I chose to join City Teaching Alliance because I wanted to be fully prepared for the realities of the classroom – not just the fulfillment and joy, but also the struggles and challenges that come with this work. The residency model gave me the invaluable opportunity to learn under experienced host teachers for an entire year, and I was fortunate to be mentored by professors and coaches who consistently went the extra mile. I feel incredibly blessed to have been supported at every step of my journey.

If I want to one day do policy work, if I want to one day be an advocate, I need to start on the ground level of being a teacher. I believe, through and through, that education is the only system that touches everyone in America.

Secretary Cardona got nominated from Connecticut. He’s another person who started on the ground level. He started teaching in the school district that he attended as a student, and then he became a principal, became superintendent, became Commissioner for the Board of Education in Connecticut, and then became the Secretary of Education.

While I have no desire to make it that far, if I want to be a leader in my own school, I need to know what and who I’m leading. That reinforces my desire to teach every day.

City Teaching Alliance added a new layer to my growth as an educator. It pushed me to think critically about equity and what it truly means to create learning spaces that are just, inclusive, and student-centered.

I got Rookie of the Year last year, which is like Teacher of the Year but for first-year teachers. My boss’s boss’s boss came in and observed me on my first day. And every time he’s seen me since that first day, he says, ‘I remember when I came in on your first day, you looked so scared. And then I came back the next time, and I didn’t even recognize you. You turned the whole class around.’

I have a strong sense of ownership over my class — a sense of pride. I believe in all my kids and I hold them to high expectations, because I know they can get there. And if they act like a worm in the hallway, I will not accept it: ‘You know the rules, you know the expectations, so fix it, and we can move on from it.’ When you look at my class from last year, they are thriving in first grade. They are set up for success and they know the expectations.

Now, I don’t know if that sense of pride will stay with them forever. I’m only one teacher. But what they learn in this classroom is magical.

When I was in my prep program, I was lucky to have coaches coming in at least two or three times a month watching us in action, telling us things that we could do, providing us with new research on teaching. But that type of coaching doesn’t continue, and many teachers never receive it to that extent.

Teachers have all these observations and these criteria that we have to meet, and the criteria is forever changing and continuous. The coaching part, however, is not continuous. So we have teachers being judged without coaching on ways to improve.

It’s difficult for early-career teachers, but think about later-career teachers: imagine getting your degree in education 10 years ago, and then teaching for 10 years while all the frameworks change. And not only that, but the children change. Students 10 years ago had a different childhood than students today. So if I’m still teaching based on what I learned 10 years ago, teaching is going to continue to get harder for me. And that’s what we see a lot of now: teachers are not being given the resources or the preparation that we need to truly address the needs of students in this day and age.

Today, these kids talk about everything. They have exposure to everything. And a lot of adults are afraid of that level of exposure. It gives kids a level of curiosity that allows them to ask questions that I couldn’t have even fathomed. And as adults, it gives us the opportunity to provide them with an appropriate understanding for their age, versus them having to learn some version from their friends.

When students ask me questions, I don’t word vomit in reply. I think carefully about the things I’m going to say. When I need to have a tough conversation with kids, I try to make them the leader of the conversation, and I try to just be the facilitator. I ask them questions to help them build thoughtful answers on their own.

As teachers, our job is not to give kids ideas as much as it is to teach them how to create their own ideas. And so that’s what I try to do.

What I appreciate most about my experience with City Teacher Alliance is they really just believed in me and they gave me the tools to make sure that I could do the thing that I was already passionate about doing. And they made sure that I could do it at a really high level.

From my first placement, my resident year, I was in a DC public school. And from the coaching that they provided to the check-ins, I just felt supported. I felt pushed, but I also felt celebrated when I did the good work.

And so I think that they just gave me a really good foundation to be who I am today as still an educator, even though I’m a principal and the co-founder of The Social Justice School.

I went to George Washington and majored in international affairs. During my senior year, I worked in a kindergarten classroom three times a week with D.C. Reads and I realized I loved teaching. I wanted to stay in D.C. to teach. I knew that the schools were some of the worst in the country, and part of the problem is that teachers are so transient there. I wanted to stay and teach.

I was thrilled when I found Urban Teachers [City Teaching Alliance]. I knew a summer of teaching prep wouldn’t be enough. I didn’t want to just be thrown into a classroom with children and not be able to do right by them. I wanted to find out how to be an effective teacher, not a babysitter or a sage on a stage.

My residency year I spent at Center City Brightwood in a third-grade classroom. I had an amazing host teacher. After my residency, they hired me as the first-grade lead teacher. I was at Brightwood for six years. It was nice to be at the same school for my entire tenure. I was a family engagement lead and took part in several fellowships. Urban Teachers [City Teaching Alliance] prepared me for that. You learn how to manage a workload for sure, but it also sets you up with the right mindset and tools.

There was always a really strong Urban Teachers [City Teaching Alliance] presence at Brightwood; it really made an impact on our school community. You can really spot those who come with Urban Teachers [City Teaching Alliance] training and experience. There’s that culture of being data-driven and focused on continual improvement.

Last year was my first year as a curriculum manager at our central office for the charter system. It’s been really interesting. I’ve been able to go to different conferences around the country and see what the issues are. Being growth-oriented, improvement-oriented has really set me up to try new things. But I miss students every day. I miss the coziness of a classroom. It’s a world. It’s home. I try to go back there a couple of times a month and I always make a point to stop in and see my former students.