Spotlight 4 Success
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Spotlight 4 Success
Meeting Students Where They Are
What happens when passionate educators break free from traditional systems to create the schools they've always envisioned? Terra Gallagher's journey from frustrated parent and teacher to founder of the thriving Field of Vision Academy in Arizona reveals the transformative power of educational innovation.
Website: spotlight4success.com
Welcome to Spotlight for Success by American Book Company. I'm Devin Pintosi, your host. We are here at the ISTE ASCD Conference 2025 in sunny San Antonio, Texas, and we are excited to have as our special guest Terry Gallagher. Terry Gallagher joins us from the Field of Vision Academy in Arizona. We're so happy to have you here today.
Speaker 2:Thank you for this opportunity.
Speaker 1:Yes, Terry. Can you tell me a bit about what brings you here to San Antonio for ISTE?
Speaker 2:We are a micro school operating out of Arizona and we wanted to make sure that our students had the latest technologies and that we were just using the latest and the best curriculum pieces, and so obviously, some of our hard core ones that we've used for years are still here and they're very, very good, so we're keeping them. But we have found some awesome new AI pieces here and there's just lots to offer here, so we wanted to make sure that we were keeping up with the game.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful. I'm curious can you tell us a bit more about MicroSchool and how that works?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're from Arizona.
Speaker 2:Arizona is really, I would say, the leader in MicroSchool education as far as accessibility goes.
Speaker 2:In the US, we are truly universal, which means every student is able to access ESA funds, empowerment, scholarship Account, funds that are state education dollars that are assigned to each student, and so the parents are totally in charge of that and can spend those dollars however they wish, and so because of that, we were able to step out of the traditional system. My husband and I both were state certified teachers in the traditional systems, and we stepped away from that to be able to better meet the needs of students that weren't being met by the traditional system. So we totally catered to students who struggled in the academic traditional format, where they were typically grade levels behind, maybe had never had academic success before Wow, and we're able to meet them where they are, not where their age says they should be grade-wise, and then bring them from there. And now we're operating our third year and we have students that have started behind and now they're ahead. We actually had a student who just successfully completed a college-level course and got an A as a freshman student.
Speaker 2:So they are. It's incredible what can happen to students when they're met where they need to be instead of just, you know, put somewhere where they can't be successful and they just continue to fail. So we doubled in size after quarter one and then we had to find a new venue for year two because we just outgrew our space and partnered with a local community college and they've just been phenomenal to us and we just continue to grow. We're working on on further spreading and helping as many more kids as we can, but we're just excited to be doing what we're doing and we're passionate about education again, which we had kind of. It can be frustrating sometimes in the traditional system with red tape. So what?
Speaker 1:what got you involved to decide to start a micro school?
Speaker 2:I had a daughter. I have a daughter who is now a junior in high school but she was just struggling as an early student, like first, second grade, with reading and she just got pushed and pushed. I had held her back and had her repeat a grade, but it wasn't until her fourth grade year which should have been her fifth grade year that we finally found out that she was dyslexic and she had never no teacher had ever said she needs to be tested for something. I have finally took it upon myself. When over fall break I was sitting down reading with her and she ended the sentence with the word Bob and she sounded it out and the very next word of the next sentence was the same word and she sounded it out again and I knew I wasn't a reading specialist yet then but I knew that something wasn't right and I took her to get tested. And that's when we got her an IEP.
Speaker 2:And then we were living in Utah at the time.
Speaker 2:We moved back to Arizona and she was not allowed to go to the reading specialist to get help with reading and be on an IEP and get resource help.
Speaker 2:That was called double dipping and she couldn't double dip, so I had to make a hard choice as a parent Do I take her off her IEP to get her the help and the thing I know she needs help in, or do I keep her on an IEP and, just, you know, try to work through this? I ultimately pulled her off her IEP and I started working with the reading specialist and then throughout that, I ended up getting certified in dyslexia and then was able to implement that in my classroom and I just saw how many kids were being left behind. Even though we try not to, they only hold kids back in third grade. The state does, and they only hold the bottom 2% of kids back. So you can be the third through the 69th percentile who are still failing in reading but get pushed on, and that's what was happening, and I taught fifth grade ELA for a long time and those students would come and I would have a majority of them that could not read even on a third grade level. So how can you teach them at?
Speaker 2:a fifth grade level you can't. Reading is a part of math, then, because they're word problems. Science and social studies are informative reading, really difficult reading. And so it was just these kids. You know they are defeated and then they get into trouble later on. And I was just like if I can catch these kids before and rebuild their confidence and fill in their gaps and then help them not go down that path, we'd be much better off. And so we opened catering to kids fifth through eighth grade, because I wanted to catch those kids who were most likely to get into that trouble sooner, and so we worked with that age group and now we work with 4th through 12th grade.
Speaker 1:That is just wonderful. What a great story. That impetus with your family and then bringing that into something that can help the larger community with a micro school that's awesome. I hope that school keeps growing. What a wonderful thing?
Speaker 2:We hope so too. We have been so blessed.
Speaker 1:Wonderful thing you're doing there. Thank you for watching Spotlight for Success. I am Devin Pintosi, chief Operating Officer of American Book Company. We are located here in our headquarters in Woodstock, georgia. All of our materials are printed in USA. We have course books, e-books and online testing in grades K through 12 in mathematics, ela, science and social studies. These materials are all designed to help students achieve higher scores on their state-specific high-stakes assessments. We guarantee score improvement. You can get free samples of our materials either in print or in electronic formats at abck12.com. We look forward to hearing from you. Can you tell me what you're hoping to get out of ISTE here?
Speaker 2:So we were specifically looking for something to well, two things. We wanted to find a really great interactive writing curriculum that utilized AI in being able to give constructive feedback, but not just at the narrative level, also at the argumentative and informative level of essay writing, and so we were looking for something specifically for that, which we think we found some good things. And then also, we're always looking for something science-related that makes science more engaging not informative reading, because it's really defeating when science is just reading about it and then writing it. That's really defeating for the students who struggle with the reading and writing concept. But that's what they love is the exploratory, you know the wonderment of science and the curiosity end of it, and so we were looking for, um, you know stem type stuff, and there is a bunch of that here which is awesome, so yeah, so those were our two goals of coming here.
Speaker 2:I never thought I'd be able to meet Ron Clark here, but I was able to meet Ron Clark today, got my picture with him. I was so excited.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 2:And if you don't know who he is, there's a movie about him Fantastic. I watched it years ago. He was actually the person I thought of most as I started my own micro school. I just thought if he could go through what he did and then start his school in Atlanta and be as successful as he is, I'm like, okay, I can do this. So that was kind of fun to meet one of my own idols.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic, and I didn't know he was going to be here. Oh, wow, such a small world, and so do you have a message you'd like to share with the is to community, something you want them to know or think about as they're going through their sessions um, just to be passionate about teaching and that there are micro schools is a way, if you're frustrated with the traditional system, to be able to still be a part of education, and they're everywhere.
Speaker 2:It's a huge community once you get into it, and so that's. You know something. There's ways to work around the red tape in the system too, and I was able to be successful in that realm too. But the freedom and the autonomy that I get as a micro school leader in being able to really do education the way that I envisioned when I went into the field is so different. You know we all have that principle that maybe gave us a little bit more autonomy than we had under other principles, but there is nothing quite like being able to do everything the way that you want to do it and know that you're meeting the needs of the students that you want to work with, and that's really cool.
Speaker 2:I get to work with the kids that need me the most. That I'm passionate about, you know, but it's awesome because it's a community. There are people who are they love theater, and so they they make their school all about. You know that there are people who love nature, and so they do everything related to the outdoors and there's a bunch of people in Florida because they're they're huge micro school state too, and so there's a lot of like surfing schools and things, and so it's just neat because we get to do the thing that we love with the students who we can impact most, and I think that's just so cool because we all have that something special to offer and once you know what it is, it makes job. You don't dread it. I live to go to school. I am so excited to go back to school, so I just love teaching.
Speaker 1:That's great. Where can people find more information out about your school?
Speaker 2:FieldofVisionAcademycom. I've got a Facebook page and Instagram page all Field of Vision Academy. But yeah, that's our. We're online and we're there.
Speaker 1:Oh that's wonderful. Well, thank you so much, Terri Gallagher with Field of Vision Academy in Arizona. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me.