Teachers inspire, guide and shape our future and communities. That’s why TEP diligently supports them behind the scenes and in the classroom.

From July through September each year, TEP focuses on education to help prepare teachers and students for the school year.

Here are four ways we’re making an impact.

Valuing Teachers

TEP pledged a $50,000 matching gift to support Tucson Values Teachers’ campaign to expand Lumia, a digital platform developed to address burnout and isolation in the teaching profession. TEP is matching donations dollar for dollar to help TVT grow access to peer support, mentorship, and community for educators across Southern Arizona.

The partnership comes as Arizona continues to face significant teacher shortages.

“Teachers play a crucial role in building critical thinking skills and inspiring a lifelong love of learning in our students,” said Chris Norman, Vice President of Public Policy at TEP and a longstanding TVT Board Member. “We want them to have the resources they need to feel engaged and energized in the critical work they do every day.”

Created by teachers for teachers, Tucson Values Teachers’ Lumia platform gives district-verified educators a trusted space to share classroom-tested strategies, join grade- and subject-specific groups, attend virtual and local events, and connect one-on-one with mentors through its Matchup feature. The platform is free.

The donation campaign began in March and reached its goal this summer.

In addition to the Lumia donation, TEP will serve as the presenting sponsor for the Stand Up 4 Teachers event to honor educators in November.

Read more and see a video about Lumia.

Honoring Teachers

Each year, we bring energy lessons to local schools through the cooperation and interest of teachers, often reaching about 14,000 students annually.

This year, TEP honored one teacher who stood out for her enthusiasm and support of the Bright Students program, taught by our contractors who bring energy bikes that light up bulbs and more.

In May, TEP representatives presented Cherry May Gok-ong, known as Ms. G, at Old Vail Middle School with a Bright Students Teacher Award, along with a gift basket. In her classroom, we thanked her for her participation for the past six years.

“Ms. G’s students are always attentive and prepared with background knowledge to be successful in this energy education program,” said America Miranda, Program Manager of Energy Programs. “Thanks to her dedication and consistent participation, TEP has been able to conduct 27 classroom presentations for just over 800 students in Mrs. G’s classroom at Old Vail Middle School, expanding students’ awareness of energy efficiency, electricity generation, and energy resources.”

In the past 20 years, the program has reached about 99,800 students statewide.

Becoming Teachers

TEP employees took on the role of teachers at local elementary schools at the end of the school year.

For the 13^th time, TEP employees led classrooms for a day at Blenman Elementary School.

Partnering with Junior Achievement of Arizona, TEP continued our tradition of delivering financial literacy lessons to kindergarten through fifth grades. Employees received age-based materials to carry out lessons on May 8.

Earlier in May, TEP employees ensured students were well stocked with books for the break during a My Summer Library event.

Through the United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona, volunteers distributed books, organized reading sessions and engaged in activities with students at Maldonado Elementary School.

Training Teachers

Over the summer, TEP supported the Pima County School Superintendent’s tradition of holding workshops by The STEMAZing Project to help meet the need for high-quality education in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).

About 60 educators took part in workshops in robotics, gardening and solar system exploration.

In the robotics lessons, teachers received $450 worth of classroom materials, including 10 programmable Edison Robots that students can build and learn to code. In pairs, the robots are enough for 20 students. The gardening strand was held at Manzo Elementary School where teachers can see firsthand how a school garden grows.

“For all of our workshops, whatever we teach you, we give the materials to teach the lessons,” said Amanda McPherson, Director of the STEMAZing Project. “It’s important to get STEM in the classrooms, especially in the elementary grades.”

With TEP’s donation, STEMAzing offers scholarships to cover the $75 fee for teachers whose schools or other funds don’t pay the costs.

Our contributions come from corporate resources and are not recovered through customers’ rates.