Sanderson named Certified Employee of the Year for LCSD

CHELAN - We have all had teachers that inspired and motivated us to do great things in our life, but how many of them taught math? 

I mean math is boring right? Wrong. 

At least that is the message that seventh grade teacher Sarah Sanderson - who was recently named Certified Employee of the Year, for Lake Chelan School District - has been preaching in her class since the start of her teaching career. 

When kids say they struggle with math, Sanderson responds by saying “that they just haven’t had it taught in the right way.”

“Typically math has been taught to kids by someone that says they aren’t a math person, or they listen to their parents say they can’t do it, so the kids think that the subject is hard and they get this negative feeling about it. So that is my goal; to just change that mind set. I think kids don’t necessarily struggle with math like we think they do, it’s because we do think they struggle and adults portray that connotation to them so that is what the kids perceive it to be.” 

Sanderson tries to shift that mind set by making math fun and applicable to everyday life. She does this by having the students do a lot of group work, partner work and a quarterly project where the students show what they know in a different way from a paper test. Sanderson said this allows the students to be creative and use math in a more applicable way.  

“We also do lots of card sorts where they are organizing using inquiry based learning, so we don’t do a lot of question and answer of worksheets,” Sanderson stated. “If I feel they need practice, we do a scavenger hunt where they solve a problem and find an answer somewhere in the room. Then on the back of that answer, there is another problem they have to answer, and they do this in partners, so it is kind of a fun game versus a dreary worksheet and it gets them moving.” 

Another concept that has helped Sanderson is mathematical discourse, which essentially where a student's talk amongst themselves to solve a problem and then share the evidence to support how they solved it. 

“There are other students who solve the problem a different way, so that kind of discussing about math and putting it into a sentence with justification is big,” Sanderson said. “On all of our tests the students have to justify their answers and how they are correct.” 

According to Lake Chelan School District Superintendent Barry DePaoli, Sanderson was instrumental in instituting a collaboration time with all of the content teachers in the same grade level and a time for grades 6-12 to meet with their respective subject. 

“The seventh grade team, we meet every other day for about 45 minutes and we collaborate on students. If we notice certain trends, we pull students in or if they are failing all four of our classes we’ll get parents or whoever we need to find support,” Sanderson said. “We also collaborate on grade level vocabulary, so if I’m teaching one word maybe in science they can use that word also. Or, we do it with projects, for instance we could be studying scale and then in science they could be looking at the earth versus the sun, so we make sure we coordinate all of that so it is not brand new.” 

“It did cause a schedule change, but we have proved value we can get out of that time is highly beneficial to students,” Sanderson articulated. “The progress we have seen and help and support we have been able to give is far greater than any expense or schedule change difficulties.” 

More and more schools are creating collaboration time with their teachers because of the benefits, including Icicle River Middle School in Leavenworth, where Sanderson first taught before getting the position in Chelan. 

Originally, Sanderson taught elementary age kids, but decided to move up a few grades to have a bigger influential impact on her students. 

“In fourth and fifth grades, the kids just love you and they give you hugs all the time so you feel so loved, but at the same time I was wondering am I influencing their life?,” Sanderson admitted. “Seventh grade is more difficult to gain that trust, and some days it is just not a math day, there are other things going on in their mind or body and school is not a priority, so they are a little more fickle. But because or that, I feel this is the most influential moment in their life, and although they won’t appreciate it now, in a couple years when they get into high school, they’ll realize that was a turning point or that person really inspired me and gave me a positive outlook when I needed it.”

When asked about advice Sanderson would give to future and current teachers that are discouraged about the profession, she responded with in two succinct words, ‘keep positive’. 

“I think the system, and not only the (Lake) Chelan School District which is the best, but on the national level it can be discouraging, but support others, because I know that without the support and being on an awesome teaching team and administration, anyone would want to quit,” Sanderson said. It is no fun to have a student ruin your day, but with support, good ideas and a team to handle the situation it doesn’t have to be a drag.” 

Sanderson admitted it was a nice feeling to be recognized as employee of the year by her colleagues but humbly insisted there are lots of other people she felt should be recognized as well. 

“One teacher can’t be awesome, it has to be the whole system and whole team, and that is what we have. I know my team are a lot of the people who nominated me for it, so that just shows how supportive they are.” 

Zach Johnson can be reached at lcmeditor@gmail.com or (509) 682-2213