What if all it took for an entire grade to go on a field trip was $100?!

There’s lots of challenges with field trips:

• Does the field trip fit the curriculum? 
• Can I get enough volunteers to chaperone the trip? 
• Does the field trip justify the missed instructional time? 

Even if you have good answers, one question stops more field trip from happening than any other: can you afford it?  For Title 1 schools, the answer is often no. 

And what happens if you don’t take your students on the field trip?  They miss out. 

• They miss the unique learning opportunities provided by a field trip (one trip I chaperoned I learned Jell-O is made, in part, from pigs!). 
• They miss out on the bus ride and singing “Old Town Road” 90 times in a row.
• They miss out on matching T-shirts and napping in the bus on the way home.

What if they didn’t have to miss out?  Below is an email I got the other day:
Wanted to bounce something off you--we are planning a field trip for 2nd graders. The options are pretty slim for an enriching experience for these kids that gets them out and moving around, and I suggested a trip we used to do at a different school. We took the kids to (a) farm (an hour away). We want to ask PTA to see what they can pitch in, but we were wondering if some financial help from (the church partners) might be a possibility? The cost is a few dollars over $300--and I know it's a lot. But, we'd thought we'd ask what you think.
The email was sent to my church, the other church who partners with our school, and the PTA president. If the three groups evenly divide this request, it’s about $100 a piece.  A $100 to send an entire 2nd grade class on a field trip these teachers believe is worth the additional work, time and energy to provide their kiddos with a unique experience.

$100!

I can’t think of better uses for a $100 than helping students experience a field trip many wouldn’t be able to take on their own.

If the only thing keeping you from taking your students to the museum, the farm, the symphony, the film or the play is money, you need to ask.
Ask your school.  Ask a small business owner.  Ask a church.  There are businesses and churches looking for just this kind of opportunity to help you and your school.

• These second graders get to take the trip because their teachers asked.
• One church paid for an entire school to attend an amusement park at the start of school. 
• A different church paid for a school’s 5th graders to take a 4 hour field trip.

I created the 50 Ways Churches Help Schools Cheatsheet to help more students go on field trips without costing schools more money.  The cheatsheet reveals how churches help schools with things like field trips by giving money and providing chaperones AND has 49 other ways a church or business can help you. 
Your classroom. 
Your school. 
Your students.

Click to download your FREE cheatsheet.    

Once you’ve got the cheatsheet, let me know your thoughts. 

What ideas are already happening in your school? 
What ideas do you want to see happen in your school or classroom? 
What ideas would you add to this list?

Most folks think tax dollars shouldn’t be spent on appreciating teachers and school staffs.

Here’s why they’re wrong.

I ran an ad on Facebook last week giving away donuts to the whole staff at one school.

One commenter wrote this:

Students should get a donut as well.  Seems a little unfair, students work hard, too.

So many possible replies, but I went with “I agree students work hard too”.

Maybe the commenter thought I’m a corporation with deep pockets. 
Maybe the commenter was bothered I chose to recognize teachers and staffs over students. 
Maybe the commenter likes to stir up trouble online.

The reason’s not important.  If you’re going to do work online like this- even giving something away for free doesn’t cost anything to you- you’ll get negative feedback like this.  It’s why we can’t have nice things.

But here’s why I chose to give donuts to a school’s staff and not a school’s students (beside the obvious price difference!): these are challenging months for teachers and administrators. 

• There’s evening parent teacher conferences after full teaching days
• There’s cold and flu viruses running rampant through schools
• There’s teachers missing school because they’re sick or their families are sick
• There’s cold weather keeping students indoors for recess. 
• There’s standardized testing coming up and you’re wondering how you’re going to possibly teach all the curriculum you’re supposed to cover

Those are the reasons I’m giving donuts to a school staff.  Most schools don’t have funds to appreciate teachers or boost staff morale.  If grumpy curmudgeon taxpayers found out public funds were spent on glazed donuts for the teacher’s lounge, watch out!  During a time in the school year when appreciation is most needed, we’re choosing to care for one school’s staff with some donuts.  The school is the one with the most signups by the end of the month.  Over 140 schools are in the running for the donuts and three are tied for the lead:

• Bradwell School of Excellence in Chicago, IL. 
• Laura Wilder Elementary in Sioux Falls, SD
• Maurice C. Cash Elementary in Phoenix, AZ;

There’s still plenty of February left for your school to win these donuts:

• Invite teachers and staff to sign up here 
• Share this Facebook post and tag teachers and friends at your school

And maybe, just maybe, some month in the future we’ll be able donuts to an entire school. 

Because my Facebook commenter wasn’t wrong.


 

Thursdays are for teachers, and today we feature Rachael Tiedeman, an elementary music teacher at Lowell Elementary.
Q:  Why did you get into teaching?
I have one sister and when we were in elementary school we would play school at home. We had actual desks and our mother had even bought us little workbooks. I always played the role of teacher and my younger sister always played student. I guess I've always known I was called into teaching! I love to research and organize information and sharing it with anyone and everyone is not only fun but a passion of mine. Figuring out how to turn information into useful knowledge or a new skill set for a learner is a challenge I take on every day. I went to the University of Sioux Falls and heard wonderful things about their education and music departments. However, I was drawn to music because since I was five I had been singing and playing piano and knew I was too shy to go into performance so I chose music education... it seemed to fit the best of both of my worlds.

Q:  How has your year been going?
With all of the changes in the fine arts department, I'm actually really enjoying the newness the year has presented. I will say that the thought of teaching music to a Kindergarten class for 48 minutes scared me at first (as opposed to the original 35 minutes), but I have found plenty to do and if you keep their minds busy - time seems to fly. It's hard not to see the students twice a week like we used to, but I do like the routine of the new block schedule. There are less transitions for the students and they seem to have taken to the new schedule quite well. They get one special a day and they really seem engaged during the time they do come to class! With that being said, students always make my job more rewarding and they give me something to look forward to - an empty classroom is just that... empty and sometimes lonely. I will say that the year seems to be flying by fast! I keep busy doing lesson plans, smartboard slides, finding fun musical activities, music club, answering emails, getting recorders ready, eating lunch with students, filling out paperwork, going to meetings, and taking care of two classrooms. I guess you could say it's filled to the max and brewing with potential composers and performers!

Q:  How can a church/business/group support you/your classroom/your school? 
A church, business, or group could support any music classroom by providing money for new instruments, new games, musicals, costumes for musicals, new pool of school recorders for students to use, gift cards to use on teacherspayteachers.com, or gift cards to Hobby Lobby for decorations or costuming or homemade instrument items. They can support our schools by providing extra clothing in our school closets (socks, underwear, pre-school - 5th grade clothing), mentoring a student, buying books for a classroom, and so much more! How about a coffee morning or Qdoba lunch for teachers... yes, we love to be pampered a little... teachers can take on a lot of second hand trauma (trauma students bring with them to school and release during class time) ---being sensitive to that and showing the teacher a little love goes a long ways! Teachers and staff wear many hats~ even buying each classroom a box of bandaids is a nice gesture! We really do appreciate the littlest things.

Q: Is there anything else you'd like to add?
I think that life is a lot about perspective. I look at my students and think to myself that one of these learners could be my doctor someday. One of these learners might take care of me when I'm old and can no longer care for myself. It's a cycle... invest now and later you will be vested in. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. I don't teach or give because I want something in return... I teach and give because I am able to and because as human beings we deserve the best education. Even a bandaid will cure the attention we may need in the moment.
​

How can you make schools equitable without changing boundaries?
Most families say they want their kids to go to a diverse school.  What most donot realize, though, is how most families really don’t, according to a recent US News and World article.  Parents verbally support integration, but actually make choices to instead pool their children to higher achieving schools where there is often less diversity. 

School boundaries and redistricting are sensitive and emotionally-charged decisions.  For the people who sit on these committees and make these decisions you’re always going to upset someone. 

• But what if some families intentionally chose diverse schools for their children?
• What if some upper-economic families chose to live in certain neighborhoods for the sake of sending their kids to diverse schools? 
• What if communities didn’t need redistricting to make schools more equitable?
• What if families took advantage of open enrolling to send their kids to less advantageous schools? 

I know this is Pollyanna type thinking.  I know these decisions require incredible courage.  In my community we’re beginning redistricting discussions with the opening of a new middle school and new high school next year.  There’s a committee presenting plans and making recommendations.  There’s articles and facebook groups and chatter both online and offline.  One option has one of my kids potentially attending a different school in the future, and I commented to Tarina our child could likely stay at the current school because few families open enroll to it.

​We often say the right things about emotional issues such as redistricting (“Of course I want my kid to go to school with diverse students”).  What if our behavior matched our words?
 

Are you afraid of making a mistake?  Maybe you’re afraid of making a mistake in your marriage or in your parenting?  Maybe you’re afraid of making a health mistake.
A financial mistake.
A career mistake.
Maybe you’re afraid of making a mistake at school or with your coworkers.
I’m afraid to make mistakes.  But what if the challenge isn’t that you’re making too many mistakes.  It’s that you don’t make enough. 
If you’ve been here awhile, you’ve seen my mistakes: 

• Like my purple coat mistake where I did more harm for the school then good
• Like my worst mistake when I spammed thousands of schools and churches in 2018
• Like my funniest mistake when I called Facebook “Faceboob” in an email I sent out last year. 

I could have given up after each of those mistakes: 

• I could have given up on helping our school because our winter clothing donations had made things worse for our school and not better.
• I could have stopped creating this community when I was spamming people.
• I could have stopped with the Facebook typo because as funny as it is, why send out another email if I can’t catch the most obvious of typos?!

You don’t quit after a mistake.  You can quit if you’re not having success. 
But don’t quit after a mistake because mistakes are wen you grow. 

• The purple coat story changed how we donated items to our school and helps us advise others on donation drives. 
• My spamming mistake was a big one, but I learned just because I can do something doesn’t mean I should. 
• And the Faceboob mistake gives me a great story for my answer to the what’s your most embarrassing moment question! 

Here’s two truths when it comes to mistakes:

• First, your mistakes often lead to you making better mistakes.  Just last week I made a mistake with this email and accidentally sent people new to this community two welcome type emails- whoops!  If that was you, I’m sorry!  But I don’t get to make this welcome email mistake without making the spamming mistake.  If I don’t learn from the spamming mistake, maybe Gmail shuts me down.  I don’t get to make the welcome email mistake because I’m done.  The multiple welcome emails is a better mistake to make.
• Second, the more mistakes I make, the easier and quicker it is to get over them.  To move on from them.  To learn from them.  With the email mistake, I learned from it.  I momentarily thought I sucked but then I got over it.  Yeah, I didn’t know how to exactly do this and so I had to figure out some things.  Doing that allows me to make better mistakes in the future rather than repeating the same old mistakes and never learning from them.

Whatever goal you’re pursuing today, whatever change you’re pursuing, become more comfortable with making mistakes.

This week is National School Counseling Week highlighting the unique contribution of school counselors within our schools.  Today we feature Kerri Cox, preK-12 counselor at Canistota (SD) school district.

Q:  Why did you get into teaching?
A reappearing theme in my life is that of a story. As a child, I loved reading stories about people. I was so fascinated by people and their experiences that I also liked writing others’ stories. When I learned more about the field of psychology, I found the study of people and human behavior fascinating as well. I double-majored in psychology and journalism but ultimately felt called to counseling. During my graduate studies, I realized that so many of the problems people experienced were due to a lack of developmental assets in childhood. I knew I was lucky to have been raised in a community with wrap-around support where I was known and cared for by layers of people in my school, community, church and extended family. That realization was the spark that started a fire in me to want to work in a school setting where I could help students prevent problems and learn skills to manage emotions, communicate assertively, problem-solve and make connections with support assets in the school and community. In many ways I’ve felt as though I am teaching students how to be the author of their own stories and how to edit out the parts that aren’t serving them. This option felt familiar and natural since I am the fourth generation in my family to choose a career in education.

Q:  How has your year been going?
I am having one of the best years in my 24 years of education! Over the last year I've felt transformed. God has led me to a place where I feel in complete alignment with his calling and his mission for me to "be the light."

Q:  How can a church/business/group support you/your classroom/your school? 
Sioux Falls is a resource-rich community and there are so many empathetic, compassionate people who donate financially to the dozens or even hundreds of charity programs. From my perspective, the impact of those "hand-outs" does not begin to compare to the impact of people who actively serve others. That whole idea about giving a man a fish or teaching him to fish is spot on! I saw this most clearly when I saw miracles happen through the LSS School-Based Mentor program. While those are not my stories to tell, I still get goosebumps when I recall how church mentors served as the hands and feet of Jesus. The investment of your time and care through mentoring is the most impactful way that a church or organization can bring change.

Ironically, I just created my first Donor's Choose project to help fund resources. I do not have any kind of a budget to purchase supplies and have purchased most of my counseling resources myself over the years. I recognized a need for more hands-on experiential tools to help students who come to school with poor self-regulation skills related to impulse control, emotion management, problem-solving and manners, I decided to ask for help as I have seen other teachers successfully do. If you feel called to help me, this is the link to my Donor's Choose project: shorturl.at/DIPSZ

Q:  Is there anything else you'd like to add?
​I’ve felt honored to walk along students and families during the hardest times in their lives. Sometimes this is dealing with the aftermath of a crisis, grieving the loss of a loved one or coping with complicated situations involving poverty, addiction, abuse and other hardships. For most of my career, these tough situations were balanced by the proactive work with all students and the developmental issues that arise and are more simply resolved. Despite feeling so passionate, I began questioning my purpose when my position evolved into a reactive role when a growing number of students becoming violent and disruptive in the classroom dominated my time since safety is always a priority. I’d leave work daily feeling defeated that so many students with smaller problems weren’t getting help until situations dramatically escalated. I kept pushing forward ever-optimistic that with more time and effort I would eventually get caught-up and meet all the needs. During this time, the Bible verse in Mathew 11 about God's yoke being easy and the burden being light kept showing up in books, sermons, blogs and my devotional. God was whispering to me that I needed to release the heavy burden I was carrying. I ignored the whispers and just kept trying harder until God had to shout to get my attention. Those shouts came in the form of flare-ups of autoimmune diseases that were once managed to being out-of-control and increasingly disabling. After a particularly harsh confrontation and warning by one of my doctors, I reluctantly acknowledged I was powerless to change my situation and that guilt was the heavy burden I needed to release. I accepted God’s invitation to let go and have faith I would be guided and supported to where I can best serve and live in alignment with my values. The answer to this prayer appeared last summer when a former co-worker encouraged me to apply for a Pre-K-12 counseling position that has been an ideal fit for my skills, experience and expertise.

Tomorrow my community experiences the national educational phenomenon Red for Ed as teachers are encouraged to wear red and walk in to school together.  The hope is this unifying act will remind our governor to keep salary promises to educators in my state where teacher pay ranks in the bottom 5 states.

I strongly support movement like Red for Ed to raise awareness of teacher pay and other issues facing educators (especially in a state like mine where we continue to hyper focus on issues that affect a small few and ignore issues like teacher pay with wide-ranging impact).  I’m also very grateful teachers are choosing to walk in as opposed to other options more disruptive to students and families.
​
And that’s the rub.  For movements like Red for Ed to really work, they need to include more than teachers.  If families and students want to avoid more disruptive efforts in the future, you and I need to show up.  You’d expect teachers to show up for a movement aimed for teachers.  But these movements really gain momentum when you show up for a teacher and you’re not a teacher.  You and I need to do our part:

• You can wear red on Wednesdays
• You can post to Facebook or Twitter or Instagram about wearing red on Wednesday and why it’s so important to you.
• You can email your legislators. 
• You can show up at legislative coffees and other similar events. 

The more parents, the more community leaders, the more small-business owners, the more people who don’t work at schools do something, the more effective movements like Red for Ed will be. 

Because I expect teachers to wear red and walk in and post and share.  What we need for effectual change are for those outside schools (you and I) to do the same.