Superheroes, custom libraries and a bunny: Valley teachers go above and beyond to deck out classrooms

As school resumes across the Coachella Valley, students are seeing how much teachers go out of their way to make their classrooms extraordinary.

They use personal time and money to shop for items, handle donations, curate libraries and decorate their classrooms, all to make their students feel more comfortable at school.

“Not many people realize the district (Coachella Valley Unified) provides only butcher paper for the classrooms,” said Carissa Carrera, president of the union for CVUSD teachers. “Literally every single other item is purchased by the teachers out of their own pockets.”

Teachers in Palm Springs Unified say they have more support from the district for classroom decoration. Still, many of them go way above and beyond expectations — often at personal expense — to make their classrooms dazzle, even embroidering custom fabrics to fit a theme or collecting stickers and school supplies for their students.

This year, The Desert Sun is highlighting three teachers for their classroom designs and preparation:

Elizabeth Coats 

3rd Grade | Della S. Lindley Elementary, Thousand Palms

Elizabeth Coats' third grade classroom turns the desert into a tropical paradise.

Pink flamingos and pineapples abound — she even found a scalloped wallpaper border with both the birds and the fruit on it. It's all over the classroom, framing vivid blue and pink walls of butcher paper that will be adorned with student work as the year moves forward.

“I aim for a mix of calming colors and brightness,” Coats said. “I’m here for most of the day, so it has to be appealing and create a welcoming environment.”

In one corner of the room, Coats' desk area is covered with her personal favorite items, mostly related to her family, her favorite TV show — "The Office" — and her favorite sports team, the Dodgers. Oh, yes, and pineapples and flamingos are there, too.

In the opposite corner, Coats has built a library and reading nook for her students. They can check out books or sit and read on a carpet map of the United States. Coats and her husband even built small padded chairs out of crates, and provided straw mats to go along with the tropical theme.

She also keeps a treasure chest full of stickers that students can choose from as a reward for good behavior.

And she creates custom name tags that students use to introduce themselves and their goals.

Her decor even extends outside of the classroom, where she has pinned more wallpaper to feature student work and written a message on her door that says, “Give your best.”

“You have to have a growth mindset,” Coats said.

For her outstanding work, Coats was honored as a 2022 PSUSD Elementary Teacher of the Year.

Cindy Bellamy

English | Palm Springs High

An employee of Palm Springs Unified for more than 30 years, Cindy Bellamy currently teaches English at Palm Springs High School.

It’s her first year back in the classroom after two years as a teacher on special assignment (TOSA), a specialized role for experienced teachers to assist other educators.

When she became a TOSA, she donated her classroom belongings.

So this summer, she hustled to decorate her new room: going to thrift shops to buy books, emailing colleges to ask for free pennants, calling for furniture donations at the Mizell Center in Palm Springs.

The result is a sleek classroom replete with a reading nook made with donated furniture that she casually reupholstered, as well as a library that she continues to build.

Naturally, a classroom for teenagers will look and feel a lot different than one for 8-year-olds, and Bellamy has optimized her room to encourage students to practice college-level writing.

A sea of writing resources — thinking maps, organizational tools and tips on paragraph structure — stretches wall to wall.

“Everything has a purpose,” Bellamy said.

She also created a values chart she calls “THINK.” It’s an acronym for “trustworthy, honorable, inspiring, necessary, kind.”

“It’s basically a reminder of the golden rule,” Bellamy explained.

Desks are set up in pods to encourage discussion.

“It’s an equitable classroom design with desks designed for group work,” Bellamy said.

She teaches using the Socratic method, a teaching tactic that promotes discourse over lecturing.

She leads discussions by asking lots of “why?” questions, and she asks students to draw connections between popular media and ancient texts like Homer’s "Odyssey."

Caitlyn Peterson

4th Grade | Sunny Sands Elementary, Cathedral City

Boom! Pow! Wow! Caitlyn Peterson’s "SUPER class" is an absolute delight for her fourth grade students at Sunny Sands Elementary in Cathedral City.

Peterson, a superhero aficionado, has been collecting and creating comics memorabilia for her classrooms for over 10 years.

Her lectern and desk are covered with Wonder Woman upholstery. Her custom-made curtains look like comic books. Her hand-made lamp has a Batman shade. A rendering of Spider-Man spins a web (balloon string) over the front door.

Peterson’s personal pet, Lady Venom, a fluffy bunny rabbit (that is 0% venomous and 100% cute) hops around the room as an unofficial therapy animal for angsty pre-teens. She also keeps two guinea pigs, Chilly and Tootsie, in a cage near her library and reading corner.

For science demonstrations, she has a terrarium full of Madagascar hissing cockroaches. (She ordered two male cockroaches but mistakenly received one male and one female, so now she has a tank full of them.)

She collects Deadpool toys, and has a growing stack of mint-condition superhero “Pop!” figurines that students have helped contribute to over the years.

She teaches “wondrous writers” in homage to Wonder Woman, and she teaches “marvelous math” in honor of her favorite Marvel characters.

“There’s a lot of hands-on activities,” Peterson said.

Her class’ energy is up to the task.

“My kids move, they talk with each other, it’s controlled chaos,” Peterson said.

Before the pandemic, she even encouraged students to sit on bean bags, couches or the floor.

Like her classroom design, her teaching style is not at all conventional — and parents have been skeptical — but it works.

Peterson was a 2019-20 Teacher of the Year at Julius Corsini Elementary in Desert Hot Springs.

“We’re loud but we’re learning, enjoying and having fun,” Peterson said.

Her motto: “Do your adventures and get your business done.”

Jonathan Horwitz covers education for The Desert Sun. Reach him at jonathan.horwitz@desertsun.com or @Writes_Jonathan.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Palm Springs area teachers go above and beyond to decorate classrooms