TULSA, Okla. — The Tulsa Public Schools district is starting the school year with 200 new educators, and as staff work to train the new teachers, this year will be new for everyone as school will be virtual for the first nine weeks of classes.
Quintin Liggins, the TPS talent acquisition, development, and retention director, says newness for everyone due to COVID-19 safety precautions led multiple teams within the district to quickly finish the Team Tulsa Learning Hub.
“It [the hub] had been in development towards the end of last school year, but observing the trends of the pandemic really pushed us to get it done ahead of this school year,” Liggins said.
The new employee resource is a user-friendly platform with multiple resources for new teachers and teachers new to distance learning, which is, understandably, essentially most of the teachers in the district.
One of those teachers is Edison Prepatory High-school history teacher John Pirok.
“I feel like this is my first year of teaching all over again, because this is all so different and new,” Pirok said.
Pirok proudly said this is his second year teaching in the TPS district.
After getting into a good rhythm with his students last year, the global pandemic changed his plans drastically for this semester.
To help teachers with all of the changes, both, physically and technology, TPS staff will continually add to and update the Team Tulsa Hub.
“It’s good to see that support the students means better support for us,” Pirok said. “We really are all on the same side and in this together.”
The hub will also provide resources to help educators continue their professional learning remotely.
“We are so excited to launch the Team Tulsa Learning Hub and hope it will be a useful tool, especially during a time when we are not able to come together for more traditional professional learning,” Chief Talent Officer Devin Fletcher said. “The Hub will offer tech support, professional development, and even 120 live virtual learning sessions along with a number of ‘anytime’ learning opportunities and resources for all of our teachers. We will continue to build libraries of information relevant to all of our teams across the district.”
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