Amethyst Hinton Sainz, Author at STORIES FROM SCHOOL AZ

When Executive Orders Get Personal

February 22, 2017Amethyst Hinton Sainz Current Affairs, Life in the Classroom, Social Issues

Yesterday as I drove home from work. NPR reported on the new executive orders expanding the groups prioritized for immigration enforcement– in effect, increasing the number of deportations of undocumented immigrants. But I didn’t hear much of the story. After

Reality Check for This Here Teacher

February 20, 2017Amethyst Hinton Sainz Assessment, Education, Education Policy

Are we in a post-truth society? Are we hopelessly floating in our bubbles of alternative facts and biased narratives? Or can reasoning and evidence prevail? The truth is that sometimes, one doesn’t even need the facts to be “alternative” to

Reality Check for English Language Learners

December 8, 2016Amethyst Hinton Sainz Assessment, Education, Education Policy, Life in the Classroom, Literacy, Uncategorized

Snippets of surreptitious conversational Spanish dart around the classroom amid scattered outbursts of giggles. I review the color-coded highlighting of sentence parts in our newest sentence formula involving superlative adjectives, pointing to the laminated neon cards magneted to the

Voting for Education is Not Enough

November 8, 2016Amethyst Hinton Sainz Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy

By the time you read this, it is possible that the election will be decided, and the knotted ball of emotion in my stomach will have blossomed into one form or another of wildly flowing feeling. Most of that will

Open Letter to Principals Who Stayed

October 17, 2016Amethyst Hinton Sainz Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Professional Development, Teacher Leadership

The following letter is written to all school and district administrators who have stayed for four years or more and worked tenaciously for school improvement. Dear Leaders, Thank you. Thank you for staying put for a few years and leading

Back to la Escuela #3: Spanish for English?

September 29, 2016Amethyst Hinton Sainz Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Elementary, Literacy, Social Issues

In my previous two “back to schools” blogs, I focused on bringing back librarians and basic supplies such as tissue. I struggled more for the third topic, because the obvious choice seemed to be to bring back teachers! Recently the

Back To Schools #2: Got an Issue?

August 31, 2016Amethyst Hinton Sainz Uncategorized

Where’s the tissue? This personal series of blogs is about what should be the next steps in funding for Arizona schools. But first, a brief side note. I just learned it is going to be especially hard to find new

Back to Schools

August 17, 2016Amethyst Hinton Sainz Current Affairs, Education, Education Policy, Elementary

The #NowItStarts hashtag in May was intended to be a reminder to all stakeholders in Arizona that Prop 123 was only a beginning to the process of properly funding Arizona schools. Part of the consensus on Proposition 123, with the

Teaching to the Test (or Not)

June 9, 2016Amethyst Hinton Sainz Assessment

I know I have written about this topic before, the relationship between standards and standardization, instructional innovation and teaching for creativity, and standardized tests, but I am going to take another go at it, because this year I changed levels

Fundraising Frenzy

April 12, 2016Amethyst Hinton Sainz Education, Parent Involvment

A few weeks back, an energetic (slightly manic?) presenter pitched our school’s most recent fundraiser at our quarter assembly. Students would sell overpriced frozen meats, and for every 1,000 sales (or something), the company would send a family of four