Learning Lifeguards
Your 10-Step Guide to Building a Team that Motivates Struggling Students to Love Learning and Stay in School
Published on 14. November 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
264 pages
978-1-956512-62-5 (ISBN)
Description
Transform Struggling Students into Strong Learners
In classrooms nationwide, many students are grappling with the academic riptides, desperately trying to stay afloat. As educators, do we turn away-or do we pool our resources and skills to prevent them from drowning?
Discover the ultimate lifeline for supporting students with Learning Lifeguards: Your 10-Step Guide to Building a Team That Motivates Struggling Students to Love Learning and Stay in School. This empowering guide offers struggling learners a lifeline by equipping educators with actionable strategies for creating a school community where every student not only treads water but succeeds.
Through 10 actionable Hacks, longtime educator Sherri Nelson shares valuable insights from her previous school's transformative journey, revealing how they broke free from their state's school improvement label after more than a decade of struggle.
You'll learn how to:Elevate academic expectations for all students
Strengthen relationships for student success
Establish non-negotiables for student learning
Provide lifeline support for struggling students
Craft a collaborative community culture
Each chapter provides practical solutions for a specific challenge, but the true power of this guidebook lies in assembling a lifeguarding team at your school. Like support personnel on sandy shores, these teams stand ready to assist struggling students until they can independently navigate their academic journeys.
Whether you're a teacher seeking classroom solutions or a visionary principal shaping your school's future, Learning Lifeguards provides the tools to create a learning community where academic success for every student is not just a goal but a reality. Take action now to be the lifeline for your students' success!
More details
Series
Language
English
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
388 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-956512-62-5 (9781956512625)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Serving as a learning lifeguard while remaining employed full-time as an instructional leader allows Sherri to connect informally with students and reminds her why she chose to become an educator: She cares about kids and wants to impact their lives positively.Sherri, a former middle school teacher and instructional coach, is currently the Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment for the Brandon Valley School District in South Dakota. A highly regarded educator for three decades, Sherri has worked as an instructional leader in two school districts on both ends of the student achievement continuum: a rural and low-income district (once identified by the state as requiring immediate improvement) and an affluent suburban district (recognized as being one of the best in the state). In both communities, she encountered students who demonstrated academic excellence with minimal assistance and those who needed extra support until they could independently navigate their academic journeys. In her spare time, Sherri finds joy in connecting with educators nationwide and collaborating with them to develop plans for helping every student experience academic success. She was recognized as South Dakota's Curriculum Leader of the Year in 2025 and honored as Huron Middle School's Teacher of the Year in 2011. Sherri authored Learning Lifeguards: Your 10-Step Guide to Building a Team that Motivates Struggling Students to Love Learning and Stay in School and coauthored The Brick House Study Guide. Sherri has also contributed several articles and stories for educational publications and has presented the topic of academic lifeguarding at schools and educational conferences in twenty states.Sherri and her husband are lifelong Minnesota Vikings football fans. They live in Brandon, South Dakota, and enjoy traveling and recreating their favorite restaurant dishes when they return home. Their two daughters teach in the neighboring school district, just eight miles down the road.