Meet Donna Todd

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Donna Todd. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Donna below.

Donna, so great to have you sharing your thoughts and wisdom with our readers and so let’s jump right into one of our favorite topics – empathy. We think a lack of empathy is at the heart of so many issues the world is struggling with and so our hope is to contribute to an environment that fosters the development of empathy. Along those lines, we’d love to hear your thoughts around where your empathy comes from?

My business and entire professional educational career have been based on the empathy that I developed through my childhood experiences in public education, my Christian faith, service to other around me, and from the personal struggle to obtain my teaching degree, my master’s of education, and my present mission of supporting teachers working so very hard in classrooms today.

I learned empathy for others first based on my childhood experience of being raised in a one-parent home.

My father was electrocuted and lost his life on the job when my twin sister and I were three years old. I had three other siblings ages 6, 9, and 12 years old. My mother did not have a high school degree and struggled to provide and to hold our family together.

Her struggle not only included the severe grief of becoming a widow with five children, but also included a fight for her life against breast cancer just two years after dad’s death. This was in 1969 and there were no treatments, such as chem or radiation. The only treatment was total removal of the breast and liph nodes in her left arm. This caused very slow recovery and two years of complication from infections and lack of healing.

During this time my mother was forced to send her children to live with our grandparents. The boys went to my father’s parents home in Roswell, New Mexico and the girls to my mother’s parent’s home in Hagerman, New Mexico.

I say all of this to share that my educational experience was disrupted with moving around the country to California, Minisota, and back and forth to New Mexico. By the time I started the fifth grade, we had relocated 15 times.

With all of this upset and chaos in my family, I was not an easy child to understand and probably a very difficult student to manage in the classroom. However, the “big event” for me and the one memory which caused me to develop empathy for children and others was my experience of walking past a classroom in my elementary school and heard my teacher speaking about me to another teacher. I actually heard him say, that “He hated me”.

From that day forward, I determined that I would NOT be that teacher. I would love each and every child under my care by taking the time to get to know them, their past, their struggles and that I would make a lasting difference of that love for them in their lives.

My second condition in devloping empathy is my faith. I could go on and on in addressing this one. My Lord and savior loves everyone of us and gave his life for us. I daily give him my heart and ask for his help in doing the same for each and every child, adult, teacher, college, and family member who are placed in my life.

The third condition I’ve listed as my call to empathy is that of supporting teachers in the classroom. I did not have the opportunity to attend college right out of high school. It was not a goal ever offered to me and I knew that my single-income, widowed mom could not provide it for me. I also married my high school sweetheart the month after high school graduation and we started our lives together in Artesia, New Mexico. He went into the NM State police and I pursued a job in the secretarial field and eventually began substitute teaching.

After substitute teaching for a year, I was able to begin working full-time in the schools, first as a teacher’s aid and later as the elementary librarian (no degree necessary). After a couple years as librarian, raising three elementary age children, and my husband working as a police office, I decided to begin pursuing my bachelors in education.

When I started college there were very few online opportunities. In order to attend college you drove to your classes and attended in person. I had to do this in the evenings after working in the school all day and five days a week. I drove as far as 80 miles one-way and took classes from five different institutions in order to finish. It took me 8 years to complete my degree; A bachelors of Science in Education in May of 2003. (This was just two weeks ahead of our twin boys completing high school and graduating themselves, but I may it!)

Since I had already been working in the schools and was a familiar face. One week into my student teaching assignment our superintendent came to me and offered me a teaching job in a 4th grade classroom. The teacher was moving in four weeks and he offered to allow me to work with her until she left and then have the classroom as my own upon her departure.

I didn’t get to learn with side by side mentoring or collaboration. I learned to teach the hard way. I jumped in the deep in and either drown or swam. I swam!!!

Because of my sideways approach to obtaining my dream of teaching and to learning how to manage and run a classroom, my heart aches for other teachers.

When I retired from teaching, empathy caused me to start ByYourSide Teaching Services, LLC. I now have other retired and/or experienced teachers (and administrators) who are sharing that empathy to others with me.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I am a retired educator of over 31 years in education. I retired in December of 2018 and started my instructional coaching business in January of 2019.

I am married to my high school sweetheart, Terry of over 44 years. We have three children, Shane Todd and Shawn Todd (twins) and our daughter, Brianne. They are each married; Shane to Haleah, Shawn to Destiny, and Brianne to Jasper. We have eight grandchildren and enjoy family and travel.

I love traveling and spending time with family, teaching others through my business and through a women’s bible study, which I’ve taught now for over five years. I love to create personalized quilts for family and friends and I love reading, gardening and growing flowers in my greenhouse.

ByYourSide Teaching Services, LLC, founded in 2019, Donna and her eleven coaches (retired and/or experienced teachers and administrators) provide personalized coaching and professional development for educators across New Mexico. They understand that teaching is demanding and that many teachers face unique challenges. Their mission is to walk beside educators — getting to know their instructional styles, identifying strengths and areas for growth, and offering tailored strategies grounded in research-based practices.

ByYourSide services include individual coaching (spending full days with a teacher to observe, model, and collaborate), advanced coaching for departmental or grade-level teams, subject-focused coaching (for areas such as writing, STEM, reading), and specialized support for administrators.

It is our passion, as the BYS team, to walk WITH teachers and administrators who are new to the classroom or school, teachers who are working toward a degree WHILE managing a classroom, and have no experience and with only one or two years of experience in teaching. We also work beside teachers who have a growth mindset and want to improve their craft, and anyone who needs or wants ideas and research-based strategies for teaching or apply new curriculum or resources to their instruction.

We are different than any instructional coaching model in the United States. Some districts will create instructional coaching positions in which experienced educators are hired to be district or school instructional coaches. However, we are not district employees. As a district or school instructional coach your time and energy are focused on groups and it is very rare for you to work with only one teacher all day long. Your time and energy must be spread out among the entire school or schools throughout a district.

Prior to starting BYS, I was an instructional coach for reading and language arts as a district employee. This position expectation was to support 192 teachers at the same time. My time was spent with a single day at one school and focusing on 10-50 teachers in that building. I would visit once a week, however in most cases I only had time to visit school sites every two-three weeks. That meant I only had a minimul amount of time to share with and build a relationship with particular teachers.

In the BYS model, we spend the entire day with ONE teacher. We experience their challenges, their classroom, their schedule, their behavior and management duties, as well as their use of strategies and resources in application to the student needs in their classroom. We walk beside principals as administrators and provide ideas and support for the work they are doing in supporting classroom and building instruction and management.

We have survey teachers and principals and have had an unprecedent success rate in teacher retention and confidence. 97% of the teachers surveyed have returned to the classroom. (This is well beyond the state rate of new teacher retention of 50-60%). We also have 100% recommendation of our services by principals who have worked beside our coaches and who have benefited from our collaboration.

It is a thrill as a passionate educator to see the peace in a new teachers demeanor and the growth in self-confidence as they begin to learn and apply our ideas and suggestions. We have many who become friends for life. We hear about their personal lives and about their professioinal growth and continue to maintain a friendship from the time and effort shared through our coaching.

Our slogan is “We are making a difference, one teacher at a time”. The satisfaction for us in know that keeps us all striving to grow the sphere of influence and to continue working even after many many years of service to children.

This year, we are experiencing a major roadblock in providing this fantastic service and need to speak up. The New Mexico Educational Retirement Board has changed their definition as to what is an approved (and mandatory) Independent Contractor. Therefore, they have been denying us this designation. Without that designation, we have been threatened that we could jeopardize our pension. Therefore, in New Mexico schools, BYS cannot use NM retired teachers. I have been forced to use only out of state retired educators to coach in New Mexico schools.

We have been notifying our legislators and have been pleading for months for change. Prior to this year, we have had over 65 Independent Contractor determinations approved. The application nor the state statue has not changed! We need help in fighting this giant and in getting our program back up to it’s prime!

I know we are making and difference. I know that New Mexico’s experienced educators are the very best source for collaborative coaching and I want so badly to continue the partnerships with distrcits, schools, and teachers in order to see the successes from our past. I am using other experience, however it breaks my heart that I am not being allowed to use the New Mexico experience.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

My journey has been impacted through knowledge and passion. My desire is to help other educators as they guide and support children in learning and preparing to be successful adults. I love people. I love running into the “on fire” classroom and offering ideas as to how to build relationship and love children who are struggling, excelling and need growth beyond the median expectations in public school, and to support rich, engaging learning experiences.

My advice to those of you who are new to the journey toward fullfilling your passion is to pray and ask God to help you look within and find what moves your heart. Ask yourself, what experiences have shaped you? Ask, what ideas you have in addressing them? Don’t be afraid to go outside what is viewed as normal or the way that it has always been done. Jump in the deep in and see where you can touch lives and hopefully bring change. Go for it! Our society needs love and people who are willing to give of themselves in order to make a difference.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

I describe my present challenge with the change in “independent constractor” status required for all NM retired teachers who wish to offer their coaching services through BYS in the previous question.

In summary, the New Mexico Educational Retirement Board (NMERB) pulled the rug out from under my retired New Mexico teachers this year. For the last eight years they have required each one of us to complete the application for independent contractor for each and every school we work with for each and every year we work there. There has been no change in the five page application questions nor have the New Mexico statues changed. They have reviewed and approved all of our applications, which are well over 60 of them. The process has been to apply, get approval, then after the date of approval we could work in classrooms under the BYS contract.

Without their approval, we have been threatened either suspension or jeopardy of our pensions. We have communicated (or tried) to visit about any necessary changes and have been told that our only option was to apply and go back to work for EACH district as an employee, not an independent contractor!

With the return to work option, BYS is cut out of the equation and districts are forced to create a position and I and my coaches are forced to pay into the retirement the fund. The district will not create new positions which fit our model and retired educators will never been able to receive double retirement. What I mean is that, we will be forced to contribute to a fund without receiving benefits beyond our already set retirement allotments and there are no positions in districts that are single teacher specific.

Another challenge is in seeing BYS as a business, due to the fact I cannot use retired NM educators who live and worked in the state, I must bill for and provide reimbursement to my coaches who are traveling from out of state. This increases the price of our services. It is unfair to districts who already have very lean budgets and therefore desolates the business model which has been proven and successful for improving New Mexico education.

New Mexico is dead last in education. We have passionate educators who want to share their experience and expertise. Please, Please help us fight this fight!

We need the right to contract with districts as independent contractors and to continue receiving the pensions we earned through years and years of service to New Mexico children.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://byyoursideteaching.com
• Facebook: By Your Side teaching Services

Image Credits

BYS team 2024 and 2025

Included in photo (in no particular order); Christine Mitchell, Donna Todd, Hannah Carlton Guiterrez, Karen Jackson, Kim Tibbs, Lynn Fanning, Lynne Leeson, Mark McAlister, Mary Jan Click, Melissa Farmer, Nancy Peterson, Peggy Brewer, Peggy Bridge, Gail Brown, Jennifer Haass, and Karen Fulkerson