On Saturday, January 26, 2019, the campus hosted a regional version of the national Teacher Self-Care Conference, sponsored by The Educators Room. The event, bringing teachers from all over the nation including Chicago, Boston, and St. Louis, is “dedicated to empowering teachers to be a better version of themselves.”

CEO of The Educators Room, Fran Warren, contacted Mr. Pedro Cabrera, the publications adviser, for the journalism program and campus to host the event. With the approval of Principal Hernandez, planning to bring nearly 200 teachers to the campus started around October.

“San Antonio was a market that we haven’t explored. We knew there were a lot of teachers who needed this workshop. We needed to provide those teachers with professional development for their own social and emotional learning,” Warren said.

The conference had sessions on “How to Teach for 20 Years and Still Love It,” “Healing from Racial InJustice,” “Why Every Teacher Needs Yoga,” “How to Avoid the Dreaded Teacher Uniform,” “Teaching Mindfulness,” and allowing teachers to have honest and mindful round table conversations about teacher wellness.

“I am looking to provide sessions they can’t find anywhere else,” Warren said. “A lot of professional development is very surface level. I look for presenters who get to the heart of teaching and are not scared to say what they say.”

The conference also brought in Valencia D. Clay from Valencia Speaks as the keynote speaker.

“She is raw,” Warren said. “She is unafraid to say what she feels. A lot of times, teachers are taught to say what makes administration happy. She does the exact opposite.”

Lunch was catered by Texas Pride, a locally known BBQ restaurant located near the school. During lunch, teachers were able to talk to mentors to make connections about what they find important in education.

“So many new teachers are leaving [the profession],” Warren said. “They don’t know how to navigate the space. If schools aren’t giving new teachers mentors, they leave. They have to start offering mentorships for new teachers, making it a real part of what is next for teachers.”

Judson High School was the perfect campus to host the event. And because of the generosity of the school, The Educator’s Room committed to a donation to the journalism program.

“The people are amazing,” Warren said. “Everyone has been super friendly. The teachers who attended were super friendly. The custodial staff was so welcoming. The facility was large and clean. It was… just great.”

The Educators Room is a national website “dedicated to improving education by recognizing that the real experts – classroom teachers – are needed at the table of educational reform.” Warren, founder and CEO of the website, taught English/Language Arts in two urban districts in Atlanta, Georgia, and Memphis, Tennessee. Increasingly frustrated with decisions being made about public education from people who were not in the classroom, in 2012, she decided to start a blog about what it was really like to teach in public schools.

In the last four years, The Educator’s Room has grown to become the premier source for resources, tools, and strategies for all things teaching and learning. The Teacher Self Care conference will be holding their next regional conference in Miami on March 23 and then their national two-day conference in Atlanta on June 21-22.