Our Anti-Racist Commitment

June 17, 2020 Dear Fellow Educators, Students, and Families: We mourn the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and the violence and injustice that caused them. We see our community and fellow educators hurting, and struggling to come to terms with the loss of these lives and what that means for our……

Useful Work

Never in my lifetime has education taken such an abrupt turn as it has in the past three weeks. I have gone from being a classroom teacher to being a remote learning instructor overnight much like millions of other educators across our country. In my attempt to be optimistic about my new position, I have……

Mesa NBCT Network News

The network board met on September 16 at Hughes Elementary. At the meeting, we discussed: There is a new district liaison for National Board Certification, Becky Thorpe.  She is not currently an NBCT, so we will be working on her to pursue, of course. Heidi Hurst, district Communications Director, visited and discussed writing opportunities and……

Mesa NBCT Network News

Hello! This year, we thought we would try to post a blog entry every time the board of directors meets. That way, we can share what the board is discussing and other tidbits throughout the year instead of waiting until we have the perfect, insightful, well-crafted blog entry to post! Meeting Notes: The board met……

Optimism: The Gift of Spring

It’s the last week of March and the absolute best time of year to be teaching. Really, it is. You have survived ¾ of the school year. You can count the time until the end until the end of the year in days instead of weeks or months. Whatever problems you have, in about 44……

WOY 2019

Our NBCT network has chosen our word of the year, “empower.”  Although this word is used a lot in education, we feel that as we continue to expand our network this year and develop our relationship with Mesa Public Schools, a key part of our mission is to empower teachers, lift their voices, seek a……

Student Equity in AZ

  As one of my first perks of being an 2019 AEF Ambassador for Excellence, I was invited to attend the annual ABEC (Arizona Business & Education Coalition) conference that took place last Friday in Phoenix. If you have never heard of ABEC (don’t worry, I hadn’t either) their mission statement is: Sustaining collaboration between……

Mesa’s Own Maria Barker, AEF Ambassador of Excellence

Recently, Maria Barker, NBCT, an early childhood special education teacher at Red Mountain Center for Early Education, was named an Ambassador of Excellence by the Arizona Educational Foundation. This means that she is one of the top 5 finalists for the Arizona State Teacher of the Year.   At the core of our network is the……