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Joshua Whittemore is a second grade teacher at Hollingworth Elementary School.

When I went to an Immersion Day at the country club, one thing that struck me that I’d not previously thought about was how Ball is really pushing us to collaborate in order to grow as a school district. If we really share what everybody knows along with different people’s expertise, then we won’t have to have all these extra programs -that’s what I took from it. That we won’t have to invest in buying this program and that program because a lot of what the school district needs to grow is already there.

People are already collaborating as individuals, but the hard part is getting those individuals to share their expertise. When I thought about it, I realized, “Man, it is pretty daunting to have to grow a school district to be a great district, and I think I’ve even heard somebody mention to be at the top in California.” That’s pretty daunting, but when you start thinking about the wealth of knowledge – especially with the veteran teachers and even up and coming new teachers (they’re in on the new theories about education) – that once we get all that knowledge together and start making groups, we can pretty much teach ourselves from what we know. That really struck me because I hadn’t thought about it like that before, but when I did start thinking about it, I realized that it’s true. There are a lot of people who have a lot of things that work for them. Maybe there are some parts that work for me but that don’t work for another person and I could help them and vice versa.

I’ve found that we’ve had more collaboration amongst our grade level at our school. I know I’ve shared more things with people at my grade level that work for me. In general, I get the feeling that as a school, we’re pushing for more collaboration starting with the grade levels and then eventually expanding to other grades. I feel like our school is willing to try anything.

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