Big Sur Charter School

While completing my student teaching at BSCS, I saw the magic of untraditional teaching practices. All of the teachers met students where they were both academically and socio-emotionally and allowed students to be authentically themselves, while still providing rigorous instruction. I saw the impact providing accommodations even as simple as a student sitting on the floor or playing low music had on student success and knew that regardless, I needed to provide flexibility and untraditional accommodations for all my students.
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I was fortunate to rejoin the BSCS staff for the 2020-2021 academic year as the teacher of record for 2nd and 3rd grades. While we were still facilitating distance learning, I adapted the school's curriculum for students and began using a flipped-classroom model. Teaching young students over Zoom was not something I ever anticipated of doing, but it was a creative challenge to engage students and ensure their learning needs were being met as authentically as possible. Thankfully, during the 2021-2022 school year we were able to return to in-person learning and I was able to loop with my classes, teaching then 3rd and 4th grades as well as being the teacher of record for Transitional Kindergarten. Being able to teach in-person again was definitely a relief but provided the new challenge of continuing students' education with the expectations of the current grade level while still meeting individual students' needs.

Roosevelt Elementary School

Through my time teaching fifth grade at Roosevelt Elementary School within the Salinas City Elementary School District, I became comfortable and confident in various Language Arts pedagogies, specifically when it came to reading comprehension instruction. Not only did the majority of students read below grade level, across all four years approximately 80% of my students were English Language Learners, too. The vast differences in English reading and comprehension skills throughout my classroom challenged me to be more purposeful, engaging, and aware of my own teaching style and texts I used. I worked very closely with Roosevelt’s Academic Coach, Special Education teacher, and Assistant Principal to ensure I was providing quality, scaffolded instruction at a rigorous level.

​I also expanded my own leadership skills by participating as the fifth grade representative for the Monterey County Office of Education’s North County Professional Learning Network. During this time, our teacher leaders identified a specific problem of practice within our school based on SBAC data and created a systematic approach to address with staff and students alike; resulting in Roosevelt students demonstrating tremendous growth on the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. Our fifth grade level team was recognized by the Board of Education for our students’ academic growth and I received Salinas City Elementary School District’s equivalent to “Teacher of the Year,” the “Champion in Education” award for the 2018-2019 school year. Comparatively, many of the observations and continuous cycles of improvements I participated or implemented in with SCESD used quantitative data, so I became extremely familiar with different types of data collections, analytics, and reports as well as listening to others and disseminating vital information and training to my colleagues.

Student Projects

After students perform a waste audit on another class' trash cans, they create art projects using reusable materials found (above).

After learning about building supports and angles, students followed the design thinking process to collaborate and plan a structure then test.

Students use NearPod and student-teachers for review of math skills.

Area tiles in small groups are commonly used to demonstrate and reinforce math concepts.

Students complete "map math" of California to practice decimal addition and geography skills.

Students build, observe, and analyze worm habitats to see the impact of decomposers on matter cycles.