Texas Border Business
San Juan, Texas – More than 1,300 middle school and high school educators from Pharr-San Juan-Alamo ISD (PSJA) had the opportunity to attend the district’s 2nd Annual Best Practices Conference for Secondary Schools as part of their staff development week on Tuesday, Aug. 14 at PSJA Early College High School.
As part of the innovative conference, teachers, counselors, instructional aids and campus administrators had the opportunity to network and learn from their peers through special presentations targeting best practices in college and career readiness, leadership, reading/writing, student engagement, and technology.
Topics in the numerous sessions ranged from academic rigor, special education, digital literacy, STAAR testing and STEM in the classroom, to name a few.
According to PSJA Executive Officer Dr. Nora Cantu, PSJA ISD created the conference to have an opportunity to bring middle school and high school educators together as part of their staff development.
“At PSJA ISD we’re one big family, so we want to build on the successes of our teachers for our children,” said Dr. Cantu. “Bringing our teachers together is invaluable for our K-12 alignment and it’s important because we all have the same goal, which is getting our students college ready, college connected and college complete.”
During the conference, educators from the district’s eight high schools and eight middle schools had the opportunity to network, share ideas and learn from each other. In addition to attending numerous sessions, many teachers also led presentations throughout the day.
For Ana Satterfield, a Collaborative Learning Leader at PSJA Sotomayor Early College High School, getting to know other teachers and learning from them was invaluable.
“It’s amazing to get to see things differently and develop our leadership skills by learning best practices from each other,” said Satterfield, who both attended and led sessions.
Some of the presentations led by Satterfield included the “PSJA Escape Room” and “Let’s Level It Up” session which explored higher order thinking aligned with TEKS curriculum through interactive activities such as rigorous puzzles.
In addition to sessions focused on instruction and college and career readiness, attendees also had the opportunity to learn about ways they can incorporate sustainability lessons into their curriculum from Buell Central Principal Mario Bracamontes.
“It was amazing to hear about our district’s sustainability efforts and how they’re being taught through project-based learning,” said PSJA North Early College High School Geometry & Pre-Cal Teacher Dayanara Imhoff who attended the “Sustainability and Curriculum into 21st Century Learning” session. “I’m excited! I want to look at what I am teaching this year and see what I can do with my colleagues to make it more relevant through project-based learning.”
According to the Imhoff, the conference also inspired her to incorporate different teaching methods into her TEKS lessons for the new school year.
“This conference has been wonderful overall,” said the teacher. “Being able to learn from colleagues who are excelling in certain areas helps us grow. Sometimes we don’t go outside of our classrooms or even departments and this has truly been eye-opening.”
Like Imnoff, Satterfield was grateful for the incredible staff development opportunity.
“This Conference shows that PSJA ISD continues to go places and growing,” said the longtime educator. “I am amazed every day by this district…it’s like we have professional learning every day as there is always something new going on. I wouldn’t work anywhere else.”
 had the opportunity to attend the district’s 2nd Annual Best Practices Conference for Secondary Schools as part of their staff development week on Tuesday, Aug. 14 at PSJA Early College High School.){kind=link}