Teacher's Corner

Congrats to Nikki Cotton!!!
Teacher of the Year for Orange Beach Elementary and Teacher of the Year Baldwin County!!!
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Fifth grade students at Orange Beach Elementary School beat out 3,000 other student teams, including high school students, to win the Alabama Stock Market Game Grand Championship. Competing in the Lower Division of the South Region of the Alabama Stock Market Game, the team of Daniel Adams and Kaylen Bowdoin finished in first place for the Spring Session. Starting with $100,000 in the virtual stock market, the team bought and sold stocks for ten weeks ending with a total portfolio value of $157,464.

That ending balance also earned the pair the Grand Championship prize for the 2008-09 school year. Representative Steve McMillan and Senator Trip Pittman will award the cash prize of $500 to the students Thursday, May 21 at an all school ceremony. The fifth grade students study under Amy Edwards.

I want our teachers and staff to know that I feel your concern and frustration during these very difficult times. Proration and cutbacks have all weighed heavy on not only my heart, but my soul. My frustration lies in the fact that just as we were ready to make headway, in comes proration. Some cuts are good and force us to "streamline" our system and make it more efficient and effective, but some cuts are difficult, but necessary to our survival. It is my job to make sure we cut everything possible before making cuts that affect our classrooms.

There are a few issues that constantly leave our teachers feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. One issue that I know puts undue pressure on our teachers is NCLB. NCLB is an ongoing issue and the board and staff are aware of its stranglehold on teachers and funds. I have discussed this issue with Senator Pittman and he is dedicated to helping us work these issues out. There's no question that it must be modified in order for it to serve its original intention. Secondly, there is no question that proration leaves us all feeling uneasy. AEA has made an effort to protect our teachers' benefits and rights, but often the BCBE's hands are tied due to the constraints of the state mandates. I would like to ask AEA to help us thwart proration in Montgomery rather that fight our local efforts to conform to it. Their tremendous strength is what we need to lobby our Senators and Legislators for EDUCATION BAILOTS, not cutbacks.

Administrators are under a lot of pressure to perform in order to keep their jobs. Without seeing all of the underlying efforts and limitations, communities and parents have high expectations. They expect higher test scores, higher standards, and happy, well-rounded children. What they don't always understand are the constraints we are expected to overcome and conform to.

This leaves us all in a difficult position where we must deliver excellent results with fewer resources. I attended a state school board conference in B'Ham last month. There was one speaker in particular who made me change my way of thinking. (I don't even remember who the speaker was.) He gave examples of shining systems all across the nation. These systems had top test scores, top attendance percentages, and high morale among teachers and students. They excelled at everything they did and seemed to have the "midas" touch. Teachers spoke about loving what they do and being excited about coming to work every day. Surely, these must be magnet schools or private schools in high end neighborhoods. Surprisingly, as we got to the end of the story, they were schools from some of the poorest communities in the country. The dollars spent per pupil were well below our numbers. Buildings were old, roofs leaked, some did not even have a transportation system. We have little money to work with. They had none. The education of their children was the driving force of the schools. They overlooked what they didn't have and instead looked at how to be more effective with what they did have. The people made the system, not the dollars.

I know that our teachers are frustrated and afraid, but I'd put our educators up against any in the country. In order to get through these state mandates and difficult times ahead, we have to all be on the same team. I know it's not what we all want to hear, but the fact is that we have to pull together, pool our resources, and decide to be the best no matter what obstacles are thrown at us.

Here's a personal story that I'd like share with you that I'm sure is not unlike many other stories in our community. Our family (my husband and I, our four children, and my husband's parents) moved here in May, 2003. We sold our business in B'Ham to fulfill a lifelong dream of owning a family restaurant and living at the beach. A year and a half later, we lost our restaurant and our home in Hurricane Ivan. We found ourselves with nowhere to live and no income. We tried unsuccessfully to re-open our restaurant, but met hurdle after hurdle. Our children were afraid and looked to us for comfort. We could have let life get the best of us and wallowed in depression, but our childrens' futures would not allow it. "Survival mode" kicked in. It became a life lesson for all of us. Our children understood that times were tough and that money was tight, but we all worked together to get through it, and somehow, we managed to get by with much less. Our kids helped us clear debris from our home, our community brought us water and offered their help and support. We spray painted the words, "We'll be back" on the only wall left standing where our restaurant once stood. My husband and I spent 9 weeks attending real estate classes together and our children helped us study. The moral is that we could have given up and given in, but there was too much at stake. We built a successful real estate business, re-built our home, and sent our first child to college the following year. Although I wouldn't want to go through that again, our family learned a valuable lesson that year. Although we lost the "things" that once made us comfortable, we still had each other and it made our family stronger and more unified. The "things" were no longer important. The PEOPLE made the difference, not the money.

Our community has been through hurricanes, floods, insurance hikes, and economic woes, but, as in the past, we have survived by helping each other, coming together, thinking "outside the box" and creating new ways to be successful. We are forced to do more with less. My family calls it "survival mode". Our schools are no different. We are in "survival mode" as a system, and our childrens' education is at stake.