Scott Balicki has been a science teacher at Boston Latin School in the Boston Public Schools since 2001.  He earned his B.S. in Biology from Bates College in 2001, and his M.Ed. in Science Education from Boston University in 2006.  In the first seventeen years of his career, he taught primarily chemistry and AP chemistry, and occasionally biology, physics, and middle school Earth science. Since 2017, he has been exclusively teaching 8th grade science, a course that  didn't exist at his school that he and colleagues designed. In addition to teaching middle and high school, Scott has been an instructor for the Earth Science 1 (weather and water) and Chemistry 3 (organic chemistry) Contextualized Content Courses at UMass Boston and Northeastern University. He has served as a Boston Science Education Fellow, and has presented at national conferences including the National Science Teachers Association and the Biennial Conference on Chemical Education.  He is a part of the Assessing for Change in Chemical Thinking (ACCT) group at UMass Boston, which strives to help teachers develop their capabilities to apply purposeful formative assessment practices in order to build upon their students' productive chemical thinking in the classroom.

Scott earned National Board Certification in 2013, and found that the process helped him identify practices that he could use in order to best help his students learn science.  Throughout the writing process, he worked collaboratively with peers also working towards initial NBCT certification to review each others written entries and offer each other feedback, finding it one of the most professionally rewarding parts of the entire undertaking. He looks forward to engaging with this process again to work with teachers now trying to achieve their NBCT certificatio

Kerry Ann O'Rourke earned her National Board Certification in 2017 for Literacy: Reading-Language Arts/Early and Middle Childhood. She taught for over 20 years in grades Kindergarten through 5th. She spent most of her years as a second grade teacher. She taught in Texas and Massachusetts; yet  most proud of her time at the Edison K8, my current home for  10 years.