There is never enough time! As a fourth-grade teacher, I felt the time squeeze every day in my classroom; not enough time to prepare meaningful lessons, not enough time to teach and not enough time to address individual student needs. Five years into teaching, I was at the point of thinking, “Enough is enough!” If you are a teacher, I’m sure you’ve had this feeling at some point.
As fate would have it, I received a flyer in the mail from the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) about a class called “Boot Camp for Entrepreneurs: Everything You Need to Know to Start Your Own Business.” I took the class and thought, “I can do this.” So, I began working with Ann Hutchinson from the SBDC on a business plan and within a year, I quit teaching and was working on StarrMatica full-time.
Fast forward to today. StarrMatica Learning Systems is a digital content development company specializing in K-5 customizable curriculum solutions. Even though I’m now joined by a team of experienced authors, educators and subject matter experts, I will always be a teacher at heart. Every StarrMatica product is rooted in a desire to help teachers solve a classroom challenge with less time and effort. Whether it is an issue with finding time to differentiate instruction, an issue with locating informational text resources for different reading levels or a problem with re-writing old lesson plans to meet the NGSS, I am tireless in search for solutions to help as many teachers as possible with their specific issues. My focus has always and will always be on how to help teachers do their jobs more easily and effectively. It is my belief that if you can help teachers teach at their highest levels, you’ll be helping their students learn at their highest levels.
Some of you may be familiar with StarrMatica from my library of digital content. Others may be hearing about my company for the first time. Either way, thank you for stopping by the blog and reading part of my story. Please leave a comment below and let me know a little bit about your story.
You can check out the current projects I’m working on at www.starrmatica.com and stay tuned for next month’s blog where I take a dive into why informational text comprehension is so important.
