Canyon Pointe Elementary
Tomball Independent School District

Sandy is currently a fourth-grade math and science teacher at Canyon Pointe Elementary in Tomball ISD. She graduated from Sam Houston State University with a major in Elementary Education. This is currently her 14th year teaching, all of which have been in math and science grades 2-4 in Tomball, Cy-Fair and Magnolia ISD.

No two students leave Sandy’s class with the exact same experience. She makes learning fun and individualized. She is a competitive person and loves finding ways to put that competitive aspect in her classroom. She uses a variety of engaging instructional methods to ensure students succeed and enjoy learning, including using games to teach new math topics. Sandy uses Candy Land to teach fraction word problems, flip cup to teach multiplication, and she designed a Plinko board for students to review geometry material. Sandy’s outstanding efforts are seen in her students’ test scores. On the Spring 2022 Grade 4 Math STAAR test, the 36 students in her two sections scored 97% Approaches, 81% Meets and 47% Masters Grade

Level with 68% of students making at least a year's progress.

Sandy also serves as a team leader for her grade level and has presented professional development on multiple occasions on how she uses guided math in her classroom. Sandy works with other math teachers in the district to help them design their math curriculum and lessons and is always sharing her knowledge by posting math lessons and games that she has used in her classroom on Twitter.

In 2019, Sandy was nominated by her administration for the Most Valuable Teacher award in Tomball ISD.

She loves teaching math and prides herself on making math engaging so that even the kids who arrive at the first day of school "hating" math always seem to love it by the end of the year.