Teachers Teaching Teachers: Frenship ISD Hosting West Texas Innovation Summit

More than 1,000 educators will attend the annual summit where teachers will share education skills to increase students’ experiences in the classroom, while also welcoming best-selling author Liz Murray.

In preparation for the upcoming school year, more than a thousand teachers from six districts will visit Frenship ISD Friday (Aug. 18) to attend the annual West Texas Innovation Summit where teachers share education skills with one another to increase students’ experiences in the classroom.

The annual summit is a collaborative training day that welcomes a variety of sessions designed by teachers from Kindergarten all the way through high school.

Some of the topics include:

  • Building relationships
  • Enriching students by using iPads in the classroom
  • Learning needs of abused and foster children
  • Conflict resolution
  • Motivation campaigns
  • Implementing work place principles in the classroom
  • Utilizing video in the classroom
  • STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) engineering
  • Integrating Microsoft Office in the classroom and more

During the one-day training, elementary teachers will be at Frenship Middle School while secondary teachers will be at Frenship High School.

Frenship ISD also will welcome Liz Murray, inspirational speaker and best-selling author of “Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard.”

New York Times best-selling author Liz Murray

Murray’s story consists of a life with cocaine-addicted parents in the Bronx, no food on the table, a filthy home, drugs everywhere and welfare checks spent before they arrived in the mail.

By the age of 15, Murray’s mom died and she found herself homeless, living on the streets, riding the subway all night long and eating food she found in dumpsters.

Despite all of the adversity she underwent, Murray dreamed of a better life for herself and decided to take charge of her future.

She finished high school in just two years and was awarded a full scholarship to Harvard University, all while camping out in New York City parks and subway stations.

Murray graduated from Harvard with her bachelor’s degree and is currently pursuing her master’s degree in psychology at Columbia University.

Murray will offer two keynote speeches Friday and will follow up with meet and greets to sign books and speak with those attending the summit.

She will speak both in the morning and afternoon, beginning at the Frenship Middle School auditorium with the keynote from 8:30-9:30 a.m. and the meet and greet from 9:30-10 a.m.

Later that afternoon, Murray will speak at the Frenship High School Performing Arts Center from 12:45-1:45 p.m. followed by another meet and greet from 1:45-2:15 p.m.

Murray will be available for interviews during the meet and greet.

For a full schedule of events, please visit both the elementary and secondary schedules.