A Day with a State Rep

Last Friday a small group of Education City staff had the fantastic opportunity to tour a few of our local subscribing schools with Illinois State Representative Linda Chapa LaVia. Representative Chapa LaVia sits on the Elementary and Secondary Appropriations Committee, responsible for the Illinois Education K-12 budget. Her interest in Education City and the services we provide teachers and students prompted a guided tour to see Education City in its element - the classroom! 

We kicked off the day at Yorkville Intermediate School in Yorkville, Illinois. Ms. Janet Strukel, Technology Education Instructor, greeted us and gave our group a glowing overview of Education City and how the Yorkville schools implement the resource into their classroom and intervention activities. Ms. Strukel outlined 139 classes throughout seven schools in the Yorkville district that are presently using Education City. Before introducing us to one of the building's 4th grade teachers, Ms. Strukel treated us to some delicious homemade cookies and even sent us with two bags to take back to our headquarter office! We seriously have the best subscribers!! :)

Next, we had the opportunity to speak with Ms. Martha Venetucci, 4th grade teacher. Ms. Venetucci and a few of her colleagues had developed a series of myCitys by RTI band. Each myCity was creatively named by state correlating to grade level and included activities from a certain subject and strand named by an actual U.S. city. This system, used to differentiate learning, was so successful that even in just one year, there was a measureable difference. We love to hear how our subscribers are using the resource to meet their needs.

At Education City we speak to teachers, technology coordinators, administrators - you name it, every day. We know that everybody has packed schedules. This meeting was just another reminder of how much teachers are dealing with on a day-to-day basis and how few hours there are in the day! Ms. Venetucci admitted that creating all the myCitys took her and her team about three hours to put together. But, once it was developed, it was another resource in place to help her teach more effectively and reach out to students at every level. In our opinion - time well spent!

After presenting Representative Chapa LaVia the Yorkville statistics, we made our way to a few classrooms where we spent a little time with our target market! Seeing elementary students have fun with the resource and do well with it was a fabulous experience - one that probably requires another blog entry!

The Education City team had a great day seeing the resource in action and spending some time with our amazing subscribers and State Representative Linda Chapa LaVia. All in all, it was a great day!