Experience

Elgin ISD

• United States
• Primary and Secondary Education
• 200 - 300 Employee

• Coach

  • Jun 2021 - Present

  As a coach, my philosophy is that anything is possible. I teach my girls to trust and love themselves and one another. I teach them that failure is the process of trying, and quitting is not an option. I put all of my faith and dedication into my team, worked extra hours establishing an 'open gym time' on Saturdays during season, and encouraged the girls to show up for themselves and their team. Each practice, open gym, and game we would repeat the following: I love myself, I love my team; I believe in myself, I believe in my team; I can win, I will win. As you can see, I take this philosophy, and my role as their leader, very seriously -- the resilience that they learn to build as teens follows them into adulthood. I strive to ensure my girls become, and remain, well-rounded, ambitious, and resilient young women; this can be seen as they rose to the occasion time-and-time again through their season.In the 2021-2022 schoolyear, I was able to take a team of 12 girls, of whom only two had ever touched a volleyball, and train them to be a comeback-team. Where our team had lost to all competitors on their first round, they then came back to place 3rd in the Rockdale tournament, as well as beat all competitors to whom they initially lost. I went from having a team of only two girls who were able to successfully serve over a net, to 10 girls being able to consistently serve in every game. There were days where they didn't believe in themselves, didn't trust the process, but they still maintained faith and came out on top. Show less

• Special Education Teacher

  • Jul 2019 - Present

  As a case manager and campus department chair with the Special Education Department (SPED) at Elgin ISD, I have multiple roles within our scholastic community. As a case manager, I am responsible for creating individualized education plans (IEPs) for each of my students on my caseload. This will be anywhere from 18-25 students, for whom I analyze data for yearly meetings called ARDs. At these meetings, we review present levels of functionality in academics, create goals, and verify accommodations the student will need to be successful in school. In addition to creating these IEPs, I also monitor each of my students' goals on a 9-week basis, assessing growth based on a variety of sources such as: tests, data collection, individual samples, observations, and teacher reports/conferences.As department chair, I attend leadership meetings on a monthly basis with our school administration. Here, I obtain information which is in turn relayed to my team. If my team has needs that require being addressed, I take those needs to the leadership committee, and we work in a wholistic way to resolve any concerns, as well as work towards solutions.An additional role I have as department chair is to be a mentor to new teachers. I have weekly sessions with my trainees where we address any concerns, questions, or challenges pertaining to our profession and department.Lastly, as a SPED case manager and inclusion teacher, I am also a co-teacher in the classrooms I visit for inclusion support. This means I am not only responsible for providing, implementing, and tracking accommodations, I am also responsible for keeping up with academic materials for both 7th and 8th grade, as I take over teaching lessons for whole and small group instruction as well. Show less