Mr. Fitzgerald has been with our district for the past two years and comes with a wealth of experience from teaching high school students in Louisiana.  He is currently serving at Ernest Ward Middle School as the ELA Department Chair, 8th grade ELA , and Creative Writing teacher.  Nominator Ms. Barbara Luker had this to say, "Mr. Fitzgerald has been diligently learning how to integrate myPerspectives into his Canvas classes. He is now proficient in doing so. He learned how via district county training, trial and error, and self research on how to do so. He is teaching students in his classes how to be proficient users of Canvas."  As we quickly discovered though, this was the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the talents of Mr. Fitz as his students call him.  Mr. Fitz is adept at working with both digital and print materials and is a master at selecting the best tool for the job to ensure his students get the best experience possible.  

In his Creative Writing class, Mr. Fitz self-funds a podcast that his students work on.  This took an enormous amount of effort to get approved.  We would like to highlight Mr. Fitz's dedication to his craft and his students for all of the hard work and time he put into seeing the podcast through the approval process.  It involved, amongst other things, a five page proposal to district personnel, followed by a meeting and the creation, from scratch, of a five page contract for students and parents to review and consent to.  Mr. Fitz's dedication to the process, from seeking approval to paying for the equipment and podcast hosting and coaching of the students, has allowed his Creative Writing students the experience of having their own podcast.  Listen here: Apple Podcasts -  Distractible Writers 

Mr. Fitzgerald was heavily involved in his previous district with the National Writing Project. He also works with students annually to enter them into the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.  Each student entrant has their application fee paid by Mr. Fitzgerald.  If you want to support Mr. Fitz and his students, he self-publishes a book with his students every year.  You can buy last years here at Amazon: Student Anthology .  Visiting and talking with Mr. Fitzgerald was an uplifting experience.  He works with each class he teaches as a distinct group and you can find his students building capacity as writers and learners whether they are on their Chromebooks, playing the occasional game of chess in creative writing during planning stages, writing out a final draft on an actual working typewriter as a reward or digging deep into their textbooks.