Blogs

Hanging Out With Cool Superintendents - the TASA Midwinter Convention

February 10, 2025

The Texas Teacher of the Year Program is organized, coordinated, and run by TASA, the Texas Association of School Administrators. I’m so grateful to TASA, they run an amazing Teacher of Year banquet that allows all 40 regional teachers of the year to come, be celebrated, make connections, and be recognized for the work they do. The program for Texas Teacher of the Year that TASA runs is simply top notch. As part of winning Texas TOY, I was also invited to attend the TASA Midwinter Convention in Austin in late January with Kristi Leff, the 2025 Texas Elementary Teacher of the Year.

The Midwinter Convention is one of TASAs biggest events, bringing together school administrators from across the state for several days of learning and conferencing. I was fortunate to be able to go to a few sessions and learn some new things, get recognized along with Kristi as the Texas Teachers of the Year during the second general session, hear the amazing Ryan Holiday as a keynote speaker, and be included in a delicious dinner at Three Forks with superintendents from across the state. I had a great time discussing current issues in education with whoever I randomly bumped into or was seated next to in sessions or events. I’ve discovered superintendents are often quite talkative and pretty friendly generally! TASA Midwinter was a great experience and I was so lucky to be able to participate.

Chris Mihealsick Day in Williamson County!

January 7, 2025

I’m fortunate to both live and teach in Williamson County, which is an amazing county in the heart of Central Texas. Westwood High School is in Williamson County Commissioner District 1, which is the district of Commissioner Terry Brown (directly to the left of me in the picture to the right). Commissioner Brown does fabulous work for District 1, and her office reached out to me in late November about honoring me with a Williamson County Proclamation at the Commissioners Court. This was a super cool honor, as I got to officially be a part of the Commissioner’s Court business for the day, be in the official Wilco historic record for the day, and meet Commissioner Cook, Commissioner Covey, Commissioner Long, and Williamson County Judge Gravell.

Honestly I didn’t really know what a County Court Proclamation was at first, but I found out that Williamson County officially named January 7th, 2025 Christine Mihealsick Day for the entire county! Commissioner Cook also invited my amazing principal Erin Cambell and our wonderful RRISD area superintendent Dr. Oldham to participate as well, and I’m grateful for their support and their on-the spot recognition of my work. Commissioner Cook read the Wilco Proclamation, which was both amazing and touching, and then pictures!

I’m so grateful to be recognized by Williamson County - I’ve lived here since 2007 and it’s been a great place to both teach and raise a family. When I started teaching 23 years ago, I never in my wildest dreams imagined that the work I do with the teenagers of Texas would be recognized with something like an official Wilco Chris Mihealsick day!

Freudenfreude for Leslie Drake

December 9th, 2024

I’m so fortunate to work with so many amazing educators at Westwood High School that I’m also lucky to call friends, and Leslie Drake is one of those humans. We celebrated Leslie Drake today, as she found out over the weekend that she passed all her components to be certified as a Nationally Board Certified teacher! Congratulations Leslie! National Board Certification is a rigorous, years-long certification process to demonstrate excellence as a master teacher. It requires a challenging content and pedagogy test, videotaping two lessons and deep analysis of that teaching, demonstration of a content unit with deep analysis of student learning, and analysis of assessment strategies, leadership strategies, and community engagement. It’s a huge accomplishment, and only 0.37% of Texas teachers are Nationally Board Certified. I certified as a National Board teacher in 2009, and renewed

my certification in 2019, and now work mentoring a number of candidates working on certification, including Leslie. Going through the process of National Board certification was both the best PD of my career and a process that made me cry more frequently than I would have liked. Everyone that’s a NBCT knows exactly what I’m talking about!

Freudenfreude is defined as the joy felt when someone else is successful, even if it doesn’t directly impact you. This is the opposite of the more commonly used schadenfreude, which is joy felt from learning of someone else’s misfortune. I was feeling so much freudenfreude for Leslie today, celebrating her success on her NBCT journey. And I’m so happy as well that our department has cultivated an atmosphere of freudenfreude as well - so many people in our department came to sign her poster and celebrate in her classroom with her. Leslie started her NB journey in 2023, and as her National Board mentor, I couldn’t be prouder to celebrate her huge accomplishment today!

My First Speech as Texas TOY

December 4, 2024

I was so grateful to be asked to give a short speech to the apprentice teachers graduating from the UTeach program at UT Austin. The amazing Pam Garrison Elias from UTeach reached out to me about giving a short speech during their apprentice teacher graduation banquet, and I was honored to accept. Pam was the coordinator for apprentice teachers when I was apprentice teaching as an undergraduate at UT, so it felt like an amazing full-circle moment in my life to be asked to speak to the graduates.

I tell my students all the time it’s going to feel uncomfortable when you’re growing and trying new things, such as taking an AP science class for the first time or working on building better AP essay writing or data analysis skills. And as I’m growing and learning new things as the Texas Teacher of the Year, I have to internalize the advice I give students - growth and doing things outside of your comfort zone can feel uncomfortable and even scary. But growth doesn’t happen unless you take risks with new things. While I’m not afraid of public speaking, it’s definitely outside of my comfort zone. I’m very used to talking in front of teenagers, very comfortable leading department meetings with the 24 adults in the science department, and I’ve led PD for groups of AP Environmental Science teachers across the nation for 8 years with my work as a former NMSI consultant. I can talk any time, all day, with groups of teens or adults but giving inspirational/motivational speeches to larger groups is a new skill. When faced with something I was a little nervous about, I did what I usually do - rolled up my sleeves and put in the work to prepare as much as I could. I put in the time to write the most appropriate and uplifting speech I could, I practiced some in front of my family, and I brought along my 17 year old daughter Erica for support.

It was amazing to get to mingle with some of my former UTeach professors before the event started, including Dr. Ruth Buskirk and Dr. Michael Marder. Dr. Marder in particular is doing some very startling research about the rise in uncertified teachers in Texas classrooms. It felt a little surreal, but amazing, to be talking with my former professors in depth about educational issues impacting teaching and student learning in Texas.

It was definitely my first big public speaking event, as I was too nervous to finish my dessert before my talk. Normally, I would never leave a delicious chocolate dessert unfinished! During my talk, I had mixed up one of my speech pages, and while fumbling for the correct pages, I remarked that it was my first speaking event as Texas TOY. One of the teachers in the audience remarked that it was just like a first block class, which it pretty much was! That was a hilarious comment, as in your first block class you always work out the kinks of doing an activity or presenting something new for the first time and things go smoother for your second block class, and so on. But overall I felt it went well - people laughed at the parts I was hoping were funny, smiled encouragingly, and talked to me afterward about being inspired from my speech.

This evening was about celebrating the work of the UTeach apprentice teachers, with just a little advice from me about maintaining joy, growth, and longevity in the teaching profession. I was so grateful to be asked to participate, and to be awarded a UTeach Distinguished Alumni Award as a surprise at the end of my speech as well.

I couldn’t have asked for a better venue or audience to kick off my year as Texas TOY- speaking for the UTeach banquet felt like coming home 22 years after graduation.

Photo Credits: Cate Logan, University of Texas

I Dream of Whooping Cranes!

Thanksgiving Break, 2024

When I was an undergraduate, I spent the summer of 2001 studying at the University of Texas at Austin’s Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas, TX. It was one of the most amazing summers of my life - I took classes in marine ichthyology (fish), marine botany (plants), and marine environmental science. I lived in a dorm right by the ocean, and would jog on the beach in the mornings or snorkel off the UT pier or jetty in the afternoons after class. Our professors were wonderful and our lab fieldwork was done from boats - it was the most fun lab work I’ve ever done. The Texas Gulf Coast has a special place in my heart, and I’ve often brought my family down to “Port A." Erica and Bodhi (my kids) even spent time doing the summer science camp at the UT Marine Science Institute in 2019.

During the summer of 2001, I learned about the population of endangered whooping cranes that overwinter close to Port Aransas, in the Aransas Pass National Wildlife Refuge. They overwinter from mid-November to mid-March, and I’ve always wanted to see them but never seemed to be in Port Aransas during this time. So for Thanksgiving break this year, we decided to go to Port Aransas and take a birding boat tour specifically to see whooping cranes. I even rented a huge telephoto lens to be able to get some good pictures. It was the realization of a 23 year dream to see whooping cranes in their winter home on the Texas gulf coast.

The story of the whooping crane is an amazing success story of bird conservation. Whooping cranes are the tallest birds in North America, have vibrant plumage, and have fantastic whooping calls.They are omnivores that prefer tidal salt marsh habitat, and migrate between warmer winter areas and their summer breeding areas in Wisconsin or Canada.

Whooping crane populations plunged to only 21 total birds in 1941, 15 that migrated between Canada and Texas and 6 that lived in Louisiana. Whooping cranes populations were so depleted due to habitat loss, wetland depletion, and hunting. They were listed as Critically Endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 1967, and were afforded protections to try and bring their population back from extinction. Through habitat conservation, a captive breeding program, and an innovative program using gliders that taught young whooping cranes to migrate, worldwide populations have recovered to over 600 birds.

The population of whooping cranes that lives in Aransas Pass National Wildlife Refuge migrates between Texas and their summer breeding ground in Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada. The population in Aransas Pass National Wildlife refuge was counted/calculated to be 536 birds in the winter of 2023.

The bird tour was everything I was hoping it would be, minus a little cold weather and my son Bodhi getting a little seasick. We heard the whooping cranes calling to each other - it was a totally unique and fantastic sound! We saw a family of cranes with one juvenile, several pairs of cranes, and a few singleton cranes. Cranes will mate for life, will usually lay 2 eggs a season, and often only 1 juvenile survives. The first egg that hatches is often stronger than the second hatchling, and the first hatchling will aggressively defend food and outcompete the second hatchling, which usually dies. This isn’t ideal for a critically endangered species, so sometimes the second egg in a nest is recovered after the first one hatches to be captively raised.

In addition to the cranes, we also saw over 50 different species of birds, some javelinas, and my favorite surprise, a coyote eating an alligator gar fish. Definitely wasn’t expecting that sighting! I loved discovering new species and taking pictures with a giant telephoto lens. I think I’ve been bitten by the bird photography bug, and am hoping to do more soon!

All bird pictures in this post originals from Chris Mihealsick. Coyote picture credit Erica Mihealsick

Whooping Crane data in this blog post from the following sources:

https://tpwmagazine.com/archive/2024/jan/scout14b_conservation/index.phtml#:~:text=Whooping%20cranes%20are%20one%20of,America%20and%20are%20highly%20endangered.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Whooping_Crane/overview

https://myfwc.com/research/wildlife/birds/whooping-crane/faq/#:~:text=Most%20nests%20contain%20two%20eggs,Both%20males%20and%20females%20incubate.

I love doing outdoor labs with students!

Early November, 2024

Biodiversity, both at the genetic and species levels, is critical to helping sustain robust, functioning ecosystems, and in helping ecosystems maintain function and vitality through disturbances. So biodiversity is a pretty big topic in AP Environmental Science, the course I teach! We do a fun outdoor lab to measure biodiversity in two different areas around the Westwood campus, a “forest” and a “grassland.” Biodiversity can be calculated with the Simpson’s index, which gives a numeric value or quantitative data, to compare either multiple regions or the same region over time. This gives us great data to see which areas might be more biodiverse around campus, or if the biodiversity of the same area is increasing or decreasing over time.

I choose to use the inverse Simpson’s index with my students, as a higher number on the inverse Simpson’s shows higher biodiversity in an area, and I’ve found it’s easier to help students conceptualize with the inverse Simpson’s index. To help students calculate biodiversity, students measure two important biodiversity concepts - richness and evenness. Richness is the total number of different species in an area, and evenness is the number of organisms of each species - both are important and used in calculating the Simpson’s index.

The lab equipment is really simple - students use a quadrat to get a uniform space to count species richness and evenness. The quadrats we use are just 4 colorful straws stapled into a square, and students count all the different species in the quadrat. The great thing about this lab is that students don’t have to actually identify species, they can just identify that the species are different. They use terms like “fuzzy bug” and “grass” and “big leaf plant” - we just care about how many different species there are in the quadrat, and counting the number of each we find for the evenness value!

As long as the Texas weather cooperates, students generally love getting outside and that they’re using a real science technique to learn how to calculate biodiversity the way ecologists do.

My 8 student lab groups are split up into 4 different “forest” or “grassland” habitats around campus, and they do 3 quadrat trials each. Once everyone’s measured the evenness and richness, we go back inside and calculate the inverse Simpson’s index for each habitat, or D value, to determine which area of campus has the highest biodiversity. Most classes have calculations showing a higher biodiversity index for the areas around campus that have trees - our “forest”. But often the higher numbers are not that much greater than the grasslands, and students often wonder how much of a difference there really is between habitats - after all, they are just grassy or treed areas around our school, and really highly disturbed areas that students walk around daily.

So to dive just a bit deeper, and to see if there is a statistically significant difference in averages, we do a dot plot on the board and look to see if we can isolate all the D values from a habitat to see a significant difference. I learned this cool trick from my friend Penny Smeltzer, a master AP Statistics teacher. We have all student groups post each of their three D values, and each of the 4 habitat locations has a different color magnet. We make a dot plot on a number line of all the different data points, and if we have a full data set for a habitat that is isolated - if we can draw a circle around all the magnets of one color/habitat and not have that circle include any other color magnets (from other habitats) we have an isolated data set, and it’s a statistically significant result.

Unfortunately, even with higher averages (usually) from our “forest” areas, we never have isolated data sets and statistical significance. There’s just too many people walking all over campus to have a truly statistically significant difference in biodiversity in different areas around campus. But, the students learn how to calculate true biodiversity with the inverse Simpson’s index, a quick and easy way to visually look at statistical significance with their results, and have a good time with an outdoor lab!

Photos courtesy of John Klipper, the Association of Texas Professional Educators atpe.org