dr kolbe ricks
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kolbejack.bsky.social
dr kolbe ricks
@kolbejack.bsky.social
🛸traveler, creator. advanced academics program leader and AP Lit teacher. founder of texas women coaches club. swimming, football, and girls flag football coach. Ed.D in school improvement.

collab with me at kolbericks.com and texaswomencoachesclub.com
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Are you a woman and do you coach or aspire to coach middle and high school sports in Texas? If so, I’d love it if you joined this new endeavor to support women in coaching! Find us on instagram at www.instagram.com/texaswomenco... or at www.texaswomencoachesclub.com
Thinking if my fellow teachers in Fort Worth ISD today. The ones doing the good and hard work who now face the litany of implications and uncertainty of their jobs, passions, and livelihoods with an impending state takeover.
October 23, 2025 at 2:55 PM
This is my 13th year in public education and it is by far the hardest one. We’re only 7 weeks into the year and I had to take a mental health day for the first time in 12 years. I’m so worried for the rest of the year.
September 28, 2025 at 2:30 AM
Got inducted to the football coaching ranks with an 18-hour workday that ended with a rain delayed scrimmage that was cancelled early due to repeated fighting. Was back at work 5 hours after I got home.
August 22, 2025 at 9:12 PM
Ok so maybe I can’t coach 3 sports, lead a department, manage athlete academics, teach AP Lit, get my principal cert, and work a side job all at the same time. I may have set myself up for failure this year.
August 13, 2025 at 3:31 AM
Somehow, all of my workday time has been taken up by meetings, so it’ll be a miracle if I’m ready to receive students on Tuesday.
August 11, 2025 at 2:46 AM
I’m delusional to think that students will want to read more books now that their phones are locked up all day, right? I’m gonna keep the dream alive, and book promotion open!
August 10, 2025 at 6:40 PM
Reposted by dr kolbe ricks
The amazing work Teen Vogue publishes is 1) fact-checked (I can’t stress enough how big a deal this is!!!), and 2) not paywalled, which is all the more reason to share far & wide and click the links. Teen Vogue puts out so much extraordinary writing and reporting—many links in this thread below:
I wish as many people wanted to actually click on Teen Vogue stories as like a post about our work being good and important, because this post is almost at 20k likes and that would be pretty good traffic!
Washington Post: “Is fascism bad? The answer may surprise you”

Teen Vogue: “Here are three fun tips you can use this summer to disable an armored personnel carrier”
August 6, 2025 at 11:08 PM
I gave a district-level presentation yesterday, and leading up to the session I collaborated with some other coaches. I started the traditional way of brainstorming with paper and pen about the topic. Meanwhile, my co-presenter asked AI to create a presentation on our topic and sent that over to me.
July 30, 2025 at 1:58 PM
I’ve been doing my thing in the kitchen lately. Tonight’s dinner if gnocchi in a feta-balsamic reduction with meatballs is Michelin worthy.
July 19, 2025 at 11:59 PM
Ok, I’m doing it. I’m teaching Their Eyes Were Watching God this year.
July 18, 2025 at 3:21 PM
I love the “Not too hard to master” essays by River Dandelion in the July/August issue of poetry magazine. So much so, it’s going to be my intro to poetry lesson this year. I’ll add to this thread once I’ve integrated the work into a lesson plan! #edusky
July 18, 2025 at 2:10 PM
Shout out to Methodist outpatient surgery recovery room for getting me addicted to ginger ale
July 18, 2025 at 12:52 AM
Reposted by dr kolbe ricks
This is unreal: Houston just made it illegal "for any person to sit or lie down on a sidewalk or on a blanket, stool, or any other object placed upon a sidewalk."

Being unhoused in public is now a criminal offense.
NEW: Houston has made it illegal to sit or lie down on a sidewalk at any time. This is a 24/7 ban on trying to survive in public. It's not camping ban; it's a pure homeless ban.

We will never arrest our way out of homelessness. buff.ly/nH2VUqt
§ 40-352. Sitting and lying down on sidewalks., Article XVI. SITTING AND LYING UPON PUBLIC SIDEWALKS, Chapter 40. STREETS AND SIDEWALKS, Code of Ordinances, Houston
(a)
houston-tx.elaws.us
July 16, 2025 at 11:26 PM
The teacher community conversations have been so helpful and I feel more hopeful about my profession afterward! Alex creates the best setting to learn. I highly recommend joining any session that @asv.bsky.social offers! #edusky
#edusky, join me this week for a 2 part series on student dysregulation, or a workshop on Creating Felt Safety, or a teacher to teacher networking conversation on change making - or all of it!! Https://bit.ly/ASVsummer
July 14, 2025 at 2:24 PM
Reposted by dr kolbe ricks
It's finally out! For those that don't know, I grew up in ballet, so getting to report on dancers fighting for better working conditions and protections feels like a full-circle moment. I'm so grateful for everything dancers shared—it's important. Please give it a read and click the link!
For the past year, I've been talking to dancers fighting for better workplace protections for pregnancy and parenting. It's a fight experts say is "unprecedented" due to long-standing cultural and structural challenges within ballet. And it's being led by artists themselves.

Out now for ELLE:
How Ballet Is Fighting for Dancer Pregnancy Rights
“We’re told we should do it ‘for the love of the art form,’ but we still have bills to pay and families to raise.”
www.elle.com
July 9, 2025 at 3:20 PM
I’m finally getting a little momentum in writing my syllabus for the year. Hopefully by this time next week I’ll have our reading selections finalized and can start revising lessons!
July 11, 2025 at 9:54 PM
Alright, what are you reading heading into this weekend? I’m planning to finish this one today, and pull another off the surgery-recovery-TBR stack. #booksky
July 11, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Skip Amazon and support people directly! My parents design this really fun game that is a fun blend of spades, uno, and it's easy enough to take to game night! Annnnd my parents have me a lil code
"kolbe19" to get $10 off the listed price! www.kategizeboardgame.com/copy-of-kate...
July 10, 2025 at 11:21 PM
Are you a woman and do you coach or aspire to coach middle and high school sports in Texas? If so, I’d love it if you joined this new endeavor to support women in coaching! Find us on instagram at www.instagram.com/texaswomenco... or at www.texaswomencoachesclub.com
July 10, 2025 at 2:03 AM
I am begging everyone I know to please, please read some fiction. The self help books are not helping 😭 a good novel can teach you so much about the human experience I promise!
July 7, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Ok updated view, I see it was an accident. Today has been a nightmare stage with so many crashes.
And now I’m catching up on #TourDeFrance and Coquard really took Jasper out like that? Was it intentional? I can’t tell from the footage I’ve seen.
July 7, 2025 at 3:56 PM
And now I’m catching up on #TourDeFrance and Coquard really took Jasper out like that? Was it intentional? I can’t tell from the footage I’ve seen.
July 7, 2025 at 2:57 PM
AP scores are out today and, as with most tests, they do not tell the whole story. Remind yourself, and your students, of all the good, hard work that they did over the course of the year. For the ones who got 3+, I am proud and thankful. For those with 1s and 2s, I am reminded…
July 7, 2025 at 2:34 PM
I don’t love that I needed back surgery to fix my pain, but I am glad that recovery has forced me to slow down. I’m an enneagram 7, so this is really stretching me.
July 3, 2025 at 7:04 PM
“We give because giving has changed us” I feel like Rios crawled inside of me and pulled out the reasons why I do the work I do. “Together we are simple green” how we can merge together to create something new only when both parties give to the other. #poemadayjuly
"One river gives / Its journey to the next."

Today for #PoemADayJuly? a poem about giving and, in talking about giving, potentially and probably and inevitably about so much more:

"When Giving Is All We Have" by Alberto Ríos

@thevogelman.bsky.social @heymrsbond.com
July 3, 2025 at 3:17 PM