Sarah Compton (WI ’18) values the weekly professional development time she and her colleagues have built into their schedules: “I walk away feeling that I can immediately improve my classroom instruction as a result.”
Years in the classroom and as an instructional coach reinforced for Principal Rachel Tommelleo (DC ’18) the tenets she now lives by: the importance of working with urgency, listening to her gut, and putting students’ needs first.
Several times a year, Nicole Silva (NJ ’18) takes her third-graders to meet with local veterans: “Students need to know about our veterans and patriots, and why we have the liberties and rights that we do.”
Fifth-grade science and math teacher Jennifer Albert (FL ’18) leads her grade-level team and shares a special bond with her colleagues: “Our relationship motivates the whole team to work hard for each other and our students.”
After a decade working in real estate, with an infant and a toddler at home, Heather Hurt (AL ’18) went back to school to begin her career as an educator. She knows it was the right move: “Teaching is not just a job—it is my passion.”
Jennifer Reaves (WV ’18), the technology integration specialist at Morgantown’s Mylan Park Elementary, gets inspired by her colleagues: “I am pushed and motivated by what they are doing in their classrooms—and I’m innovating right alongside them.”
Wendy Shirey (NV '18) spent her first year in the classroom at a school with high poverty and high transiency—but “that little school in a tough neighborhood in Las Vegas became the place I learned to love teaching.”
Dual immersion teacher Chris Bessonette (WY ’18) tackles the achievement gap for language learners and low-income students by making vocabulary a cornerstone of his instruction: “Our knowledge of words determines our level of understanding.”
Krista Trent (OH ’18), a fourth-grade math teacher at Thornville Elementary, holds happy memories from her first year of teaching, thanks to a great mentor and energetic students: “I fell in love with education because I fell in love with the kids.”
Principal Anitra Pinchback-Jones (WA ’18) starts every day at Rainier View Elementary School with a schoolwide meeting, which “sets the stage for positivity at school, emotional safety and healthy relationships.”
