About Us

The Teacher's Tools is owned by Tommie Roberts. Yes, that is Tommie with an "ie". My dad wanted boys but ended up with four girls!

As of July 1, 2010 I am a retired teacher with 32 years of experience. I have two grown daughters, two great son-in-laws, and three precious granddaughters and one grandson.  Sometime I'll tell you all about them!

In 1997 as a teacher I needed a technology renewal credit so I chose a workshop offered on Monday afternoons from 3-6 PM.  The workshop was to help us create a website for our classroom.  On the first Monday evening we were given a homework assignment for the following Monday; to come next week knowing what our webpage was going to be about.  I had no clue.  Some were creating their page on their pet, one teacher was creating a page about her husband, and a good friend was going to tell about her summer vacation.  At that time I had no pet, no husband, and hadn't been on a vacation in several years, so all those ideas didn't help me at all.  I called one of my four sisters and told her of my delima.  Carol had just gone to work for Carson-Dellosa in order-entry.  Carol had been a stay-at-home mom with her three children and had recently felt led to return to public work. Having a degree in English she had always loved journalism.  When she saw that Carson-Dellosa Publishing had a entry-level position she quickly applied and was hired as they say, "on the spot." When I called Carol with my confusion on what to offer on my website, she said that I should sell something and since I was a teacher and knew classroom resources, I should see about offering Carson-Dellosa Instuctional Materials online.

As soon as I hung up the phone, I called Carson-Dellosa to inquire about being an online dealer.  They were happy to have the possibility of a new dealer and all their dealers at that time had a store front; they didn't know about offering their resources on the Internet.

The following Monday afternoon I informed the class that my website was going to offer Carson-Dellosa resources.  For the remainder of those six weeks I worked with Carson-Dellosa to become their first online dealer.

September 2010 finds The Teacher's Tools still online but certainly not the only one!  My older daughter who taught first grade for several years and in now a stay-at-home mom with Hannah, Emma, and Carter co-owns our second website, Teachers' Bags, Books and Beyond. Jenny creates take-home literacy bags and offers them on the Bag side while I still offer Carson-Dellosa on the Books and Beyond side.

People occasionally ask why we don't offer other resources other than Carson's.  My reply is always, "When you sell the very best, why offer any of the rest?"  I do feel strongly that Carson-Dellosa does offer the very best in educational resources for your classroom.  As you visit our store I think you will agree.