speaker-0: Ever sit in a conference session and think, I could teach this session? Many educators feel the pull to try something new, presenting, coaching, consulting, maybe even leaving the classroom for ed tech. But what actually happens when you make that leap? In today's episode, I chat this very topic with Amy Stor, an innovative learning specialist who's done it all. Classroom teacher, instructional coach, ed tech consultant traveling around the country, and now back in a district supporting teachers across multiple campuses. If you've ever asked yourself, I wonder what life will look like on the other side of those career moves, this episode is for you. But before we get into that, let's check out a word from our sponsor, Tech. This episode is sponsored by Tech. One of the biggest challenges in schools right now is capacity. Educators are asked to do more often with new tools and very little support. Tech helps by combining classroom technology like smart boards and STEM resources with professional learning that respects educators' time and reality. It's support that makes technology usable, not overwhelming. Learn more at tech.com. That's T-E-Q dot com.

speaker-1: My name is Amy Storer and I am the Innovative Learning Specialist in Montgomery ISD.

speaker-0: All welcome back to the show. ⁓ yeah. It's been you've been on I want to say three times or this is not this is your third time.

speaker-1: think the last time we did this was TCC, last TCCA in Houston with me and my twin sister in the cafeteria. Yeah, that's right.

speaker-0: right. Yeah, that's right. And it's been a minute.

speaker-1: a hot minute. at least two years. Yeah. Really good. ST. Montgomery ISD. Okay. Innovative Learning Specialist.

speaker-0: How are things going? Going really good. And what is your title again? Before that, you were back in the classroom.

speaker-1: Yeah, I started my career as ⁓ a classroom teacher, mainly grades three and four math and science. I was an instructional coach. I want to say, I always say just over five years, I can't remember, pre-K through fifth grade, all content. And then ⁓ left for four years and worked for a company called Frye Technology. Shout out to Frye Tech, my friends. And then came back into public education this school year.

speaker-0: That's right. Okay, all right. I remember seeing your posts. I think it was like post ISTE, like right after ISTE. All right, that's what we're gonna be talking about today. All right, I know a lot of people personally that are like going from classroom to coach or coach to company. And then I also, like yourself, know people that are going back to the classroom. My wife went back to the classroom for being an instructional, yeah.

speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

speaker-0: A math curriculum coach. Okay. And it's going back to, it went back to the classroom and is loving every minute of it. ⁓ So I do have to ask the transition from classroom teacher to innovative coach or to, was it innovative coach or? How did that go? How did that conversation come about? Was it something that you sought for or was it kind of pitched to you like, we got this position coming out.

speaker-1: ⁓ How does that it? When I was a classroom teacher, that's when I started to present at like local conferences and I kind of caught the presenter bug and realized pretty quickly, I love working with adults. I love working with adult learners, teachers, leaders, counselors, you name it. I just, found it to be a very strong passion of mine. And then our district decided one year to start a coaching program and I was a part of that first program. ⁓ That first year with the four other four or five other wonderful individuals and I coached and loved it. was everything I loved about working with teachers and I got to do a little bit of tech with it because we had tech mentors at every campus. And so I knew that that was going to be my path working with educators and ⁓ loved every second of it. Leaving that job as an instructional coach to go to Fried Tech was hard because I loved my principal. Shout out Mallory Kirby. I call her my soulmate leader. She is one that I would follow. wherever and leaving her was tough. ⁓ leaving Keenan Elementary School, which is where I worked was hard because I, it was a community and we were a family. It was a very tough decision, but I just felt in my heart that this was a step that I needed to take. ⁓ and so I joined Fried Tech.

speaker-0: Well, I'm going to let's jump back. OK, so you got the bug. You caught the bug. You were like, like this. Yeah. Working with adults. And that's not to say I don't like working with kids.

speaker-1: No, yeah, it directly will impact kids. Yeah, and I still was able to as a coach get into classrooms, model lessons, work with kids. So kind of best of both worlds.

speaker-0: Okay, do you recall your first conference you presented it?

speaker-1: ⁓ yep. It was a Huntsville region six technology conference. ⁓ my gosh. Many moons ago. I wasn't even a coach. I don't, but I did it with Nikki Taylor and we were just babies back then. Okay. And I knew as soon as that conference was over, I was like, ⁓ yeah, I could do this again.

speaker-0: Okay, do you remember the year? Okay, so you caught that bug and you guys were presenting and then at that point when you say like they were launching a coaching program, was it to be coach or was it to be a coach?

speaker-1: So our district had never had instructional coaches up until that point. And so they were hiring instructional coaches for every campus, every elementary campus at that time. were one of those. And I was one of the ones that was chosen. Three, four, third and fourth.

speaker-0: In fourth grade. And then you said, all right, I'm in this now I'm working with adults. I'm starting to present more I'm assuming, right?

speaker-1: Yeah, presenting more. was starting to make strong connections with companies like back in the time it was Flipgrid, Buncee, even I know even Ipevo and I was. Oh, Ipevo. Ipevo. Yeah, they were one of the. actually, that was the first company that got me to ISTE. Like I would have never gone to ISTE without them. And they had reached out and found me on social media. I was posting about presenting and they reached out to me and said, hey, we'd like you to present at the booth. And yeah, I thought that. And so yeah, that kind of started happening and I was kind of getting a following on Twitter and I was talking to more people and I thought this would be kind of fun to do. I know. Yes. I was telling someone earlier that LinkedIn starting to feel a little bit like old school Twitter.

speaker-0: days at I'm finding myself opening LinkedIn way more than I open Twix.

speaker-1: Yep, same. By far. Yeah. it's a good space to be. It is.

speaker-0: Okay, so then you're coach in your district. You're getting in with companies, they're sending you to conferences to present at their booths and so on and so forth. Talk us through Frytech. What is Frytech?

speaker-1: Okay. Right. It is a professional development company based in Conroe, Texas. We're partners with Google, Microsoft, Adobe, Canva. There's others. Go Guardian, that whole ecosystem. Yeah. ⁓

speaker-0: And you guys are official Google partners for their Google certification.

speaker-1: Yes. Is note one of them? Note. Yes. Magic Squad, I is a brand new one. ⁓ So we just work with teachers from all over and to show them how to integrate technology into what they're doing. And ⁓ I was approached by the CEO about doing part-time work. And I was like, the CEO, Amy Mayor. ⁓

speaker-0: KNOWT, you guys are...

speaker-1: ⁓ I used to go to conferences and stand in long lines wrapped around hallways to hear her speak. the Fry Tech crew, Brooke Lowry, I loved them. And the fact that she was asking for me to do part-time work, was like, me? Amy Storer? And that's how it started. I was doing part-time work with Microsoft stuff and that eventually led into a full-time conversation.

speaker-0: Okay, all right, boom, you're part of the onboarding process. You're on Off-Ride Tech. How was it going from K-12 education to district and ISD to a company?

speaker-1: It was a trip. will say Fry Tech, ⁓ they run very much similarly to ⁓ a district as far as paperwork stuff, things like that. That felt normal, but the travel was a ton of fun and really getting to meet so many teachers and even students. One of my favorite memories at Fry Tech was I was assigned to do a job in Brunswick, Georgia that lasted a year and two months. Every month I went to Brunswick and worked with the same teachers and the same students.

speaker-0: cohort.

speaker-1: almost. like a coach. I was an instructional tech coach when I was there and I formed such strong connections with the people. I was in tears when I left and I loved it. I'm still very much close to some of them. So I always and firmly believe that everything happens for a reason. That the four years that I spent at Fry Tech I loved. People that I met, the people that I worked with Courtney Watson, Lori Roberts, Chantel Lott, Melissa Summerford, the entire team. ⁓ Everything I learned there has equipped me for what I'm doing today.

speaker-0: And I'm pretty sure that if I was to talk to everyone on that team, they would say the same thing about everyone including yourself as well. So now you're on, you're making these connections at a national level.

speaker-1: hope so, yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. I was being getting to be in the room that I used to stand in lines to just to sit into here. Yeah, we're getting to be there. I remember the first TCA. Was it in San Antonio that year? It may have been in San Antonio and Courtney Watson, who got hired the same time as me, she she and I call ourselves our work wives. Yeah.

speaker-0: Actually, I had both of you on the show the following year. That was the Halloween, the 13th one. you're

speaker-1: You are correct. We were on stage about to present our first session ever as Fried Tech employees. And it was a Wakelet session. Okay. Specific Wakelet session and the entire Wakelet team from the UK walks in and they're standing to the side and her and I look at each other and we go, you are kind. The line is you are kind, you are smart. Because we were so incredibly nervous because we were the ones that were in the audience for so many years watching these individuals present. Just it was

speaker-0: You are enough. Yeah.

speaker-1: Surreal, absolutely surreal.

speaker-0: So you guys got through it, you pushed through it. Wakelet was there. Okay. Yeah. Building even more relationships than that. you were only with Frytech for four years.

speaker-1: Yeah. Four years. Yeah. Mm Yeah.

speaker-0: feels like you were with them longer. So then when you and I first connected, you weren't with them. Okay, I'm starting to like do the math in my head. Carry the five. Okay, all right. And then what made you say this past year, these past 12 months, because I'm pretty sure you struggled in your own head. Do I want to continue doing this? Do I want to go back to the classroom? At what point did you have that first initial thought? Who did you talk to? What went through your head when you decided or when you even were thinking about going back to the district level?

speaker-1: I vividly remember the moment that I first had an inkling, like the heart full, a little bit of a light heart full. And I went to go visit my former principal, Mallory Kirby, my soulmate leader, during the Christmas time just to go say hi, have lunch with her. And they were setting up the Christmas tree. Miss Dottie was there, who was our former secretary who was since retired.

speaker-0: I feel like there's multiple missed audios. I know a missed audio.

speaker-1: That's funny. OK. And I got to visit with the teachers and I left that day. I could try now thinking about I drove home in tears. I drove home so emotional because I just missed not that I didn't have those connections with my team. But when you work for a company like Bright Tech and you travel and or work from home and when you travel, it's sometimes by yourself. When you work from home, it's by yourself. And I just started to miss that community of being around the same people. Yeah. You know, day in and day out. And, ⁓ so I felt that, you know, a little bit of a pull at that moment and it, that was December and I didn't really make the decision. So many months later and the firm decision. And, ⁓ I just told myself, cause I was very picky. had to be Montgomery ISD non-negotiable. Cause I was, yeah, it's the district that I love. And, and so I just told myself if something became available, I jumped and so I jumped.

speaker-0: new job.

speaker-1: Best decision I've ever made. Yeah, I love this job. Love the work that I do. I work under a fabulous leader, Defer, and I just getting to work in every campus in our district with the teachers and the students. It's just been a dream. I wake up happy and I go to bed happy. Wow. Every single day.

speaker-0: I will say there's something to be said about knowing where you're going to be. I support many different campuses as well as like district level, going to district office and things like that. And when I get in the car with my wife and ⁓ you know that Apple Maps and Apple CarPlay kind of detects your patterns. So it'll pull up like on her phone. You know, do you want to? It looks like you're to go to this campus, you know, every day. For me, it doesn't know Monday through Friday where I'm going to be because I go to multiple places. The only things I can rely on are Saturday. It says 14 minutes to Costco or eight minutes to Sam's kind of thing. But I could imagine being that you literally were flying around the country. It's nice to know that you're going to go to how many campuses you support?

speaker-1: Yeah, often. campuses, including a brand new beautiful CTA center. Yeah. And Montgomery's not large. Like it's easy to get around as far as campuses. Yeah. And every day for the most part, four to five days a week, I am at one campus. And then some Fridays I'll be at the office or I'll be working with kiddos doing some model lessons. Yeah. But yeah, it's just been a ton of fun so far.

speaker-0: Okay, all right. But isn't it nice knowing that you're every day you're going to be in this hub or in this.

speaker-1: Montgomery somewhere. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

speaker-0: I have no clue where the heck Montgomery, Texas is. I have no clue where the heck Conroe is. In the Houston area, it's true.

speaker-1: You know where Conroe is? North of us north. Yes, it's up of us. So where I live. OK, 45 minutes to an hour from the airport in Houston, just kind of further into the country. I live in a small town called Plannersville. not too far from like Texas A Montgomery is near like Magnolia, Conroe, Willis, Palmball.

speaker-0: ⁓ okay, Texas A ⁓ Yeah. 35, no.

speaker-1: 105 is really where most of Montgomery is. But 45 is our major highway, I guess you could say. We do.

speaker-0: I to. All right, you got toll roads up there too, right? Yeah. Okay, I think I might have gone around. Okay, so you strongly in your heart feel that you made the right decision.

speaker-1: Maybe. I do. Yeah, I love. I just I just love the work that I get to do, and it's everything that I love working with teachers, meaningful tech integration, still getting to work with students. It's just everything that makes my heart happy. And I know it sounds cheesy, but I'm being completely honest when I say I'm just so happy right now. OK, with this job. Yeah.

speaker-0: Beautiful. I'm happy for you. I'm excited for you. do have like a piece of it. What piece of advice would you give a teacher who's getting the edge? Because I know I remember I got the edge too. Yeah. And it happened. was a tech person at the campus and I would do little trainings there and then something happened. Boom. They they hired me. Yeah. Yeah. So ⁓ I know the route that I took. I heard the route you took. People. out there, especially after a conference like this, I remember being in the crowd and saying, I could, I could have taught that. I that I might even have taught it better. Shot, but I might have taught it better or a different matter. would have done this. What piece of advice would you give somebody who's a classroom teacher who might be getting that itch saying, you know what, maybe I do want to go venture into being a coach or something along those

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah You know, I look back to when I was a early on teacher in Montgomery ISD and I started at a campus called Clark Primary, no, Maylee Ranch Elementary. And my principal then, Ms. Lopez, she asked me one time, she said, would you be interested in being a cat, which was a campus academic tech specialist, like a part-time tech person? Yeah. And I was like, don't know what that means, but sure. Exactly. And I said yes. And then I continued to to say yes to a couple more things like leadership roles, like, would you mind leading this? And just took chances. I really had to get eager to get uncomfortable because the more that I tried something new, the more that I knew, okay, this is, I can see this. But yeah, I can kind of see it in my future because never in a million years would I have thought I would ever leave the classroom ever. But it took one leader, one person, one job, one experience to show me

speaker-0: This is out of my wheelhouse.

speaker-1: There's more to it. And if you want to try, try. Yeah. All right. Find a mentor. When you're coming to conferences like these, go to a session that's dedicated to coaches and you could be in the audience and think to yourself, I could do this. This is possible.

speaker-0: That Gabriel Creel, man, he blew trunks. could have it way better than him. ⁓ Okay, on the other end, what piece of advice would you give a coach who's getting the itch to maybe like start working with a company?

speaker-1: You know, when I first started, it was specific companies. It was the ones that I had been using consistently. I was, it was ones that had really strong community. Okay. And it was the community that showed me the possibility of, of doing more with these companies. And ⁓ I just started asking, like, you know, if you ever need me to do a webinar or come work, do a session at the booth, because they can say no. And that's cool. That's, that's okay. But I, just asked and you know, what's your answer? Yeah, Yeah. Mm Okay. Yeah. Like I said, even with that, be eager to get uncomfortable and just take chances on yourself because you just never know where it's going to land you. Okay.

speaker-0: Which they could say. What would Amy today say to Amy who first started teaching first couple of years at that campus? I know you're not prepared for this question. As you were talking through your journey, know, I guess I'll start to kind of give you a thought is, and I wish somebody would have told me this a long time ago. At the end of the day, the only three people who will remember all the extra time, all the hours that you put in to the job after hours and so on and so forth. The only three people who are going to remember that are your wife and two kids. And that's when it hit me that I needed to have a little bit more balance. I needed to do everything I could, but understand that there are some things that I'm not gonna be able to get to today. I can do them tomorrow or I find ways where I can ⁓ kind of hacked my way through it. And now that we have AI, things that used to take hours upon hours with the assistance, not replacing with AI, but with the help of AI, we can kind of streamline those things. But I quickly realized, so I would go back in time and tell myself that, you know, not everything needs to be tackled right now, 100 % of the time until midnight, every night. That's what I would.

speaker-1: Thank you for that wait time for me to think about this. I think I would tell myself, teacher, so my second year, this has something, this has a little bit to do with what I'm about to tell you. My second year as a teacher, I lost my mother. I know you know that, I know you know the story. ⁓ And I think that I would tell myself, my younger teacher self that you're going to be so proud of the you in 2026. Like keep working, keep at it.

speaker-0: That's good teaching. That's giving you the exemplar. ⁓ I know, knew you were gonna-

speaker-1: go through those hills, those valleys, those mountains. It's gonna be hard. It's gonna be emotional. It's gonna be worth it. ⁓ You'll be proud of you. You'll be proud of you. You will. And she's proud too. Of course.

speaker-0: You will be proud of you. Of course she is. my God. I I had a feeling you were going to go there. All right. Wow. Yeah, that's pretty deep. That's pretty deep. When I first saw you on the show, we were talking about biscuits.

speaker-1: That's true, we were. We did talk about biscuits. I had a good biscuit here in Disney Springs this week. Sure did. Okay, At homecoming.

speaker-0: We talked about

speaker-1: So good. Talk to us. have a I think it's considered an appetizer, but I get it as a Southern. It's Southern, yeah, and they have thigh high. Chicken bites, I think it's what it's called, and it's like mini chicken, maybe thighs. OK, and with their biscuits as the bun with hot honey and their homemade bread and butter pickles. I mean, it's and then we got cookies from Gideon, so it was a great night.

speaker-0: a southern You heard me, Is that the chocolate place?

speaker-1: That's the cookie place. ⁓ it's phenomenal.

speaker-0: We have one last night here. We might have to do that. Awesome. Okay. Well, Amy, first and foremost, I want to thank you for everything that you contribute to our educational space in the classroom as a coach with Fry Tech, back into the ISDs, working with multiple teachers, making those connections, making those, those teachers, empowering those teachers to be the best teacher that they could possibly be with their students. So thank you for everything you do. I really appreciate the friendship that we've had over the years.

speaker-1: It's really good.

speaker-0: ⁓ We have been at multiple conferences. We've presented next to each other. We've been at tables. We were, think it was last year, if not two years ago down at the. Yeah, something like that. So we've presented side by side, ⁓ you know, at multiple conferences and that. And, and I can, I can always count on seeing Amy's story ⁓ somewhere at conference. So Diane Wilson, how's she doing?

speaker-1: some mobile mega share. It's doing great. We'll be at TCA coming up soon as feature presenters together.

speaker-0: Awesome sounds. That's right. That's right. Plug anything you want to website, anything else.

speaker-1: You can find me on social media at techAnes. I am on LinkedIn, Twix, Instagram, and TikTok.

speaker-0: That's right. Sounds good. And I do have final million dollar question, the most difficult question you're to be asking the entire conference. You're going lose sleep over this. All right. Corn tortilla or flour tortilla? I knew you were going to say that. I you were going to say that. All right. I respect a good flour tortilla. I'm team corn. Thank you Amy for everything you do. And I wish you continued success in every path that you go down. Thank you.

speaker-1: That's okay. ⁓ flower. Thanks, Tim.

speaker-0: That does it for this episode. Ladies and gentlemen, if you found this episode useful, please make sure that you share it with a friend or colleague and make sure that you are subscribed to this show on your favorite podcast app and make sure that we are connected on social media. You could follow me on IG, X, threads and TikTok at EdTechBytes and the Facebook page at facebook.com forward slash EdTechBytes and YouTube at youtube.com forward slash at EdTechBytes. This is Gabriel Correa signing off and don't forget that great conversations happen when fueled by great food. Buen provecho!