Hello everyone,

My name is Tyzsa Chatman. I am a Hillsborough County Public School teacher. I am entering my 7th year of teaching and I currently teach math to 7th and 8th graders.

I started this Go fund me to raise money to have a class set of laptops for my students. Currently my school is not a 1-to-1 device school. When Covid hit hard & we were forced to do school from home, my school could not provide laptops to all students. It put many things into perspective for to me. Not only that, some students who did receive a laptop struggled to operate the laptop because they were very unfamiliar due to lack of devices at school & home. I cannot control what happens at home, but in my class I want to implement change.

The consistent use of these laptops will allow students to work with technology and math all throughout the school year. I believe that the now and the future is heading towards technology and my goal is to prepare my students for life.

For starters, all grades for all classes are posted on canvas. My push this year will be for students to be responsible for knowing their grades at all times. I would also like to use canvas as a way for students to submit work. This will limit the paper distribution & collection. As a result, it will limit the spread of germs, especially with Covid.

In the event a student is sick with covid & has to work from home they will be familiar with how to use the laptop to complete work on canvas for all classes, not just mine.

This year, I have a few cool math projects planned that will require students to do research and be as creative as they wish to be. I would like to be able to provide the resource daily for students to complete the work in a timely manner.

The question I get asked yearly and the most as a math teacher is: “Mrs. Chatman, when will I use this math in the real world?” My early years of teaching I always would answer “I don’t know, you just have to know this.” As I reflected on my teaching practices and how I could be more impactful I realized that I would love to make every math unit relate to the real world and what better way to do that, than through MONEY?!

Because basic finances are not exclusively taught as a class, my goal is to include financial literacy throughout all 10 units. I have already used my personal funds to buy two financial literacy curriculums and I have taken that knowledge as well as my own experiences with finances and made it applicable in my lesson plans.

The laptops will also provide as a tool for the financial literacy club that I plan to start this school year.

In addition to lesson plans, assignments and projects, students will ultimately be preparing for Florida Standard Assessment all year long. I believe that it is important for students to be provided with ALL the tools they need to succeed on that test. All FSA testing is done on computers. However, there is a lack of devices within the school and my students aren’t using the computers enough to be comfortable with online testing.

I will ensure that all my unit tests are online so that students are prepared and comfortable using a laptop when state testing comes at the end of the year.

Please help me reach my goal and afford them the opportunity to change their learning experience in an impactful way this year and the many years to come.

The goal is to buy 30 laptops and a laptop cart to house and have the ability to lock all computers up daily.

Any donation can help this cause and/or simply sharing with a friend who may be able to help.

Thanks in advance.

-Tyzsa Chatman

P.S.- School starts Tuesday, August 10. Let's hit this goal & change the educational experience for so many students!