Accelerating Texas K12 Education: Recent Episodes
Summit K12
Listen in as host, Daniel Litwin, brings on EdTech thought leaders to provide insights and solutions on relevant topics and challenges in the industry.
Ector County ISD is an education leader in Texas on several initiatives. Scott Muri, the Superintendent of Ector County ISD, spoke with JW Marshall on his approach to leadership, building leaders within the school district, and how to execute a successful strategic district planning roadmap.
Muri, a lifelong educator, came to Ector County in July of 2019. He spent the first three months on the job in deep learning mode, so he could help shape and inform the strategic plan that the district developed. “After that period of looking, listening, and learning, we pulled a group of community stakeholders together to analyze all I had heard and seen in those first one hundred days,” Muri said.
There were multi-challenges to tackle, from staffing issues (over three hundred teaching vacancies to start the 2019 school year) to building a solid educational foundation. But the strategic plan helped focus the district’s energies on three themes: foundational excellence, talent, and learning journey. These elements have driven all of Ector County ISD’s efforts for the past three years.
To unveil these efforts, Muri said the district planned an exciting launch event that March of 2020 to bring the whole community together. The week before the event, the pandemic shut down the school district.
Some of Muri’s plans needed a touch of tweaking to deal with the new realities of a global pandemic, but the thing about plans is that they can change. “It’s not something that you do and stick it on a shelf, and five years later, you do another one,” Muri said. “To me, a strategic plan is a living, breathing document that drives the work forward. And regardless of the pandemic, situations in a school district are constantly ebbing, flowing, and changing. So, that body of work should always reflect the current needs of the organization.”
IMCAT, or the Instructional Materials Coordinators’ Association of Texas, is on a mission to support and serve the instructional material coordinator community by sharing their expertise and knowledge. Jeff Funderburgh, President-Elect of IMCAT, and Maira Garcia, Training Committee Chair of IMCAT, spoke with JW Marshall about IMCAT and how they train and assist instructional materials coordinators to best serve their school districts and students throughout Texas.
Funderburgh also ensures instructional material delivery to over 25,000 students in his role at Birdsville ISD near Fort Worth, while Garcia also serves as the Instructional Materials Coordinator for McAllen ISD in South Texas.
IMCAT began in 1991 as an outlet to help coordinate, share best practices, and make the overall job of facilitating instructional materials easier for the community at large throughout the state of Texas. Over the years, IMCAT’s grown to over six hundred members, with representatives in every region in the state. “We navigate the EMAT and state regulations and keep our districts in compliance with the law,” Funderburgh said.
Keeping up with regulations is no easy feat, with updates occurring every year. So, having an organization that can assist with keeping up with regulations is an invaluable asset for school districts. At IMCAT’s summer institute program, new instructional materials coordinators have an opportunity to learn the ropes and get ready for the upcoming school year. “Our big focus on summer institute is training those new coordinators and providing updates to those coordinators who’ve been with us for a while,” Garcia said. Garcia added that IMCAT facilitates the process with them to focus on the critical components they need to know about their job. “We try to be an organization that’s big on support and just helping other people.”
IMCAT, or the Instructional Materials Coordinators’ Association of Texas, is on a mission to support and serve the instructional material coordinator community by sharing their expertise and knowledge. Jeff Funderburgh, President-Elect of IMCAT, and Maira Garcia, Training Committee Chair of IMCAT, spoke with JW Marshall about IMCAT and how they train and assist instructional materials coordinators to best serve their school districts and students throughout Texas.
Funderburgh also ensures instructional material delivery to over 25,000 students in his role at Birdsville ISD near Fort Worth, while Garcia also serves as the Instructional Materials Coordinator for McAllen ISD in South Texas.
IMCAT began in 1991 as an outlet to help coordinate, share best practices, and make the overall job of facilitating instructional materials easier for the community at large throughout the state of Texas. Over the years, IMCAT’s grown to over six hundred members, with representatives in every region in the state. “We navigate the EMAT and state regulations and keep our districts in compliance with the law,” Funderburgh said.
Keeping up with regulations is no easy feat, with updates occurring every year. So, having an organization that can assist with keeping up with regulations is an invaluable asset for school districts. At IMCAT’s summer institute program, new instructional materials coordinators have an opportunity to learn the ropes and get ready for the upcoming school year. “Our big focus on summer institute is training those new coordinators and providing updates to those coordinators who’ve been with us for a while,” Garcia said. Garcia added that IMCAT facilitates the process with them to focus on the critical components they need to know about their job. “We try to be an organization that’s big on support and just helping other people.”
To kick off its first episode, host of K12 Summit’s new Educator Series podcast, JW Marshall, spoke with Dr. Liz Garza Garcia, president of BEAM with 16 years in education. While “Lizzie,” as nicknamed in college, would have never been associated with teaching, Garcia began mentoring and tutoring students in junior college. The experience of witnessing Spanish-speaking students fall behind because of the language barrier — not a knowledge gap — sparked her desire and passion for teaching.
Garcia’s education career progressed from tutor to educator and eventually administration; regardless the stage, she focused her path on impacting bilingual and inequitable learning environments. “I went and decided to go into administration to be that administrator I never had,” Garcia explained.
After witnessing these unfair learning conditions, Garcia enrolled in a university — one that was up to par with her passion for equality and bilingual education — to receive a doctorate and gain even more credibility. While at her school of choice, Texas A&M Commerce, Garcia decided to focus on the evaluator’s feedback perspective from bilingual educators. The unfortunate realization of her studies? “Nothing really has changed and … more inequities have begun to open up and be masked [with Band-Aid fixes].”
For districts with bilingual programs, Garcia believes the educators should take the initiative to research the topic through getting involved with their local bilingual association (found at nabe.org) and discovering more resources at beamdfw.org.
“The great hope is that we’re going to be the mecca… Every single district that has a thriving dual-language program is trying to reach the same exact place — and that’s the mecca of dual-language programming.” Garcia, clearly passionate on the subject, is confident that if everyone has the same vision, then they will undoubtedly reach their goal while also exciting single-language students to learn an additional language to get in on the fun.
Host of K12 Summit’s Educator Series podcast, JW Marshall, sat down with David Nungaray, the public relations chair for the Texas Association of Bilingual Education (TABE) and bilingual consulting partner with The New Teacher Project. Growing up as a bilingual student himself, Nungaray has a mission of elevating the importance of multilingual education.
For his home state currently, Texas is leading the charge in elevating the dual-language programs through legislature being proposed and passed, and the Texas Education Agency initiating dual-language frameworks across the state.
Nungaray reflected on his time as a former fourth-grade bilingual educator, and the joy of seeing students embrace their heritage in today’s more-supportive environment. “It’s amazing to see the kids who I taught back in fourth grade and now seeing them in college,” Nungaray said. “They often point to the fact that being bilingual and biliterate were a large part of what contributed to where they’re at today.”
So, how can others help support bilingualism advocacy and education? To celebrate its 50th year, TABE is hosting the inaugural Bilingual Symposium that features dual language’s three goals — academic achievement, bilingualism and biliteracy, and sociocultural competence — and speakers that represent each goal. Keynote speaker, Dr. Leo Gomez, will kick off the virtual event on June 17–18.
With the pandemic significantly adversely affecting multilingual students, Nungaray is excited to see the topic being talked about and put at the forefront of education priorities: “It’s exciting to see the work that dual language has in terms of transforming the work of education… We really want the best programs available to our students that are really helping them have a life of opportunities.”
For more information on the Symposium, follow TABE on social media or register on the event’s website.
On this episode of Accelerating Texas K12 Education, Quintin Shepherd, Superintendent for Victoria I.S.D., joins the show to discuss his new book The Secret to Transformational Leadership and shares some of his favorite takeaways with JW Marshall.
Day by day, and inch by inch, Shepherd finds new ways to advance education in his role as superintendent. Part of Shepherd’s leadership philosophy revolves around understanding the connotations of the word complicated. As an example, Shepherd applied pandemic education response. Every situation is different, but when people can google what one school district did during the pandemic, they can quickly apply lessons to their school. “The book lays out a need for language around complicated and complex,” Shepherd said. “I also tie it to the transactional versus transformational.”
Shepherd said the secret to transformational is both simple and complex. “The secret is simple in that we need to adopt different language,” Shepherd said about how leaders describe things. The complexity comes in understanding when to use a different language. And the book lays out instances and terminology for leaders to use.
If the pandemic taught Shepherd one thing, it is compassion is an essential quality every leader needs to possess. That compassion provides empathy, but it means leaders will take action with purpose to make their environments better.
Although Shepherd is an educator, and his new book will be an indispensable resource for any educational leader, he hopes that anyone in a leadership role finds the tools and strategies laid out in his book helpful.
Finding quality professional organizations as a bi-lingual teacher to network, enjoy professional development opportunities, and find answers to difficult questions can be challenging. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was even more so.
In this episode, Dr. Liz Garza-Garcia, President, BEAM spoke with life-long members Dr. Annette Torres-Elias, Associate Professor, Texas Woman’s University, and Dr. Uvaldina “Dini” Janacek, Retired Assistant Professor, the University of North Texas at Dallas about the benefits of being a member of the BEAM Association.
To begin, BEAM stands for Bilingual/ESL Education Association of the Metroplex. The organization has its roots in the Texas Association for Bilingual Education (TABE) which held its first conference in 1976. Eventually, the work started at this conference led to the creation of BEAM which continues to thrive with nearly 900 educators from 40+ districts across the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex (BEAM DFW).
Dr. Janicek found the organization quite by accident. A bi-lingual teacher since 1989, she was happy to find a place where she could get support for her work. And, despite being retired, she continues to work with BEAM.
“One of the things that intrigues me the most about BEAM is that it’s a pre-K, 16 plus partnership. I encountered that term when I was an administrator at one of the area community colleges. And I think that makes so much sense to link the pre-K12 education system with higher education,” Janicek said.
When asked what keeps her involved, Janicek said, “when I go to BEAM meetings, it makes me feel like I have really devoted myself to a worthy venture, a worthy career. It gives me validation in terms of my life’s work, and I want to keep contributing any way I can.
Dr. Torres-Elias has a similar story. She found BEAM as a graduate student at Texas Woman’s University in the mid-1990s after completing an alternative certification for bilingual education. In the early 90s, Dr. Torres-Elias started work in a school district with a brand-new bilingual program. There were only three teachers with lots of questions and very few answers. “A lot of will to do good for kids but not enough hours. Searching for answers I came to BEAM and I found answers and so much more,” Torres-Elias stated.
Dr. Torres-Elias continued to talk about how “BEAM has been an important part of [her] professional career. I became a member looking for support, networking, professional development, and advocacy. And those are precisely the reasons I am still a member of BEAM.”
For more information about BEAM DFW, visit beamdfw.org.
Community… professional development… opportunity… a network that supports, elevates and encourages bilingual educators to thrive in building a career that brings out the highest levels of achievement and success in every individual. Sound like a dream? Join the BEAM organization to become a member of a community that is this and so much more.
In one of the first episodes of the BEAM DFW podcast, Dr. Liz Garza-Garcia, President, BEAM spoke with lifelong members Dr. Luis Rosado, Professor & Director Center for Bilingual Education, University of Texas at Arlington, Dr. Patsy Robles-Goodwin, Professor & Director for Bilingual Education Programs, Texas Wesleyan University, and Dr. Patsy Sosa-Sanchez, Assistant Professor, University of North Texas at Dallas regarding their journey to discovering and staying with the BEAM organization for over 20 years.
Dr. Robles-Goodwin noted that BEAM did not exist when she started teaching but heard about the organization in the 1990s after becoming a school administrator. At the time, she was drawn to the organization because it was comprised of many districts. In fact, this is one of the unique aspects of BEAM that is attractive to members.
“As a school administrator it was an opportunity to join with others that were like me, in my position and to involve my teachers in an organization that was from Dallas/Fort Worth,” said Dr. Robles-Goodwin.
Dr. Rosado joined in 1998 after becoming a member of the Texas Woman’s University faculty. As a bilingual faculty member and student at TWU, participation in BEAM events and activities was expected as a part of the professional development process.
Dr. Sosa-Sanchez became a member “through the BESO organization [when she was a student at TWU] which is the beginning of a great journey in becoming a qualified bilingual teacher. The opportunities that BEAM offers BESO members are really just amazing because of the professional development opportunities that we have.”
And why do they stay after over 20 years of service? Dr. Rosado shared his view on why he continues to work with the organization. “The BEAM association basically keeps me alive because this is a very active association, and the youth of the new leaders make me feel engaged. This is something that I want to keep on doing it.” He also noted that it was wonderful to see BESO students getting advanced degrees and becoming the leaders of today.
BEAM (Bilingual/ESL Education Association of the Metroplex) has nearly 900 educators from 40+ districts across the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. And during the pandemic, the organization has experienced growth outside of the Dallas/Fort Worth areas. The conversation opened with a discussion of how each member found BEAM.
For more information about BEAM DFW, visit beamdfw.org.
Roni Burren, President of TCTELA, is a self-professed lover of books, children, and justice. She is a longtime K12 educator and current adjunct professor at the University of Houston. She spoke with JW Marshall about her role as president of the Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts and its focus on supporting ELA teachers through student choice reading initiatives.
In between year-round brainstorming conferences, the TCTELA recommends books for teaching reading at every level within K-12 classrooms. Supporting student choice in reading is an essential part of this work. Burren said the concepts on student reading have evolved, and telling students, ‘These are the books we’re reading,’ case closed is no longer the best teaching strategy.
“Over time, what people started to see was kids who became livelong readers were kids who were able to choose the books they wanted to read,” Burren said. “They had this steady diet of choice.” Research shows that when students have regular exposure to reading choices, they are more accepting of required reading assignments.
The core foundation of every successful movement in cultivating change and growth is education. Former district superintendent and current Executive Director of The Texas School Alliance, Dr. Curtis Culwell, joined host J.W. Marshall to speak about educational policy, innovation, and student experience.
Dr. Culwell realizes that not every student starts at the same place; wherein the need for differential learning for students exists.
In learning from the pandemic, Dr. Culwell stated the need for the effects on learning to be critically evaluated and applied, if useful, in situations moving forward. In speaking on this topic, Dr. Culwell stated, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” which directly referenced the transitionary properties the pandemic has had on education.
While education today may “look like swiss cheese” given the gaps in learning that were and are still caused by the pandemic, technology is trying to fill this gap via accelerated learning.
Dr. Culwell recognized the impact distance learning had on different students and different families. The situation did not work for everyone, but there was a study recently published which highlighted that virtual learning improved learning in “10-20% of students.”
In this way, Dr. Culwell highlighted the fact that no one side fits all, especially when it comes to education. There are a multitude of aspects within learning environments, including social and emotional factors, which can contribute to the students’ learning process.
Dr. Culwell posed a question of the relationship between virtual learning and equity - how might this play out in the future of education? Dr. Culwell thought it might be creating an understanding on how one might use technology as a resource for building personalized learning plans for students.
One thing is for certain, what we learned from the pandemic and what we continue to learn is pertinent to the future of building life-long learners in education.
Podcast host, JW Marshall, welcomed guest Dr. Melana Silvia, former curriculum Director of Pre-K through 12 Math and Science program for the Calallen Independent School District, Corpus Christi, TX to discuss the past, present, and future state of education on the popular podcast Accelerating Texas K12 Education.
Dr. Silvia spent 33 years in education with 24 of those years spent working at Calallen. She retired in 2021 and became a training consultant for teachers. While no longer in the school buildings influencing district decisions, Dr. Silvia continues to help others positively impact education while improving students’ learning outcomes.
The discussion covered the breadth of challenges and opportunities brought on by the pandemic with a focus on how experiences and lessons learned will impact future generations. “Everyone struggled at the beginning, We didn’t have the background knowledge or the equipment to set up to start doing virtual learning,” Dr. Silvia noted.
She went on to discuss the challenges of returning to the classroom, virtual learning, technology, Texas House Bill 4545, and much more. Interestingly enough, one of the biggest challenges since returning is meeting the requirements of House Bill 4545 in a manner that truly helps students. What was surely intended to be helpful has placed a significant burden on teachers and administrators.
When asked about the future of students who thrived in a virtual environment, Dr. Silvia agreed that she personally knew “some families who thrived in the virtual setting.” And “moving forward I really feel like there needs to be that option. I don’t feel like it needs to be part of a public-school setting for every school district.”
Liz Garza-Garcia, BEAM (Bilingual/ESL Education Association of the Metroplex for the North Central Texas Region) President, began her education journey with a simple goal in mind: to become an educator. During her University Studies, a professor changed Garza-Garcia’s direction, instilling in her the idea that if she possessed the ability to speak or learn another language, her goal should be to educate others to do the same. Garza-Garcia spoke with JW Marshall about her road in bi-lingual education and the importance of BEAM’s mission.
“Through my journey of becoming who I am today, I couldn’t have done it without BEAM,” Garza-Garcia said. “I started out in BEAM as a young undergrad. As an undergrad student, I was a BESO member, which is the bilingual education student organization. This organization is built within the universities that have teacher preparation programs.” BESO members enjoy BEAM membership, and this gateway created numerous opportunities for Garza-Garcia for the past eighteen years.
The BEAM community acts as an informational conduit to keep educators up to date on what’s happening in the educational space. “With the challenges we were already facing before COVID, now we’re dealing with everything COVID throws at us and still not being told everything,” Garza-Garcia said. “And so, we try to keep great open lines of communication with our folks, our members, at the higher education sector because they’re the ones who really get into the nitty-gritty of understanding what changes are coming, which ones are going to benefit teachers and which ones can prolong the completion of teacher preparation programs.”
Every spring, BEAM puts on its annual symposium. This year’s symposium will commence on Saturday, April 2, 2022, at the John H Guyer High School in Denton, TX. There is a student essay competition for grades 3-12 with cash prizes. Information on this year’s symposium is available at https://www.beamdfw.org/symposium.
With the education sector completely disrupted from the pandemic, school administration and students alike are feeling anxiety and pressure from the uncertainty and instability of the world. What does the ‘new normal’ look like for educating students? How are schools handling staff burnout? Answering these questions and more on Accelerating Texas K12 Education is Kevin Brown, executive director of Texas Association of School Administration (TASA).
TASA, an organization with a mission to develop educational leaders and support students, saw an opportunity to level up during the pandemic. While COVID-19 brought many challenges and hardships, Brown noted that there is a silver lining, like the added flexibility; a switch to social and emotional wellbeing; rapid technology integration and adaptation; and tailoring student learning to the individual.
“Maybe this is the shot in the arm that we needed in terms of getting schools to be transformation-thinking and really personalizing for individual students throughout our country,” Brown explained.
Unlike reforming schools, like in the early 1900s when schools were painstakingly standardized everything, 21st century learning will involve transforming schools that focuses on the individual and initiatives like implementing technology, being dynamic and listening to students. Additionally, administrators are realizing the significant importance of improving mental health, for both staff and students.
According to Brown, these changes are ambitious and will require a strategic overhaul of the learning experience. However, the culture shift that will result from it will undoubtedly increase the educational experience for all.
“I’ve never been prouder … this nation continued to move forward because of teachers in classrooms, bus drivers, tech specialists, principals, superintendents and school boards who every day, in the midst of crisis, were able to keep things going and take care of everyone,” Brown said. Educators were on the front line, and the world can’t forget that.
Summit K12’s vision is “Creating a digital platform that differences and accelerates learning for every student.” John Kresky, Founder and CEO of Summit K12, joined Host Tyler Kern to discuss how this vision came to fruition and how Summit K12 is growing into this.
Kresky began his career working at Study Island, an online test preparation company. He moved into consulting with education technology companies and eventually bought a company from National Geographic K12 to create Summit K12.
Summit K12 focuses on creating a digital platform that accelerates learning and optimizes the education path for every student. The platform’s three domains include differentiating reading level, content mastery, and language acquisition needs to create a dynamic learning path on all three dimensions. “Ultimately, it’s about equity and being able to differentiate and accelerate learning and being able to provide the accommodations that are needed for each individual student,” Kresky stated.
Another aspect of Summit K12 is providing professional development to teachers so they can efficiently use technology tools and target which students need help in specific areas so they do not provide the same generic content to all students. “The key to accelerating learning is not to go back and reteach an entire grade level that that student may have missed. Just to go back on those skills where they need the support, go back, scaffold vertically,” Kresky said.
Summit K12 works on both the market and partner level. Kresky explained, “We’re looking at what’s going on at the legislative or state level and then proactively working with partners to build solutions ahead of the curve.”
For more information on the Summit K12, visit summitk12.com, follow Summit K12’s social media channels, connect with Kresky on LinkedIn, or subscribe to the Accelerating Texas K12 Education podcast on Apple iTunes or Spotify.
The podcast will focus on discussing how to accelerate education and learning at all levels and subject areas so current students are not part of “the lost generation.” Summit K12 prioritizes “enabling every student to reach their personal summit.” This involves implementing values such as differentiated learning, equity, and personalized learning. Customer stories on how they have impacted students’ confidence and motivation will also be featured.
Summit K12 believes there are two mountains in education—content and language development. Language development is the beginning of everything and is Summit K12’s core. This means ensuring bilingual students, ESL students, and all others can process content. “We really feel like we’ve built a really meaningful cross curricular solution that helps those students with really strong scaffolds to meet them where they’re at content-wise and language-wise at the same time,” Marshall stated.
Overall, Summit K12 is excited to share educational views from the last two years and discuss how the golden age of education will develop with content personalization. Marshall added that Summit is “focused on partnering with schools and school districts and educators. Not just being a vendor, not just being transactional, but really being a partner that goes the extra mile not just because its good business but because it’s a passionate company.”
For more information on the Summit K12, visit summitk12.com or subscribe to the Accelerating Texas K12 Education podcast on Apple iTunes or Spotify.