(edited slightly for clarity)

ROCKY BARNETTE: That was Dean Lewis on Magic 101.1, saying, “Hey, you know, it's going to be alright.” And I know there's been a lot of panic. And here to calm me down in the studio right now, Sandi with the Fairbanks Education Association. And Sandi, I don't want to put you on the spot, but how many years have you been teaching now?

SANDI RYAN, FEA PRESIDENT: In the district? I've been teaching 24. Overall? 30-none-of-your-business.

RB & SR: [laughter]

RB: You can't put her on the spot because she's always got the right answer. So now we were talking before about this; you've got this grant that you guys are applying for. Can you tell me a little bit about that, and how it works, and what that means to our community?

SR: Oh, sure. That's why I'm here. I would love to share this information. Over the last 18 months, the Fairbanks Education Association has worked in partnership with the National Education Association to bring relevant, quality professional development to our members.

RB: Nice.

SR: Last year we got a small grant, kind of getting our feet in the water, worked on some workshop series—offered a couple of classes for credit, which was really beneficial to our teachers. And then this year we kind of kicked off a two-year grant looking at bigger kind of bites out of the apple.

RB: So—

SR: Go ahead.

RB: So this is the next part of the evolution here. You're kind of, okay…

SR: Yes, it's the next piece. So this year we're offering kind of pieces that we recognize nationally is really quality work, such as Jump Start to National Boards. National Boards is a national program, of course, that recognizes and helps teachers to really develop their craft. And it is hard. There's no question about it. It's long. It takes a lot of dedication. And we just finished the last class last night.

RB: Oh, nice. Okay, so…

SR: And so they're now moving on to taking their exams. They have to sit an exam. They have to submit a portfolio. They get to film themselves, teach, and then reflect upon it.

RB: Okay. Very nice. You're going to learn a lot just from that part of it.

SR: Absolutely. Just doing the experience, whether you take the exam or you even do just one or two of the components—there's four major components—you still become a much more reflective teacher. You become better at your craft.

RB: Yeah. So is it only open to our teachers? Can somebody else get involved with this? How does that work?

SR: It's a members-only event.

RB: Oh, nice. Little exclusive club there.

SR: Well, yeah, it's kind of like going to the Alaska Club, you know?

RB: You know, what I love about it is because, now, here teachers go…now is this something they would volunteer to do?

SR: Right. Absolutely.

RB: So they're going to go here, they're going to better themselves, which in turn is going to help better our students. Right? They're going to get the best of the best.

SR: You just read my mind. That's exactly the idea. You become better at your craft, and we represent— just making sure when we say teachers, we mean teachers, librarians, counselors, psychologists and therapists.

RB: Anybody involved with the process.

SR: Yeah. There's over 900 teachers. We use that in kind of quotes instead of listing all of the different subcategories that the Fairbanks Education Association represents.

RB: Well, my mother in law is actually she's a retired teacher now. She's actually a librarian down in Arizona. And she loves.

SR: It's a calling. But being good at it is important.

RB: Yeah, absolutely, and you think about this—I don't know if I told you this before, I catch heat for this sometimes, but I think our teachers need to be paid more. I think that when I think about the amount of time they spend with our students and how many great teachers that I’ve met over the years—yourself included—that you just go, wow, you know, they need, they deserve more money.

SR: You know? We will let you talk, you keep talking, that's for sure. But this National Board was one piece of it. By the way, it comes with a small price tag: It's about $2,500.

RB: Okay.

SR: And you have a one-year window to complete it or you get to start over. Like I said, it's intense. It's nationally recognized. We recognize it on the pay schedule.

RB: Okay. There you go.

SR: Which you should, right?

RB: Absolutely.

SR: But the process is amazing. We offered a sampling last year, kind of a workshop series of Google Slides, Google Docs, Google Forms, because having students be able to use those and interact with each other, sharing those—because you share your Google Docs—is really valuable. But making our teachers the expert in the room, we thought would be valuable. And we are very lucky that we have one of the only in the state—I've got to get her title correct because I get corrected—she is a Google K-12 Education Trainer.

RB: Wow. You know, I'm going to Google it right now. [laughter] No, no, go ahead.

SR: And so she offered the workshop series last year, but then this year we had a deep dive into certification for teachers that were interested. So they become Google Level One certified. And we even had some that went on and became the next level up.

RB: I would imagine there's probably a great deal of interest.

SR: Very. Yeah.

RB: That's exciting.

SR: What's the old saying, you need to “fix your VCR”—those were air quotes—you give it to a kid, right. It's the same thing in the world of Google. So now the teachers are kind of getting a leg up and helping them get involved in that kind of a little bit.

RB: She even threw in the VCR reference. You remember that in school, where they had the blinking light on the…yeah, okay. So, this is how awesome Sandi is, too—we go back a few years now, right—when I talk, I always feel like I got to raise my hand, I’ve got to wait my turn. [laughter] Sandi Ryan with the Fairbanks Education Association and a long time teacher. We appreciate all you do for not just our schools, but for our community. So thank you so much.

SR: Well, thank you.