ILSTOY Meeting

One of the awesome benefits of being a finalist for the state of Illinois is that I am now part of the professional organization, ILSTOY, the Illinois State Teachers of the Year, a fantastic group of supportive, go-getters who are committed to being the best in their profession and who use their collective voices to impact students' learning and the teaching profession.

I was invited down to Springfield to participate in an ILSTOY meeting in December. My school district has always been supportive of me and graciously allowed me to go.

The meeting was on a Monday. My husband and I went down a day early, on Sunday, to see some of our favorite sites of Springfield.

---

---

Our first stop was at the beautiful Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum. We had been here many times before, but it is always a great experience.

We also went to the Abraham Lincoln Tomb and of course Cozy Dog!

---

The day of the meeting dawned bright and early, however with a lot of fog. Some of the other teachers had a hard time driving in.

I headed to the Illinois State Board of Education building. (My hubby went off to see other sites ;~)

​ 

---

#whyiteach

It was exciting to meet all the other organizers and to see the other finalist teachers in our "Class of 2016" again.

We were introduced to the various committees that we could serve on and also to the leadership roles that we could partake in. Being a teacher leader and a voice to the teaching profession is important to this organization and to all of us. They guided us in ways in which to do so.

We were also encouraged to spread the good news of what we do in our classrooms and what we do to promote the teaching profession on Social Media. During the meeting we created Twitter accounts and participated in a group project called #whyiteach. This is something that brings to light all the good that teachers do in their classroom, why we do what we do. We were all given a speech balloon to write our inspiration for teaching. It was a fantastic activity that I brought back to my own school district for our school's teachers to do.
​

---

We even had mikes!

It was a very productive day, and I felt very comfortable with my new role. It was like being with family!

---

Listening to our highly energetic and enthusiastic leader, Lynn Gaddis, talk about teacher opportunities. Such a powerful force in education!