mike also attended the ISEA Summer Leadership Conference along with several other Davenport teachers.
Kayla Patricia said she led two teacher training sessions to get teachers certified in a science and engineering program our district got a grant for, which required a lot of planning. Plus Kayla worked on curriculum writing all summer, as well as meetings, daily emails to answer, working in my classroom, planning for next year, organizing, shopping for supplies and living the teacher life! Of course, many teachers are also parents themselves, so like Kayla, they are in “full-time mom mode!”
Mychele Lea shared that a huge group of teachers just spent a week doing a technology bootcamp to learn about new technology for collaboration, organization, lesson planning, etc. The bootcamp included a variety of sessions taught by teacher leaders and attended by 202 teachers in the district.
Dakota LaMaack wrote PE curriculum and coached volleyball. Tammy Burton also worked on Spanish curriculum with two other teachers for three days. She also took a three-hour graduate credit Spanish class as part of her license renewal credits. On top of all of that, Tammy announced games for the varsity baseball team.
Sarah McGlynn took a grad class online for the month of July, did a week-long training in Orton Gillingham, and spent about 40-50 hours total reorganizing her classroom.
Dawn Stone attended three-day workshop/classes in June at University of South Dakota for re-licensure. Plus, she spent at least 30 hours so far preparing music for the year.
Jamie Walker-Sallis attended the NEA Leaders for Just Schools for the August 2018 Cohort in San Diego, CA along with other educators across the country.
This is only a fraction of what teachers are doing all summer long. Feel free to share your own work in the comments to show that teachers are indeed working all summer long! Have a wonderful school year!
Davenport Education Association 