Stellar Teacher Podcast with Sara Marye

Back to school stress can start creeping in long before students walk through the classroom door. Between the excitement of a fresh start, the anticipation of a new group of students, and the pressure to get everything ready, it's completely normal to feel a little overwhelmed—whether it's your first year teaching or your fifteenth. There are classrooms to prepare, lesson plans to create, meetings to attend, procedures to plan, and a seemingly endless to do list. Add in the pressure to have everything ready before students walk through the door, and it's easy to feel overwhelmed before the school year even begins.

The first day of school can come with a lot of pressure. There are lesson plans to finalize, supplies to organize, names to learn, procedures to teach, activities to prep, and about a hundred little details running through your mind. And somewhere along the way, it can start to feel like your first day needs to be perfect. You need the perfect welcome activity. The perfect classroom setup. The perfect schedule. The perfect lesson plans. And, of course, you need to fit everything you planned into the school day. But here's the good news: A successful first day of school doesn't require perfection.

One of the biggest mistakes teachers make at the beginning of the school year is assuming that students know how to follow classroom procedures after hearing them once. We explain expectations, answer a few questions, and then wonder why students forget what to do the next day—or even five minutes later. The reality is that classroom procedures are skills, and like any skill, they must be taught, modeled, practiced, and reinforced over time. In this episode of The Stellar Teacher Podcast, we're continuing our New Teacher Blueprint series by sharing a simple, effective framework for teaching classroom procedures that actually stick. Whether you're a first-year teacher preparing for your first classroom or a veteran educator looking to strengthen your classroom management systems, this episode will help you build routines that support student success all year long.

What is the balance between supporting multilingual learners while still providing access to rigorous, grade-level instruction? In this replay episode of The Stellar Teacher Podcast, we revisit an insightful conversation with literacy experts Dr. Jana Echevarría and Dr. Jeannette Mancilla-Martinez about supporting multilingual learners in today's classrooms. As the number of multilingual learners continues to grow across the country, it's more important than ever for teachers to understand how language development and literacy instruction work together.