Part A. 

I began my career as a secondary English teacher in Shelby, MT.  An idealistic and passionate young educator, I knew right away that I couldn’t just “teach to the middle,” as there were far too many needs in my students’ reading, writing, and communication skills: I started to “invent new methods” which graduate classes would later teach me were called differentiated instruction.  With so much passion and nothing to do with spare time, in addition to teaching two AP classes, and tenth and twelfth graders, I designed new electives such as Drama and Creative Writing.  I also coached speech and debate.  

My passion for helping underserved youth by working in group homes, after school programs, and summer camps for these groups prior to beginning teaching continued, and I spent summers working for an advocacy company called Youth Dynamics, supporting the needs of students impacted by trauma throughout our community.  

Following my time in Shelby, I moved to Columbia Falls, where, still emboldened to offer functional English skills:  I taught students real world reading and writing tasks including creating hiring documents, business plans, manuals, and product reviews, etc.  I also leveraged local leaders who offered workshops about real life skills.  As the students in this district struggled with many socioeconomic (and their effects) issues, it was here that I began my work without knowing it, with managing behavior in the classroom.  

During a one year hiatus from working in the public schools, I built and facilitated an academic program for adolescent young men with substance use disorder.  There I worked along a team consisting of several therapists, residential managers, etc to meld a variety of different local and online resources ranging from tutors to community college classes, to online learning platforms to provide comprehensive education where the young men could earn meaningful credits alongside their treatment.  

All of these experiences culminated when I was hired to rebuild and serve as a case manager and teacher for a self contained behavior program (in a period of large transition) at Linderman Education Center in Kalispell.  The “LEC,” as it is fondly referred, is an alternative program made up of three components (LEC, ATC-dropout prevention, and ASPIRE-self contained behavior) that serves over 200 students each year, graduating an average of 70 students who otherwise might not have made it.  Linderman students are profoundly affected by poverty, homelessness, trauma, mental health concerns, etc, and come to us to be “met where they’re at” (one of the school’s philosophies) academically and otherwise, to find success.  

Each day I work alongside my co-teacher Lon, a behavior specialist Kylee, and two paraeducators to teach all subject areas, while supporting roughly 20 students in their academic, social emotional/behavioral and transitional goals.  We partner with a variety of different community resources to provide meaningful experiences in the realms of integration, learning, and volunteer service. 

Throughout the entirety of my career I have been passionate about sharing what works in my classroom with other educators, offering at least one sectional on topics such as differentiation, using technology to engage students, interventions, etc  each trip to the MEA/MFT/MFPE conferences or summer intensive workshops for the Golden Triangle Curriculum Cooperative.  I am an enthusiastic member of the Kalispell Education Association, whose work during this year’s negotiations led to annual stipends for special education teachers in hard to fill positions.  

Part B. 

1. How does awareness of your own biases, experiences of privilege, and personal values inform your chosen Capstone Project? Awareness of my own biases throughout my life is what helps me to learn and grow.  Especially in the day to day stress of being a teacher it is easy to stay in silos of being comfortable with my sphere or people, not putting myself out there, spending time with people I might not choose to, clearing time in my schedule for things that aren’t desirable, etc, but it is necessary for growth and to truly help others.  

2. At the beginning of the TLI program, at which level (emerging, developing, performing, or transforming) in the progressions did you place yourself for each of your four chosen competencies?  Provide a rationale for each claim. 

• Overarching Competency #1: Personal Effectiveness: Emerging, Both of these competencies and my pursuit of them have to do with my own beliefs about my competence, and thus being willing to collaborate with/step out of my comfort zone of peers outside of my domain of study.  I will learn to leverage my positive skills, tone down the ones that hinder me, leverage connections I do have with a variety of stakeholders and affect positive change. 

• Overarching Competency #2: Interpersonal Effectiveness: Developing, again, I will need to learn to have confidence in myself in building and leveraging positive relationships with all stakeholders.  Thanks to some of the work I have done in the past though, I do already have some of these relationships and feel comfortable approaching most, if not all of the individuals that I need to in order to move the proposal forward.  

• Foundational Competency: Challenging Inequity: developing: I have always seen myself as a social justice advocate and educator, who is quite aware of the inequities present for my students, but beyond my silo I have done little to challenge these.  I have also never thought of the inequities that self contained teachers face: this will be of interest to explore.  

• Specific Leadership Pathway Competency: Policy: Policy Making: This competency focuses on actual implementation of policy and using research and a variety of data to influence it: emerging: Although I have been able to allocate specific stakeholders I can reach out to for information I know very little about the policy making process/and how to affect change within my district.  I would like to affect policies that will be added to this year’s Collective Bargaining Agreement.  

Part C.

1. Describe your work with diverse stakeholders, shared learning experiences, and how you anticipate your leadership pathway mindset might evolve during the TLI process.  In order to make both aspects of the plan (stipend and group) “work” I will need to collaborate with a variety of different teachers, representatives, and administrators.  I think my mindset will evolve in that it is easy to have set viewpoints on people, especially as we approach negotiations, for example that administration might not always be entirely out for the best interest of the teachers, particularly during a budget crisis; however, when working on something like this one must broaden their perspective to see how many moving parts and pieces there are, and how everyone is ultimately doing their best.  

2. Describe how your awareness of those from different cultures, experiences, and backgrounds inform your chosen project. Throughout my life and career, I have encountered a variety of different individuals and have always considered myself a social justice advocate and educator.  Without meaning to, my work has been taken on a “trauma lens” as I can see how my own, and others’ lives and daily functionality have been affected by trauma.  I think this will be the way to access empathy, and thus the essential skills, needed to build trust filled relationships, navigate differences and create positive change.