EV Staffer Helps Teachers Make Most Of Their Time

When Trent Elementary School teachers Shelley Thomas and Vicki Spring wanted a better way to gauge their students’ reading ability, they called Mary Roe.

And when the East Valley School District put on a day of staff seminars, Roe did a large part of the organizing.

Another project Roe is organizing is a six-week course for East Valley teachers on teaching writing.

Mountain View eighth-grade teacher Becca Gilman is one of the instructors. But she was grateful for Roe, who did the legwork needed to ensure that teachers who pass the course will gain graduate credit.

The district hired Roe this fall as coordinator of staff development and assessment. Her job description lists 11 “major responsibilities.”

Ask her what her top priority is, and she’ll answer that one of several is keeping track of such a broad-based job.

One of Roe’s areas of expertise is in reading education. She has earned a doctorate in reading education, two masters degrees; she has dozens of papers and presentations to her credit. Her last job was a professor of reading education at a university in Delaware.

On top of that she knew the district, having taught in East Valley schools in the 1970s and ‘80s.

No wonder she has helpful answers for teachers here.

“In our multi-age class, we wanted to do a reading inventory to find out where our students were. But we knew that reading inventories can be extremely time-consuming,” Spring said.

“She had just the answer for us - a QRI, quantitative reading inventory.”

Roe helped the teachers learn how to use the materials and returned two or three times to offer support.

When the day of staff seminars came along, Roe asked Spring and Thomas to talk to interested colleagues.

“When we had our release day, she asked us if we’d present something on the QRIs. People were very interested. Teachers haven’t always had that kind of tool at our finger tips. We certainly didn’t know something as easy as that existed.”

“She’s just a terrific resource, she’s done so many things, been involved in so much research,” Gilman said “Every conversation I have with her I learn something new.”

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