In partnership with eSchool News, Illuminate Education is spotlighting teachers in a series recognizing educators, the way they have moved instruction online during COVID-19, and how they have prioritized the needs of their students.
Ann Grey Newcomb
ESL Teacher
West Oxford Elementary School
Granville County Public Schools
“If there is a silver lining, it’s that we see the heart on the sleeve of educators that I already knew was there.”
Before school closures, what did a typical day look like?
At the school, I am a half-time ESL teacher and a half-time Instructional Support Coach. So a typical day would be seeing students, maybe two or three grade levels, in a small group for about half a day. If I’m lucky, I can sometimes “push into” a classroom and co-teach to help the EL learners. Other days are spent working on PLCs all day, looking at data, making instructional decisions, and matching instructional needs to resources. Other days I am training teachers and co-teaching, which is my favorite coaching method. So my day to day is varied, which is one of the things I like most about my job.
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How have you been able to adopt to a remote learning model for your students?
I will give big props to Granville County Public Schools, which has really gone above and beyond, in my estimation, to reach all children at this time. We have a lot of low income families who don’t have the same resources as others, so we’ve been working on a way to make learning equitable. Our School Counselor, Mrs. Christy Currin, and our Media Assistant, Mrs. Sonia Hernandez, have done an amazing job at taking instructional packets out into the community and leaving them on doorsteps. While we are starting to have more and more assignments online, I do have a lot of students working on these hard copy packets. So far, we have been able to issue Chromebooks to students in Grades 4 and up and have ordered additional devices for Grades K- 3. We have also boosted internet capability in the school parking lot.
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