Regional Updates
The CCV Embraces Fall and a New Way of Supporting the Central Valley
This month, the CCV team has been working to understand on a deeper level, who are our people and how can we support them? Some key questions that we hope to answer are:
- Who are our alumni?
- Who haven’t we connected with?
- What do you alumni and partner school need and want?
- How can we help support?
Last month, we asked in our newsletter…How can TFA CCV help and support? We got some great responses. One of them was from our long standing partner school network Aspire Central Valley. Some of the central valley Aspire schools from Sacramento and Stockton came together to celebrate the incredible work of students, families and schools. Students were celebrated during the REFP celebration who have been reclassified from English Learner to English Proficient…a huge accomplishment cleverly celebrated as “Ser bilingue, es mi superpoder” or “Being bilingual is my superpower.”
This November, we are highlighting a 2016 CCV alumni, Felipe Silva! He is an elementary school educator in Sacramento. He is masterful at creating a culture in his classroom where every student feels a part of the class. Stepping into his class, you can tell right away from the past year’s students’ presence during their recess, to a class monetary system, and customized matching sweatshirt that Felipe gets every year to keep students warm during brisk Sacramento mornings.
Take a look at the quick video of Felipe who shares the impact of his TFA experience and where it has led him.
Felipe is also looking for support from his fellow alumni to help fund his classroom sweatshirt fundraiser! Each year, each student gets a Room 11 sweatshirt, dawned in SF Giants Orange, and the students name on the back. Consider donating to Felipe’s class today: Venmo: @felipesilva916
November is Native Heritage Month. Happy Native Heritage Month! Ask yourself, what are you doing to elevate and support Native students and families? Check out TFA’s Native Alliance page to find resources and events happening.
November provides us a chance to live into the commitment to understand, respect, honor, and celebrate Indigenous culture. Native American Heritage Month traces its history to 1914 when Red Fox James, a citizen of the Blackfoot Nation in Montana, rode horseback from state to state seeking support for a day to honor American Indians. In 1986, the first American Indian Week was proclaimed. In 1990, the White House issued the first official proclamation of Native American Heritage Month. Still, our annual reminder to remember and recognize Indigenous history started when someone demanded that their own people not be forgotten and ignored.
Explore more resources:
Alumni Offerings
How can we help support you?
Do you have an idea of how TFA CCV can help support you or your school? (event support, curriculum development, assessment creation, classroom support, observation/debrief cycles, etc.) Send our director of Alumni engagement, Ryan ([email protected]) an email and share your idea!
Check out the new Alumni Hub
Interested in navigating your career further, want to connect with communities with TFA presence, do you want to find more programs, events, and benefits of being an alumni? Don’t forget to check out the TFA national website, the Alumni HUB: https://alumni.teachforamerica.org/
SAVE THE DATE
December 4th (Sunday) at 10:00am we will be having our first alumni gathering. We will meet up for a short hike, some coffee, and an opportunity to be outside with fellow alumni. This will be a family/partner/pet friendly event happening in the Sacramento area with exact location coming soon! Need a ride? No worries, we will have a meet up spot to drop off your car to carpool!
Want to be featured on TFA CCV website?
We are looking to update our CCV website and want our community to be seen. If you’d like to be pictured on our website, please reach out with your name and availability to our Director of Alumni Engagement, Ryan ([email protected]).
Community Events
- Collective Career Convos: Elevating Your LinkedIn. The Collective Career Convos Series will continue with a series of conversations with Career Strategy and Coaching expert, Ana Wolfowicz from WorkMonger. This 4-part series will include sessions on: resume writing and cover letters; personal value proposition statements; LinkedIn strategies; and the art of decoding roles and job descriptions. This series will kick off on September 28th and is open to alums, non-alums, and TFA staff who identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color. Learn more and register at bit.ly/CareerConvos22
- Early Literacy Support Block Grant: On DECEMBER 7, 2022 and March 29, 2023, join educators and colleagues from across California collaborating around evidence-based practices in early literacy instruction! This is a two-part Professional Learning Network. Join County Office of Education, District, and Site colleagues, as well as collaborators interested in literacy, on December 7, 2022, and March 29, 2023, from 8:30 am – 1:00 pm PST.
- Register for The Collective’s BIPOC Alumni Book Club: Build community with other BIPOC alumni through our virtual book club on November 16th 6-7 PM ET. We will discuss #1 New York Times Bestseller “How the Word Is Passed” by Clint Smith (DC, ’11). *Please note these sessions are intended for people who identify as Black, Indigenous, People of Color. Both TFA alumni and non-alumni are welcome!
- Minerva University: Interested in furthering your education with a Masters degree or certificate in Decision Analysis? Minerva University, with a home base in San Francisco is offering part-time classes for working professionals as well as a $10K discount for TFA alumni. Want to know more? Come join one of their free interactive workshops. Minerva University: free virtual interactive workshop for TFA alumniWorkshop: Evaluating and Communicating Impact. Join Minerva University for an interactive virtual session led by Alexis Diamond, Professor of Computational Sciences, on November 17, at 5:00 pm Pacific Time. The session will discuss the structure of a well-posed question, examine the challenges of inferring causal relationships from real-world evidence, and explain why common sense and intuition may not be sufficient to overcome common errors in data analysis. You will become familiar with synthetic controls—a quantitative method of impact evaluation—and begin building a toolbox of skills to advance your career.
Job Opportunities
- The Makers Place: The Makers Place, located in Sacramento, is hiring teachers and caregivers for their childcare and preschool programs. The Makers Place™ is a creative and collaborative community that supports families with young children through providing onsite childcare with coworking space as well as offering a licensed Mini Makers™ Preschool.
- Californians Together: Hiring a Communications Associate. Californians Together is a statewide advocacy coalition of powerful organizations from all segments of the education community. Our member organizations come together to champion the educational success of California’s 1.1 million English learners by overcoming and transforming the harms of systemic racial, language, and cultural inequality in education and to close opportunity gaps.
- FuelEd: The team at FuelEd is currently seeking to fill the following roles: Business Development Manager, People Manager, and Content Marketing Manager. More information on each position can be found here, and below my signature.
- Wildflower Schools is hiring early childhood educators in Stockton! Have you ever thought of launching your own school in your community? Do you have an entrepreneurial drive and a deep belief in racial equity and social justice? If this sounds like you, we encourage you to join our Founding Teacher Leader Team to help grow our schools in Northern CA. We are excited to share that Wildflower Schools is opening early childhood schools in Stockton starting Fall 2023! Wildflower Schools California is seeking innovative, equity-minded, entrepreneurial teachers who are looking to start and lead their own small-scale Montessori schools, serving ages 18 months to 6 years. You can learn more about the opportunity here. We encourage interested candidates to inquire by December 1st. We are looking for both teachers and community members to join our founding team in Stockton. If you are interested in learning more, please visit our website or join our next Virtual Teacher Leaders Stories event on 11/7, where you can hear directly from Teacher Leaders of the Wildflower network. Register at bit.ly/TLStoriesNovember.
Resources and Free Things
- LSAT Preparation with Kaplan: LSAT Preparation with Kaplan <11/16 from 5-6pm EST> | Join TFA’s Career Center team on Tuesday, November 16th from 5-6pm EST for a free LSAT preparation session with Kaplan.
- TFA Latinx Alliances: TFA Latinx Alliances partner, Caribu, is donating free subscriptions of their platform so our communities can enjoy the largest library of Spanish-language content together! Get yours today!
- Headwater Science Institute: Headwater Science Institute for Middle/High School teachers. Organization that comes to your school and works with your students to design and implement their own research projects. This is a fantastic way to re-engage your students’ interest in hands-on science with real scientists!
- Khan Academy is doing research to improve their product and how they help students who engage with them online. This opportunity pays teachers to give feedback about their platform as well as their experience as an educator to help them inform their work.
- Happy National Career Development Month: Join the TFA Alumni LinkedIn group to engage with alumni from around the country for resources, support, free things, events, etc.
- Upcoming events and offerings at LEE
- Alumni Hub: Looking for resume, cover letter, LinkedIn and interview support? Check-out the Career Resources page on the recently launched TFA Alumni Hub! Featuring tips on resume writing, prepping for interviews, networking, secrets of LinkedIn, job market data, and more!
- [email protected]: Jessica Lamb (Mississippi Delta 12’) is the Founder of Lamb Consulting, which supports school leaders in creating strong staff cultures and streamlined talent systems that increase teacher satisfaction and disrupt teacher attrition. Through her services, school partners experienced a 25% increase in early staff commitments and 78% retention rate for all school staff. To learn more, you can visit Lamb Consulting’s website or email her at [email protected].