Membership Application

2020-2021 PDF Application

POE PerkSpot


You've Got This!

A Message from Sarah Hicks, POE's President

You've got this! This is a catch phrase that is commonly heard these days. But what does it really mean? I don't know about you, but if I am totally honest, I have to say that when I heard that school was cancelled for the rest of the school year my thoughts were, “I guess summer break starts early. What am I supposed to do with all of this extra time?”

That lasted about 30 seconds because I then heard these two words—distance learning. Just exactly what is distance learning? Is it the same as online school? I am a woman of “a certain age”, so I have absolutely zero technology skills. Or I should say, I had absolutely zero technology skills.

During the last two weeks, while I have been fortunate enough to get to work with a team of other teachers in my school district to set up distance learning activities, I have learned how to find and use the camera on my computer, how to upload a video to Google drive, how to change the settings so that the video can be shared with anyone, and how to put the video into a working document. I also learned about Zoom meetings and am set to host my first one in a few minutes. While those skills may seem very elementary to you, they were a challenge for me.

Learning these new skills—that's what “you've got this” means to me. As we face our new normal (another catch phrase commonly heard these days), I hope you know that POE is here to help you. I want to encourage each teacher and support person who is reading this message. You can learn new skills. You can do whatever it takes to help our students and their families through this time of uncertainty. I know you can, and I know you will. Because that's what we educators do. We do whatever it takes to teach. You've got this.

Sarah Hicks
POE State President
Edmond Public Schools
P.S. Update on first zoom meeting with 18 Pre-K students. It went well, but don't I wish I had a “mute all” button to use in the classroom?