Founders

Maria Calamito-Proto
T.I.P.S. President

Maria holds a Bachelors Degree in Elementary Education and a Masters Degree in Reading. Maria has been certified to teach in New York, New Jersey, and Florida. She has experience teaching kindergarten to fifth grade, and most recently taught third grade in southern Florida where she also ran the mentoring program for all new teachers. It was while teaching third grade that she met Rachel, her friend and business partner. On Rachel, Maria writes "Rachel has the most wonderfully creative brain and has shown me how to make writing fun for both the teacher and the students. She taught a weekly writing workshop and motivated the students to explore writing in ways they never had before. Her excitement for combining great literature with fantastic writing activities was felt throughout the entire school community. More importantly, she taught me that it is indeed possible to bake chocolate chip cookies in a toaster oven during a 20-minute lunch break. Everything I ever needed to know, I learned in third grade!"

Rachel James
T.I.P.S. Principal Educational Writer

Rachel holds a Bachelors Degree in Primary Education from Memorial University of Newfoundland. She has taught in Canada, England, and the United States. Most recently she found herself teaching third grade in southern Florida, where she met Maria Calamito-Proto, T.I.P.S. President and co-founder. During Rachel's last year with the school she created and administered writing seminars for teachers in pre-kindergarten to fifth grade that guided teachers on how to inspire students to write. Along with leading workshops focuing on teaching, presenting, and assessing real writing in the classroom, she also worked with the school's administration to create writing program standards for the entire elementary school. On Maria, Rachel says, "Maria and I hit it off immediately. I was so pleased to be working with someone who not only took teaching children as seriously as I did, but also someone who was confident enough in her teaching that she could step outside of the regular curriculum and readily explore other ways to challenge our students. I've learned so much from working with Maria-from how to better interact with parents and staff, to how to organize myself and my students. The new teachers at our school were lucky to have her in charge of the teacher mentoring program-especially since she knew about the cookie trick!"

After collaborating on many teaching projects, Maria and Rachel decided to work together full-time creating a series of teacher materials that would be useful in today's classroom setting. Along with input from colleagues, parents, and administrators, the duo surveyed educators across North America to better understand what today's teachers require to meet their teaching goals. All products created by the team are reviewed by reading specialists, content area teachers, special education teachers, veteran teachers and administrators, whose input gets assessed and incorporated before any T.I.P.S. product goes to market.

                                                      Umm... Is that a milk mustache Ms. James?