Welcome to the Teacher Support Network!

We would like to salute our heroes—teachers working on the front lines, creating miracles and inspiring lives on a daily basis!  The work that you do is life changing and our communities depend on it!  You “light” our tomorrow by inspiring our future leaders and empowering them with a quality education! 

We also recognize that you deserve some support!  What you do is hard work!  It is no secret that most people would never be able to make through one day in our shoes.  Few realize how much our job requires and the love, dedication and talent that we put into helping our students.  Because there is always something more that we can do to help children, we often work ourselves to exhaustion. We give our students everything we’ve got, only thinking of what we need to do for our job once we get home!

Who We Serve
Our services are offered to all teachers no matter the students they teach. However many of the resources are geared specifically to teachers who work with children coming from poverty. Because they come from poverty—urban and rural—many of these children are labeled “at-risk” at the time that they enter Kindergarten.   The families tend to lack resources to support their children that higher income families are more likely to have.  Many times teachers of these students take on more roles other than teacher to provide these resources, such as finding, washing or buying clothing, lunch money, school supplies, tutoring sessions, homework help, and field trips (just to name a few).   This can be exhausting and many find it difficult to continue for more than a few years.

The Problem
Teaching “at-risk” students has always been challenging. Legislators continue to increase accountability, work loads and testing pressure, but continually cut budgets, resources and compensation. As a result, teaching has become less of a “career” and more “mission work.” 30% of teachers working with at-risk students will quit by the end of their first teaching year and 60% will move on within three years!  This continuously leaves our at-risk students who desperately need support, with inexperienced and unqualified teachers. Year after year, this results in school systems’ failure to properly educate our future generations.

Our Services
The Teacher Support Network has been developed by urban school teachers to support, enlighten and network with other teachers across the country.   The truth is, we’re not alone.  There are many thousands of teachers doing what we’re doing and we can only benefit from joining forces, supporting and learning from each other. 

The Teacher Support Network offers a concise framework of the best informational resources available.  Many of the resources are 1) motivational to keep us aligned with our mission, 2) based on best practices to help us better meet the needs of our students and 3) offer stress management resources used by teachers.  We strive to offer you opportunities to share ideas and resources to help streamline your efforts.  After all, it is so important that we support and empower each other with the positive attitudes and high expectations that we hold for ourselves and our children. 

It is no secret that teachers are often overworked and under-compensated.  The Teacher Support Network is here to provide you with the tools, knowledge and network to support you in your mission—to change lives by giving every child the chance for the quality education that they rightfully deserve!  Good luck on your mission!