By Sarah Ostergaard October is National Economic Education Month, which promotes the importance of teaching economics in schools. According to the Council on Economic Education, “Economic education gives you the tools to make informed decisions for yourself, your family, and your community. It is essential we give young people inContinue Reading

By Sarah Ostergaard CRT, SEL, DEI, oh my. Is CRT in our schools? Yes, if you define the acronym CRT to mean Culturally Responsive Teaching.  There seems a misunderstanding that CRT is SEL, and vice versa, that DEI excludes people, and none of it belongs in OUR (not an acronym)Continue Reading

By Sarah Ostergaard Fair. “It’s not fair.” is a common childhood complaint. “His slice is bigger,” or “she had a longer turn.” Does anyone else remember waiting by the swing at recess and counting down to your turn? I do. Counting was fair. No one could argue with the countingContinue Reading

by Sarah Ostergard It’s summer vacation. I know what you’re thinking — this is the perfect time to teach financial literacy.  No? Please keep reading anyway.   Parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents – we can have fun, keep the children occupied, and model financial literacy concepts through hands-on experiences this summer. FinancialContinue Reading

Students receive report cards each quarter, as well as interim report cards in the middle of each quarter. A student’s report card provides a numeric score of competency in each subject area and is often considered a predictor of future success. However, a student’s report card does not describe whetherContinue Reading

No matter where you find yourself along life’s journey, you are encouraged to consider sharing your gifts of time, talent, treasure, and voice with our young people through our local schools. In the third column in this series, we explore the idea that you have talents to be shared asContinue Reading

By Sarah Ostergaard Make an impact with your time In August, we introduced the idea that our schools need you. Like democracy, education is a participatory exercise and each of us has a role to play in our local school system. The idea of time, talent, treasure, and voice willContinue Reading