With more than 800,000 students in Colorado heading back to school this month, we wanted to check in with some of the people who will be sitting in those classrooms: an assistant principal, a student, and a student teacher and her mentor.
Vice Principal Cara LaMark
Jenny Brundin/CPR News
Assistant Principal Cara LaMark sometimes has the coolest shoes at Aurora Public School’s North Middle School. Today, they’re orange and black Adidas Día de los Muertos shoes printed with monarch butterflies.
“Over the years, I’ve discovered that middle school kids love shoes.”
There is a white tag on the tongue where you can write a person’s name to celebrate their life. LaMark’s tag is blank – to celebrate each person’s life. Yesterday she wore red, white and blue Kyrie shoes.
“And the kids say, ‘Miss, I love those shoes!’ It’s just an easy way to get attention and then they want to chat a little bit. That’s how a connection is formed quickly.”
Jenny Brundin/CPR News
For LaMark, who is in her seventh year at North, it’s all about relationships. But she’s ready to put into practice a number of other skills she learned while earning her principal’s license. She hadn’t considered a leadership position, but her principal recommended an online program from CSU Global. She could go at her own pace and stop and pick up as needed. The CSU Global program offers a nearly fifty percent discount to teaching staff in most Colorado districts.
“I was able to make the monthly payments… I did it without student loans, which was really great.”
The program has a track record of both master’s degree in teaching and principal degree in teaching staying in Colorado (95 percent and 91 percent, respectively), helping to address Colorado’s teacher shortage.
This school year, LaMark wants to put into practice several things she learned during her studies:
- Create deeper communities of educators who meet regularly to share ideas, learn new topics, and solve problems. LaMark better understands data and supports teachers in lesson planning.
- Work with instructional coaches to plan the best next steps to make it easier for students to learn.
- Increasing the number of families attending school events and assessing whether this impacts student achievement.
- Analyze the lesson plans to see if the children identify with them and absorb them.
- Network to spread the word and bring in applicants.
- This year, we plan to launch a new school newsletter that is fun and published regularly. (“Our old one is kind of boring.”)
Despite everything she has learned, what LaMark likes most about her job is interacting with the students.
“Even on the hardest days, there is always something to celebrate because I get the opportunity to hear, ‘Hey miss, I got a really good grade in social studies,’ or ‘Look at my new shoes,’ or ‘I really enjoyed our lunch.’ There is a silver lining in every day.”
Keelyn, 14, starts high school
Jenny Brundin/CPR News
Keelyn is starting ninth grade at DSST Green Valley Ranch in Denver. A few weeks before school started, he was still quite happy.
“I’m a little nervous, but not really, because I feel like I can just go there and do what I need to do,” he said.
After three years of middle school, Keelyn is ready to move on to a different learning environment and meet new people. He hopes his teachers will be good.
These are his qualities that make a good teacher: “Good listener, has a kind of witty sense of humor, likes to make things entertaining and is just a support.”
In the past, he was able to befriend certain teachers when he had something to talk about. He said the hardest thing about school was the long periods of time he had to sit and concentrate.
“When you get distracted a lot in class, it’s just hard to concentrate and stuff because there’s so much going on… you just try to pay attention.”
He wants the school to focus more on things that will help students in life. He said teachers help them figure out what kind of college to go to.
“But maybe we should learn more about what we want to do, like get a job or start a business.”
He said it’s hard to get started on something if you don’t have experience or know what’s out there.
Like other students, Keelyn wants to learn more about life, such as finances, taxes, cooking, paying rent, or just interesting topics.
“I believe that there should be more subjects in school than just the basics to make it more interesting and to encourage more people to go to school,” he said.
Sienna Karlin, a prospective educator, will teach alongside fourth-grader Ashley Meiklejohn
Jenny Brundin/CPR News
Here’s how Sienna Karlin describes what she’s planning to do this year at Peak View Elementary in Centennial:
“It’s like a medical residency, so if you’ve maybe seen ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ you start as an apprentice, then spend two years taking general education courses at a college and working in the classroom.”
They will also spend the final two years of their bachelor’s degree in the classroom, with a strong focus on their elementary education major. It is part of the Cherry Creek School District’s Aspiring Educator Pathway Program through the Community College of Aurora. Karlin transferred to the program from another university when she learned she could gain 4,000 hours of teaching experience, compared to the usual 700 hours.
“It’s a very different thing to be in a classroom and actually make real-world connections than it is to be taught something in class or in a college lecture hall… it’s not always applicable to an actual classroom situation.”
Karlin will be in the classroom all day, providing insight into the planning and background work required to run a successful class. In contrast, when her mentor, fourth-grader Ashley Meiklejohn, began teaching, she had been working as a student teacher for a semester.
“It’s a kind of baptism of fire,” she laughed.
Meiklejohn said it would be better to offer prospective teachers more teaching hours.
“Once they have their own classroom, they will know what they are doing. Then there will never be a moment where they think, ‘Oh my God, what have I gotten myself into,'” she said.
She said that after a typical undergraduate degree, you are not necessarily prepared to know how to calm a child who is agitated, crying and doesn’t want to learn, or how to encourage parents to be more involved in their child’s education.
Meiklejohn’s goal for this school year is for each of her students to feel seen, valued and heard. How did she start the year? On the first day, there was no furniture in the room. Through a planned lesson, students designed a room with furniture and materials that would be conducive to optimal learning.
“So they will have a voice and a choice, and hopefully they will immediately realize that our teachers also want to know what we want, and that will be a huge endorsement.”
Karlin, her mentee, is excited that students benefit from having two teachers in the classroom. She will have similar responsibilities to the experienced teacher: helping with instruction, grading, and behavior management. Karlin knows she can build a connection with children. This year, she hopes to learn to “go with the flow” and change direction when necessary.
Her career choice is a nod to her grandfather, who she says had great difficulties and did not graduate from high school.
“He always encouraged me and my younger siblings to be proactive, to learn and to always push for a good education. I think that is part of my inspiration because I want to give other children that chance.”
