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Episode 58: First Year Teachers Revisited – Stump the ‘Sup!

Sup with the Sup
Sup with the Sup
Episode 58: First Year Teachers Revisited - Stump the 'Sup!
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Welcome, everyone, to the next episode of Provo City School District’s What’s Up With the ‘Sup podcast. I am Superintendent Wendy Dau. For our podcast this week, I checked in with Cecelia Amezquita and Janessa Castaneda at Edgemont Elementary School. Remember, these are the two first year teachers that joined me on the podcast at the beginning of the school year.

I wanted to quickly catch up on how the school year is going for them so far. I also played a quick round of Stump the Superintendent with the 5th grade students in Ms. Castaneda’s class. And they did a great job. But as always, let’s go over the updates.

  • The Utah State Board of Education Child Nutrition Programs and Utah Food Bank have announced household size and income criteria used for determining eligibility for the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which is a federal program that helps supplement the diets of low income Americans by providing them with emergency food assistance at no cost.

    • Households whose income is at or below 100 percent of the current year federal poverty income guidelines are eligible to receive donated foods for home consumption by self declaration. The income eligibility guidelines are effective from July 1st through June 30th every year. Automatic eligibility is given to clients who currently participate in one of the following programs:

      • Nutrition Assistance Program, otherwise known as SNAP;
      • Medicaid, free or reduced priced school meal benefits, or;
      • If you have a child enrolled in the federal Head Start program.
    • So please check our district website for more information to see if you qualify for this benefit.

  • The next school board meeting will be on Tuesday, October 8th.

    • The Study Session will be held in Boardroom One, and the Business Meeting will be held in the Professional Development Center. Look for more details to be shared as the date approaches.

  • Continue watching for my weekly Videocasts in your email every Monday morning. These Videocasts provide one place for you to learn about important things happening across the district.

And now for our guests, Cecilia Amesquita and Janessa Castaneda and their fifth grade students and kindergarten students from Edgemont elementary.

So my first question is how have things gone this first month of school?

Amesquita: So the first month of school has gone really well, even better than I expected, because I thought that, you know, there was just going to be a lot of things going a little wrong since it was my first year teaching. But surprisingly, I have an amazing team who supports me with everything that I have questions on and I need help on.

And I also just have a lot of, uh, resources as far as curriculum and teaching lessons. So that has been going smoothly. And my students are the best students in the whole wide world. And they make my day go really easy because they’re really good listeners. They’re always doing their work and they follow instructions really well.

So everything’s going great.

Wendy Dau: How have you liked your first month of school? Have you guys thought it was good? Have you had a great first month? What’s been the best part about what you’ve learned? What have you learned?

Student: We have learned how to read some, some.

Wendy Dau: Yeah, you’ve been able to learn how to read some words?

Student: A little bit.

Wendy Dau: A little bit? Good. Okay, I’m going to ask your teacher another question. What’s been something that’s been harder or maybe more of a challenge that you didn’t think about?

Amesquita: The only thing that comes to mind is sometimes just staying a little bit after hours to prepare everything I need to prepare, but I know that as the weeks go by, I think I’m going to get quicker at everything and so I won’t have to stay after my contract hours as much, but for now that.

That’s the only thing I can think of, just, you know, staying at work a little longer to finish everything up that I need to prepare.

Wendy Dau: That’s definitely true. You’re always going to spend a lot of time, but it will get easier. I promise it will get easier. What has been something that’s been a little bit hard for you as a kindergartner?

Were you like, wow, that’s a little bit hard? You want to tell me?

Student: Cutting. The first time I was cutting out, out paper, it was really hard, but every day I kept doing it, it got even better. 

Wendy Dau: Because you get better when you practice, don’t you? It’s so good. Okay, what if you thought was kind of hard?

Student: Spelling.

Wendy Dau: Spelling is hard, isn’t it? What is one thing you wish that you had more help with as a teacher?

Amesquita: One thing I could use more help with. I honestly feel like everyone’s been really helpful. If it were possible having more aids in the classroom, because I know since having one teacher taking care of 19 students, I don’t always get to help all my students when they need it.

And so maybe just having an aid in my classroom, help out with the students that are struggling, that would be helpful if they can do it more often.

Wendy Dau: So, you think now, what’s one thing you would want to have help with here in kindergarten that you’re like, I need some more help with this.

Student: That I can more easily cut out paper.

Wendy Dau: So, it is hard. It’s hard to do that, isn’t it? What about you?

Student: Probably, Reading.

Wendy Dau: Yeah, reading. That’s hard to, you’re all learning so many new things, aren’t you? It’s kind of exciting. Okay, now we’re going to go to our final question here. What is something you wish that you had known at the start of the school year that you actually know now that you’re like, Oh, that would have been super helpful.

Amesquita: I guess one thing I have learned so far is to keep really good communication with my student’s parents because I have noticed that they appreciated more than I realized because parents care a lot about their children and they want to know everything like how the students are doing with their work, if they ever get hurt, and just, you know, they appreciate that communication.

Wendy Dau: So you guys think now for a minute, what is one thing that you wish you had known before you started kindergarten that you know now?

Student: I went to French school and someone told me something that I didn’t know how to speak French.

Wendy Dau: Oh my goodness.

Student: But then, I know how to speak French, because I learn.

Wendy Dau: Okay, what about you?

Student: I wish before I got to kindergarten, I wish I know how to read.

Wendy Dau: I know, right? But you guys are all going to be great readers at the end of kindergarten, aren’t you? Okay, I’m going to turn you back over to your teacher. Thanks, you guys.

—– 

Wendy Dau, on playground: Tell me what has been the best part about the first month of school.

Castaneda: Best part, I think, so far has been getting to the kids and their personalities.

They each have such different things they love and are unique. And so it’s been fun getting to see how they each like thrive in the classroom and how different things help. We have jokes already. We have different things in class. So it’s just fun getting to know them more.

Wendy Dau: What’s been kind of a challenge or something you’re like, Oh, that was harder than I thought it was going to be?

Castaneda: Being consistent with classroom management, I think, because we take, I can’t tell you how many classes I’ve taken. They’re like, you have to have a plan. You do all this. Okay, I have, Everything in place. But in the moment, it’s like, oh my gosh, I’m juggling so many different things. So figuring that out and being consistent with it, it’s required some tweaking here and there, but I think we’re finally starting to get it fine tuned machine now.

Wendy Dau: If you needed some support or some help, what would be that support and help that you feel like you’re not getting that we need to do a better job of?

Castaneda: Just in regards to anything, I don’t know, I feel like it’s been pretty great. Like whenever I have questions, I can ask anybody for like Acadience testing.

We were giving iPads, which made life a dream when doing that. So honestly, I feel like it’s been great. Having like check ins with people has been awesome. So sorry, this isn’t a good answer, but it’s just been so great. I feel like everything’s been flowing smoothly. And then honestly, something that’s been so helpful was giving extra time to set up our classroom.

At the beginning, because I heard that was new, because I talked to my friend, and she was saying that she only had four hours in her classroom, and that was it, and I was like, we had like two, three days, and so I feel like having that ready to go, have it all set up, made the first month so easy, because I wasn’t trying to figure out where should I put this, how should I set this up, it was, that was done, I could focus on teaching, making sure I was giving quality instruction.

Wendy Dau: What is one thing you wish you had known prior to the start of the school year that you know now, that you’re like, Oh, I’m definitely telling new teachers to pay attention to this.

Castaneda: I feel like maybe something I wish I would have known at the beginning is that there’s so many fun apps that the district has to make learning great.

So I was like having different extension and modified activities and they were fun. They were great. But then I talked to them on my team and they’re like, Oh, you should try this out. And they like Kahoot or like Bottle or like Lookit, I think. And so different things like that. And the kids. It was like night and day change.

Like, wait, we can do this. And they got so excited again about learning different things. And so it kind of like revived that spark when it’s like, Hey, this is our third day talking about long division guys. But then they, we got to do that. I was like, this is great. We love long division. So I think just like being aware of the district apps and how many there are available to us would have been great to know from day one.

Wendy Dau: Now, I want to ask some of your fifth graders if they have a question to stump the superintendent.

All right. You have a question?

Student: How many days does it take to get to the moon?

Wendy Dau: How many days does it take to get to the moon? Like if I’m in a spaceship? Two.

Student: Three.

Wendy Dau: Oh, I was so close! You are so much smarter than me! Okay, you have a question. Okay, here we go.

Student: Why do volcanoes appear in clumps instead of all over the place.

Wendy Dau: Why do they appear in clumps instead of, like, just round? Oh, because there’s magma underneath. Is that why? No, tell me why.

Student: The tectonic plates, they go aligned with the tectonic plates.

Wendy Dau: Okay.

Student: Okay, so, when you add three multiplication equations, what do you need to do at the end?

Wendy Dau: What do I need to do at the end? I have no idea.

Student: You have to add the sums up.

Wendy Dau: Oh my goodness, I wouldn’t even have thought of that. That’s so good. Alright, you asked me a question.

Student: What’s a remainder in a long division problem?

Wendy Dau: What is a remainder? It’s the number that’s left over at the very end. Oh my gosh, I got one right!

Fist bump!

Thank you everyone for joining me for this week’s episode of What’s Up with the Sup’. As always, all episodes will be posted on the district website, YouTube, and anywhere you get your podcasts. If you have any topics or questions you would like us to discuss on the podcast, please email us at podcast@provo.edu. And fifth grade teachers out there: if you have some questions that your fifth graders would like to submit where they think they can stump the superintendent, I would love to hear from them. We will be back again next week with an all new episode of What’s Up with the Sup’. Have a great weekend, everyone.

Spencer Tuinei
  • Communication Specialist
  • Spencer Tuinei
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