Dear Hiring Principal,
Every week at Lincoln Elementary I sit down with our special education team and case managers to plan accommodations for 5 students on IEPs and 3 on 504 plans, so no child in my room is working from a plan I have not read closely. I am Aisha Okonkwo, a Colorado-licensed elementary teacher for grades K through 6, now in my sixth year teaching a 28-student 5th grade class across three reading levels. I am applying to teach at Willow Bend because the differentiated, plan-by-plan work I do at Lincoln is the work I want to keep doing for your students.
The results I care most about are the ones I can measure. Last year my guided reading groups and progress monitoring moved 22 of my 28 students up at least one reading level. A tiered behavior system I built cut weekly office referrals from an average of 6 to under 2, which kept more instructional minutes in the room. Earlier, as a 3rd grade teacher at Maple Grove Elementary, I ran small-group RTI math intervention three times a week and raised end-of-year math benchmark scores by 14 percent.
If you bring me on, my first move would be to map my literacy and math block to your Common Core pacing guide and set up PowerSchool so I can regroup students on real assessment data from the first month. I am available to meet any weekday after the school day, and I can share references from the principals and special education leads I have worked with directly. Send me a few dates and I will be there.