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The following are links to information that you may find helpful for your student.

CAREER COUNSELING RESOURCES

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Interested in attending ASU, see the entrance requirements!

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Interested in attending  NAU, see the entrance requirements!

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Interested in attending   UA, see the entrance requirements!

Check out ACT information here!

Check out SAT information here!

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SCHOLARSHIP Search engines/CONNECTIONS

Friendly reminder you should not ahve to pay for scholarship search engines/references to scholarships.

Interested in a  vocation instead of college?  Here’s an option to get you moving in that direction!

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Interested in the military…This website provides great information for those wanting to pursue the armed forces, click here!

Let’s Talk about ECAP – Need more information on what is an ECAP (Education and Career Action Plan)?  Why an ECAP is needed?  Career Exploration Options? Need Financial Aid for college? Check out what the Arizona Department of Education offers, check it out here for more information!

For exploring careers, AZCIS is a great site that a lot of school districts in Arizona use.  Check it out, here!

http://www.azed.gov/career-technical-education/arizona-school-counselors/

Another area for career searching is Career One Stop, it has great resources for checking out careers, aptitude testing, etc.

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Career One Stop
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AzMerit & 3rd GRADE

Did you know that 3rd-grade students are required to pass AzMerit Reading portion of the exam to promote to the 4th grade, EXCEPT... Check out the information here!

Move on When Reading – Overview

Move On When Reading Overview for Parents

SPECIAL EDUCATION

Arizona Statewide Independent Living Council is a great group that provides leadership opportunities along with creating independence with students that have special needs. Check it out here!

This is a great article on the importance of having Student-Led IEP’s, check it out here! 

Vocational Rehabilitation is a great resource for helping your student transition from high school to work, check it out here!

Need more information regarding your student’s special needs plans?  Check it out here for Arizona Department of Education.

Do you have a child struggling with milestones?  Do you need help getting your child ready before he/she starts kindergarten, check out Child Find! Click here to see your child’s eligibility.

The ADHD Symptoms That Complicate and Exacerbate a Math Learning Disability

Promoting Prosocial Behaviors in the Classroom

Bilingual children are strong, creative storytellers, study shows

A new method for boosting the learning of mathematics

GOT TEACHER BURN OUT?

LET US HELP! LET US HELP YOU GIVE BACK TIME TO YOUR TEACHERS!

The following articles are astounding statistics in the Teacher Burn Out Epidemic!

Study: 1 in 5 public school teacher positions unfilled

BY Howard Fischer Capitol Media Services    Oct 3, 2017

TOLLESON — More than 1,300 teaching positions are still unfilled four weeks into the school year, according to a new report.

The survey released Tuesday by the Arizona School Personnel Administrators Association of 135 school districts and charter schools found that they began the year with more than 7,000 vacancies. What that means is they could not find qualified applicants for close to one position out of every five.

Potentially more significant, Justin Wing, the association’s past president who conducted the study, said he found that out more than 500 teachers have resigned so far this year, some simply by abandoning their positions and walking away.

 

Wing said most of the vacancies are being handled by long-term substitutes. But he said some of the gap was being made up by people teaching extra classes, with other schools either combining classes to the point where it exceeds the school’s class size limits or even where districts had to create multi-grade classrooms.

Of the positions that schools did manage to fill, close to 2,500 were with people who do not meet the standard teaching requirements, with the largest share of those being people whose certification is pending. But nearly 740 of these slots were filled by people with “emergency teaching certificates,” people who lack any actual training in how to teach but have some professional background in the subject like math or physics.

And that has its own limits, with these certificates valid for one year and available only three times to any individual.

The report comes as the state’s three universities formally introduced their “teacher academy” programs designed to provide free tuition for one or more years to those willing to go into the classroom.

Each of the schools has a slightly different approach.

For example, the University of Arizona works with those who have degrees in another field and want to go back and get a master’s degree in education. That concept was showcased at a press conference by Clarisse White who has a degree in political science but is now student teaching high school government.

Northern Arizona University President Rita Cheng said her school is focused on a “grow your own” program, working with individuals in underserved communities to get them their teaching credentials while they continue to work at their old jobs.

And Arizona State University is providing mentoring support for graduates during their first year of teaching.

Gov. Doug Ducey, who proposed the program in January, said Tuesday he recognizes that putting more would-be teachers in the pipeline — this program provides free tuition to 200 — does not address the problem of keeping certified teachers in the profession.

The Morrison Institute for Public Policy reported earlier this year that 42 percent of Arizona teachers hired in 2013 are no longer teaching in an Arizona public school. And more than one-third of Arizona teachers have been in the classroom for four years or less.

“This is just one tool in the toolbox,” he said. Ducey cited other programs, including allowing people without teaching degrees to head classrooms.

“But we also know that student loan debt is an added challenge for many new teachers,” the governor said.

“Doctors, lawyers, business people, many will make six figures within a few years of graduation,” he said. “But for teachers, paying off the debt from their education can take decades.”

And Ducey said that, in some cases, that debt “may push them out of the profession.”

But UA President Robert Robbins, while citing the benefits of programs that pay for education degrees, said there’s another piece to the equation.

“My hope is that one day we will be able to pay the teachers that dedicate so much and are so important to our society and our country, a better reward than they currently get financially,” he said.

That Morrision Institute study said that elementary school teachers in Arizona are paid less than anywhere else in the country, even adjusting for cost of living. High school teachers fare little better, ranking 49th.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Ducey said when asked about what Robbins said. “This is why we put $168 million over and above inflation in last year’s budget.”

That includes $34 million for a 1.06 percent teacher pay hike, with a like amount promised for next school year, too. There is also $37 million for “performance-based funding,” awarding additional dollars to high-performing schools.

But only half of those new dollars are ongoing funding, with the rest being a one-time infusion, mostly for new school construction.

Ducey also cited the voter approval of Proposition 123 which will mean an additional $3.5 billion in state aid over a decade. But that was to settle a lawsuit filed by schools over the failure of lawmakers to meet their legal obligation in prior years to increase aid annually to match inflation, with some estimates putting the bottom line at only about 70 percent of what the schools would have received had the law been followed.

State School Superintendent Diane Douglas wants to expand an existing 0.6-cent education sales tax to a full penny, raising an additional $400 million a year. Douglas said putting $300 million of that into salaries would translate into an average pay hike of $5,500.

The additional tax revenues, opposed by Ducey, would raise salaries close to the national average.

Coincidentally, Cottonwood resident Robert Donahue filed paperwork this past week to force the state to increase teacher salaries by 30 percent and per-student funding by 36 percent. Donahue said he would pay for the change by eliminating various exempts from state sales taxes.

Donahue conceded he has no money to circulate petitions but said he could get the more than 150,000 valid signatures by next July if each teacher in the Arizona Education Association got 10 names on petitions.

In proclaiming the benefits of the teacher academy concept, Ducey said he could not take credit for the idea. He said it actually came from Fred DuVal, his 2014 Democratic foe, who suggested it during a debate they had in Tucson.

“I think it shows this is not a political issue,” the governor said.

The Teacher Burnout Epidemic, Part 1 of 2

How prevalent is burnout in the teaching profession?
Posted Nov 22, 2016

If you look up the term burnout in the dictionary, you’ll see examples like these demonstrating how the term is used:

  • “Teaching can be very stressful, and many teachers eventually suffer burnout.
  • the burnout rate among teachers” (Merriam-Webster, 2015, p. 1).

Even the dictionary seems to know burnout afflicts teachers. Considering that burnout means to tire or suffer due to a demanding job, you can probably understand why teachers suffer from burnout. Being a good teacher is considered by many to be exceptionally hard, and over the years many have referred to Glasser’s (1992) conclusion that teaching constitutes the hardest job of all in our society.

How Prevalent Is Teacher Burnout?

When writing my recent book on how to avoid and recover from teacher burnout, I researched the presence of teacher burnout in U.S. schools. I found that teacher burnout is actually an international epidemic. There is a steady supply of research on teacher burnout coming from Africa, Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe, Middle East, New Zealand, and South America. For example, nearly half of teachers in India suffer from burnout (Shukla & Trivedi, 2008) and half of male and female teachers studied in southern Jordan suffer from emotional exhaustion associated with burnout (Alkhateeb, Kraishan, & Salah, 2015). The U.K.’s Education Staff Health Survey indicated 91% of school teachers suffered from stress in the past two years and 74% experienced anxiety; 91% reported excessive workload as the major cause (a 13% increase from the last six years) (Stanley, 2014). Though working conditions and demands can vary from country to country, it seems that if a country has an established educational system then many of its teachers are experiencing burnout.

The U.S. is no exception:

  • About half a million (15% of) U.S. teachers leave the profession every year (Seidel, 2014).
  • More than 41% of teachers leave the profession within five years of starting, and teacher attrition has risen significantly over the last two decades (Ingersoll, Merrill, and Stuckey, 2014). This provides clarification to Ingersoll’s (2012) oft-cited estimate that 40%-50% of new teachers leave within their first five years on the job.
  • TNTP (formerly The New Teacher Project) reported almost 66% of the nation’s best teachers continue to leave the profession for careers elsewhere (Chartock & Wiener, 2014).

It is clear our teachers are struggling, but we should refrain from placing the blame on them. Rather, consider the demands and unsustainability of the job.

Is Teaching Really So Hard?

Teachers are well educated. They must meet specific content area requirements (such as by passing rigorous assessments in order to obtain their teaching credentials) and must each hold a university degree. In fact, 95% of teachers were considered “highly qualified” by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) standards (American Institutes for Research, 2013).

Teachers also enter the teaching profession with selfless intentions. When asked why they became teachers, 85% of teachers said it was because they wanted to make a difference in children’s lives (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2014). Even students note teachers’ good intentions. The Northwest Evaluation Association (2014) found 90% of students believe their teachers care about their learning.

We know teachers are committed to the profession, so it must take something major to overcome such devotion and prompt a teacher to quit. The following have proven to be dominating factors that make the teaching job difficult and are main contributors to burnout:

  • Volume (too much to do and not enough time – one of the most common problems and also one of the most burnout-rendering problems)
  • Environment (including overstimulation and inadequate resources)
  • Tedium (this generally applies to veteran teachers who find themselves doing the same thing year after year and does not typically pertain to new teachers)
  • Student Behavior (including classroom management, lack of boundaries at home, drug use, gang involvement, etc.)
  • Administration (when ineffective and/or antagonistic)
  • Community Relations (involving media, parent relations, etc.… all of whom can potentially disrespect teachers or not support teachers adequately)

  • There are many other challenging aspects to what is arguably our world’s most noble profession. However, the issues listed above directly trigger teacher burnout. Mindset is also at play, but this does not mean teachers should simply have a better attitude about a horrible situation (while doing nothing to change that situation), as that would not prevent burnout. Rather, exercising a growth mindset involves trying new approaches to problems in search of success, which helps tremendously while applying strategies to combat burnout.

    Teachers can take important steps to prevent burnout. For example, overwhelming work volume can be combatted with better grading practices, effective collaboration, not overcommitting, acquiring better curriculum or using sources that make finding such curriculum fast and easy, and leveraging the right technology tools that make a teacher’s job easier. However, the prevalence of burnout warrants more steps by those around teachers (e.g., administrators, policymakers, media, parents, and communities) to make the job more sustainable.

    What Next?

    In my next post for this column (Part 2), I’ll elaborate on the above challenges and examine whether teaching is currently an unsustainable profession. In addition, I’ll share research on teacher burnout’s effect on teachers and students.

    References

    Alkhateeb1, O., Kraishan, O. M.,  & Salah, R. O. (2015, May 27). Level of psychological burnout of a sample of secondary phase teachers in Ma’an Governorate and its relationship with some other variables. International Education Studies, 8(6), 56-68.  doi:10.5539/ies.v8n6p56

    American Institutes for Research (AIR). (2013). Most teachers “highly qualified” under NCLB standards, but teacher qualifications lag in many high poverty and high minority schools. Retrieved from http://www.air.org/reports-products/index.cfm?fa=viewContent&content_id=417

    Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (2014). Primary sources: America’s teachers on teaching in an era of change: A project of Scholastic and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (3rd ed.). Retrieved from http://www.scholastic.com/primarysources/download-the-full-report.htm

 

 

 

The Teacher Burnout Epidemic, Part 2 of 2

How is burnout affecting the teaching profession?
Posted Feb 01, 201
 
This post is in response to The Teacher Burnout Epidemic, Part 1 of 2 by Jenny Grant Rankin
 
Source: Routledge/Taylor & Francis (from the book First Aid for Teacher Burnout)

Too much to do and not enough time. Sustained overstimulation and inadequate resources. Chronically stressful classroom dynamics. These are just some of the challenges teachers face. One anonymous teacher says, “I’m always ‘on.’ Students are waiting by my door when I get to school, and the whole day is an onslaught of kids and adults wanting things from me… My mind has no rest. Even my sleep is restless” (Rankin, 2016, p. 34).

As covered in the Part 1 companion to this article, teacher burnout is an international epidemic. This epidemic hurts students, schools, and – of course – teachers. The conditions posed in Part 1 lead to the question of whether the current state of the teaching profession requires teachers to work at an unsustainable pace and/or level of stress.

Is Teaching an Unsustainable Profession?

Too much to do and not enough time. I’ll elaborate on just this one condition mentioned above to demonstrate how challenging each burnout trigger is. Consider the volume of demands with which teachers must contend. Teachers must continually shift directions as new tools and curriculum are adopted, and they continually have to learn and implement new approaches to teaching and classroom management. If you read a book on any aspect of teaching (differentiating instruction, seeing to the needs of non-native English speakers in your class, using data to inform decisions, etc.), the book will often contain overwhelming suggestions for how to do a good job with that particular aspect of teaching. Yet that would be just one aspect of teaching, and there are easily over 100 aspects of the job that teachers must execute well.

To do everything as well as is recommended is overwhelming when placed within the context of all of a teacher’s other responsibilities. A teacher must personalize and perfect instruction for each individual student’s needs, yet a teacher can easily have over 200 students (common at the secondary level). With this comes assessing and grading each student’s work, providing individualized feedback, fostering a collaborative relationship with parents and other caregivers, juggling ancillary job requirements, keeping up-to-date in one’s subject area, and more.

All (100%) of 30,000 teachers surveyed by the American Federation of Teachers (2015) “agreed” or “strongly agreed” they were enthusiastic about the profession when they began their careers, yet only 53% still agreed at whatever point in their careers they took the survey. Those who “strongly agreed” dropped from 89% to just 15%. Teaching is harder than it looks, the schedule is more demanding than it sounds, the number of demands that must be met simultaneously is crushing, and the stakes of having a major impact on so many young lives are sky high.

Consider the stress teachers are under:

  • Teachers have too many things to do in a limited amount of time (Staff and Wire Services Report, 2013).
  • When surveyed, 73% of teachers reported they are “often” under stress (American Federation of Teachers, 2015).
  • This percentage was higher than found two years earlier by Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (2013), when only 48% of teachers reported they were regularly under great stress. Even then, only 39% of U.S. teachers reported they were very satisfied (the lowest in 25 years).
  • 55% of U.S. teachers reported their morale is low or very low, and 69% of teachers reported their morale had declined (National Union of Teachers, 2013).
  • Even when teachers are passionate, working in a very demanding environmentleads to mental and physical fatigue that is hard to fight, affects one’s attitude, and makes it hard to work with students all day (Neufeldnov, 2014).

Now consider the working conditions’ impact on sustainability:

  • Teachers who do an excellent job are often working in unsustainable conditions (e.g., 60 hours per week, relentless stress, inadequate resources, lack of support or time, etc.) (Herman, 2014).
  • At “no excuses” schools where idealistic, energetic teachers work overtime to help struggling students, teachers typically leave after only a few years on the job (Neufeldnov, 2014).
  • In challenging schools, teachers’ job requirements and the intensity required to meet them are not realistic to sustain for more than two to three years (Riggs, 2013).

When most teachers report ongoing stress and morale-crushing conditions, and when teachers who do an excellent job are overworked to a degree that cannot be maintained, the teaching profession – as it currently stands – does not offer teachers healthy, sustainable working conditions.

How Does This Impact Students?

Teacher burnout is a problem even when teachers remain on the job. For example, teachers are less likely to be able to deliver high quality instruction when they are not able to decompress (Neufeldnov, 2014). Stressed, overworked, frustrated teachers are less able to connect in positive ways with students and to offer students the best instruction.

Teacher burnout is also a problem when teachers quit. The loss of teachers – requiring the need to find and prepare replacements – hurts students by costing schools significant funds. For example, losing early-career teachers, alone, costs the U.S. up to $2,200,000,000 every year (Haynes, 2014). High teacher turnover rates can also rob students of stable adult relationships, hurt student achievement, disrupt school culture, and be especially damaging in minority neighborhoods when they erode trust between teachers and students (Neufeldnov, 2014). This attrition is most harmful for poor students. The rate of U.S. teachers leaving the profession every year is 20% at high-poverty schools, which is significantly higher than at schools in financially secure areas (Seidel, 2014).

What Can Be Done?

When writing my recent book on how to avoid and recover from teacher burnout, I identified solutions that teachers and their colleagues can apply to prevent burnout and promote recovery. However, decision makers who impact our schools, educators, and students can also help make the teaching profession more sustainable. Policymakers and others who are in positions to initiate widespread reform should investigate the challenges teachers face so they can:

  • Prioritize, consolidate, and better organize demands so teachers are not pulled in so many different directions.
  • Facilitate adoption of well-vetted resources (e.g., comprehensive curriculum thoroughly aligned to standards, adequately-researched educational technology tools shown to be effective, etc.).
  • Improve the relevance of teacher preparation programs so today’s teaching needs (e.g., using student data to inform decision-making, selecting and incorporating educational technology to improve student learning but also to make the job more manageable, properly assessing students and applying formative feedback, etc.) are directly covered and practiced before new teachers begin teaching.

When a stakeholder of any role is aware of the prevalence and tenacity of teacher burnout, he or she is better equipped to support the teacher heroes in our schools.

References

American Federation of Teachers (2015). Quality of worklife survey. Retrieved from http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/worklifesurveyresults2015.pdf

Darling-Hammond, L. (2014, June 30). To close the achievement gap, we need to close the teaching gap. Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-darlinghammond/to-close-the-achievement_b_5542614.html

Haynes, M. (2014, July). On the path to equity: Improving the effectiveness of beginning teachers. Alliance for Excellence. Retrieved from http://all4ed.org/reports-factsheets/path-to-equity/

Be sure to check out the following site to provide resources for your special needs student.  They offer great ways to learn independence and leadership.

Arizona Statewide Independent Living Council
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