Why subscribe?
Bell to Bell is a free newsletter for teachers in grades 6–12, written by a working classroom teacher. It covers the two moments that decide every class period, the first five minutes and the last five, and the classroom culture that holds everything in between together.
Bell ringers that make the first five minutes run themselves
Exit tickets that tell you who got the lesson, and what to do about it the next day
Classroom culture: positive reinforcement and management systems that hold up all year
Every post is practical: a routine you can try tomorrow, prompts you can copy, a template you can print, or a straight answer to a question teachers keep asking.
Who writes it
I'm Clay Shumate, a World History teacher. I hold a Class A certification in Social Studies and History for grades 6–12 and an M.Ed. from the University of Montevallo, and I have taught from K–12 through the community college level. I've coached varsity soccer, volleyball, baseball, golf, and softball. Before teaching, I spent five years managing and opening retail stores. I'm also a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
I believe in project-based learning, in teaching soft skills on purpose, and in the idea that each student is effectively their own classroom.
The free tools behind Bell to Bell
Daily Bell Ringers: Fresh bell ringers every school day for grades 6–8 and grades 9–12, plus a Bell Ringer Library and a free AI Bell Ringer Creator.
Daily Exit Tickets: A new exit ticket every day, board mode with a timer, games, quick checks, and printable slips.
Elevate the Norm: Positive reinforcement and classroom management for grades 6–12, with a free resource library that requires no email.
Teacher Emergency Toolkit (paid, on TPT): Ready-to-use packs for de-escalation, work refusal, behavior documentation, and sub plans.
Classroom statistics, sourced
53% of teachers reported burnout in 2025, down from 60% in 2024, and 16% planned to leave, down from 22% (RAND State of the American Teacher).
7% teacher turnover, down from a 10% pandemic peak but above the pre-pandemic estimate of about 6% (RAND).
Quizzing raised achievement by about half a standard deviation across 222 classroom studies and 48,478 students, with the largest gains in secondary school (Yang et al., 2021).
Average effect of feedback on learning: d = 0.48 across 435 studies, though 38% of individual feedback effects in an earlier review were negative, so delivery matters (Frontiers in Education, 2022).
22.6% of students in 44 states and DC were chronically absent in 2024-25 (American Enterprise Institute).
Classroom engagement rose from about 60% at an even praise-to-reprimand ratio to nearly 70% at 3 to 1 (BYU, Caldarella).
Sections
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