Parenting Archives - Page 3 of 30

Jan 30 2024

Nurturing Your Children’s Passions

It’s a new year! Your children may become anxious about how to fill long dark winter days. What can you do as parents to nurture their passions? When your children tend to shut down on cold winter days, you may feel overwhelmed and frustrated on how your family will get through the winter months without going crazy. [Read more…]

Mary Ann Burke, Digital Education Expert

Mary Ann Burke, Ed.D., Digital Education Expert, is a substitute distance learning teacher for Oak Grove School District in San Jose, California and the author of STUDENT-ENGAGED ASSESSMENT: Strategies to Empower All Learners (Rowman & Littlefield: 2020). Dr. Burke creates digital language arts and substitute teaching K – 12 activities for teachers and parents. She is the Cofounder of the Genparenting.com blog. Burke is the former Director II of Categorical & Special Projects for the Santa Clara County Office of Education that supports 31 school districts serving 272,321 students in Santa Clara County. She is also a previous Director – State & Federal Compliance for Oakland Unified School District, the former Director – Grantwriter for the Compton Unified School District, and was the initial VISTA Director for the Community Partnership Coalition in southern California. Much of her work focuses on creating innovative digital trainings and partnership programs for teachers and families to support students’ learning. These programs were featured as a best practice at a National Title I Conference, California’s Title I Conferences, AERA Conferences, an ASCD Conference, the NASSP Conference, and statewide educator conferences.

Jan 02 2024

Acts of Kindness Monthly Calendar

Happy new year 2024! Each year many of us make new year’s resolutions and will fail fulfilling them within the first few weeks. This year I made the commitment to help our younger family members give back to their community. Planning should not overwhelm our family when considering their demanding schedules. To overcome this challenge, we convened family meetings with Brandon, Anna, and Maria. [Read more…]

Mary Ann Burke, Digital Education Expert

Dec 19 2023

What is an IEP?

An IEP, short for Individualized Education Program, is a comprehensive and tailored document designed to support students with disabilities in their academic pursuits. This personalized roadmap is created through a collaborative effort involving teachers, parents or guardians, school administrators, and, when applicable, specialists such as therapists or counselors. The main purpose of an IEP is to ensure that students with disabilities receive appropriate and tailored educational services and support to help them succeed academically and make progress toward their educational goals. The IEP serves as a blueprint for your child’s educational journey. [Read more…]

Alison Whiteley

Alison Whiteley has been a special education teacher for over 15 years, spending most of her time working with elementary students and families. After graduating from the University of Colorado with a Bachelor of Arts in Special Education and Psychology, she continued her education with a Masters in Reading from Walden University. In addition, she has achieved endorsements supporting Early Childhood Special Education and Diverse Learners which she uses to help identify needs across all learners.

Ms. Whiteley is trained in Wilson Reading System and Yoshimoto Orton-Gillingham. She believes all students can learn to read and be successful. She has served as a Special Education Coach and Mentor to fellow specialists and teachers, facilitated the creation of her elementary school’s Response to Intervention/Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (RTI/MTSS) process and helped parents through the Special Education process as IEP Coach for parents. In 2013 she completed the National Boards of Professional Teaching in Exceptional Needs with recertification in 2022. Her areas of expertise involve working with students with learning disabilities, supporting stakeholders moving through the special education process, and helping parents and teachers understand what they can do to support struggling learners in the public school settings.

She is a founding member of the Colorado Reading League and a member of the International Dyslexia Association in Colorado. Alison has two greyhounds and two nephews who keep her busy outside of school. She is the CEO of Toad-ally Exceptional Learners at http://www.toad-allyexceptionallearners.com. Alison is a valuable source of information to support teachers and parents, although she is not a lawyer and does not give legal advice. Her services support families through the IEP process and how they can be an equal member of the team through positive interactions. She focuses on collaboration and using tools to take IEPs to the new level of helping students achieve.

www.GenParenting.com

Aug 28 2023

Keeping the Peace at Home

School is starting in the next few weeks. I am having various combinations of grandkids spend the final days of summer in my home. As a parent educator and teacher, I have learned a variety of effective classroom management strategies that work well at home as well as at school. Here are my top 10: [Read more…]

Mary Ann Burke, Digital Education Expert

Jul 04 2023

Moving with Kids

In a few weeks, our family will move across the country, back to my hometown. Our family has experienced the spectrum of emotions about the move: excitement, hope, anxiety, and sadness. Sometimes a few feelings all at once!

Looking Forward To Hellos As We Say Goodbye

I have always sensed the weight and importance of walking my children through this move in a healthy way, allowing time to discuss all the feelings as they surface. I felt a little lost about how to do this. I wanted my kiddos to process leaving friends and our home here but also look ahead to the new opportunities waiting for them in the Midwest. [Read more…]

Jo Baldwin

Jo Baldwin first considered teaching as a career in seventh grade after helping a cousin survive summer school homework. Jo’s high school English teacher also inspired her love of teaching and continues to be one of her mentors to this day. After graduating with a B.A. in English and a secondary teaching credential from Northern Illinois University, she moved to California and taught in a private secondary school and then a public middle school. Jo now spends her time homeschooling two of her children, chasing animals on her hobby farm, and writing children’s literature. She loves to travel and explore wherever life takes her, wander through used bookstores, drink strong coffee with plenty of cream, and use newly sharpened pencils. She agrees with William Butler Yeats’ viewpoint on learning: “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”