I began in education in 1998 as a middle school teacher at J.T. Williams here in Charlotte, North Carolina. As a northern transplant from outside Buffalo, NY, (Go Bills)it was a game changer in how my career has evolved. I taught ELA 6-8 as well as journalism, and yearbook but fell in love when I was able to begin teaching AVID.
For those of you unfamiliar with AVID, it stands for Advancement via Individual Determination and is a National career and college preparation class for students, but it is much more than that. It is a schoolwide system for change to support all students to be successful through scaffolding of writing, inquiry, collaboration, organization and reading strategies that are used in all classes. In class we work on all of these skills as well as have tutorial time to support students with content area work and questions. In my role with AVID I serve as a liaison between students and staff, parents and staff and students and parents all while providing support and fostering relationships for all students to be able to achieve their aspirations.
During my time at J.T. Williams, I completed my first Master's degree and gained the title of Reading Specialist. After 10 years in the classroom, I accepted a position with AVID center at the North and South Carolina Program Manager. During this time I was able to work with schools, districts and National AVID to help support AVID in the region. I developed face to face and virtual training to support all teachers. It was an awesome experience!!! In my free time, I completed my second Master's degree in School Administration.
After the birth of my only child Shayleigh, I decided to return to the classroom to help limit the amount of time I was spending away from her. I sadly left my position but immediately knew I made the correct choice for us when I started teaching at Phillip O. Berry Academy of Technology as the AVID teacher and AVID Coordinator. When I began my career at Phillip O. Berry I taught both English 1 and AVID 1 and have been fortunate to be able to teach all AVID levels over the years. In addition, over the past eight years I have been the Extended Day tutorial coordinator, mentor, at one time the JV cheerleading coach, and writer/editor of our weekly Professional development newsletter and a leader on the professional learning team for the building. I designed and continue to maintain the AVID@POB website on our homepage. I am the school contact for many volunteers who have come in our building and Classroom Central. I have developed community partnerships including: The Links of Charlotte, I Am Not the Media, Skoolaide, and The Mount Charlotte as well as Queen's University and UNCC. I consistently work to have community service opportunities for all of our students and establish partnerships in Charlotte. I organize visitors from the community and colleges to speak to our students both face to face and virtually as well as yearly field trips to explore next step options for students.
Another role that I currently possess is Master AVID Coordinator for CMS. Within this role I create and deliver professional learning for all AVID coordinators across the district. This year I was the leader on the project for moving our AVID course from a general course to an Honors AVID course and developed the Canvas coursework used in AVID classrooms for virtual learning.
I have continued to be blessed to contract with AVID as a National AVID Staff Developer both in Face to Face settings and more recently in National Virtual training for the past 17 years. I strive to learn and grow every single day while helping students to become the best version of themselves. r.