Skyline Educators Rising Spirit Wear

In March students who are passionate about education will attend the Educators Rising State Leadership Conference in Tucson, Arizona. Over the course of the year students have been enrolled in the Education Professions program. The students in this program are also part of the Career and Technical Student Organization Educators Rising. EdRising promotes educational experiences, hands on and discovery learning. EdRising is focused on providing future teachers an opportunity to experience the teaching profession as a high school student. Throughout the year the students have completed a project over the year to demonstrate their knowledge of the teaching professions. The project may include researching learning disabilities and coming up with new ways to help students with those needs, creating picture books, teaching lessons in the classrooms, job interviews, and many more. In December, students compete at their schools against other students enrolled in the program. If they take 1-3 place at their school, they then qualify to go to the State Leadership Conference for three days. At the state leadership conference, students will compete against the entire state of Arizona for scholarships in the education field to Arizona Institutions. If a student wins 1-5 place at the conference they also have an opportunity to attend Nationals over the summer to network, apply for internships, and receive scholarships.
Last year 11 students attended the state conference.This year 87 students are enrolled in the program, 47 students are planning on attending the conference. Students also are interns in the preschool on campus, feeder schools, and at the end of the program they take the exam to become a paraprofessional. All of these students want to be part of the change in Education. Along with this, students from Skyline High School are majority low income minority students with diverse backgrounds; teen moms, single parent households, English Language Learners, and many other challenges. For some students this is the first opportunity that they have had to receive scholarships. By providing students the opportunity to come to State Leadership Conference, they truly do get the opportunity to make change and be the future of education.
Any extra money that is earned will be used to pay for other field trip expenses such as tours of college campuses. We also hope to use some of the money to book guest speakers and pay for our awards banquet in May.