I have been working in education for the past 16 years; the last 3 years as principal at Liberty Elementary in the Marysville School District, in Marysville, WA. I started my career in 2004 as a 3rd grade teacher, and have taught multi-age and instructional support before becoming Dean of Students. I believe all students can learn and leave elementary school as well-rounded individuals ready to take on anything in front of them. I am a firm believer in using data to inform our work in student achievement and build learning systems that promote and support the whole child. We must be open to the ever-changing students we work with. Lastly, I love spending time with my family and playing as much golf as possible.. In my “free” time!

I have been an educator for 38 years. I have taught for 20 years in the classroom and then worked for the last 18 years as an instructional coach with an emphasis on literacy. I have taught at all grade levels, K-5. As an instructional coach and Title facilitator in the Marysville school district for the last 18 years, I have created curriculum using a balanced literacy model for our district as a part of a coaching team. I have worked with countless teachers side by side to refine instruction, assess students and adapt instruction based on those assessments. I provided many PD opportunities as well for our district as a part of a coaching team. Most recently, I have worked with teachers at Liberty elementary for the past 5 years. I have helped teachers to use and adapt first, our balanced literacy curriculum, and then our district adopted Ready Gen curriculum. I have helped to facilitate our school wide Acceleration program in reading and math for our 250 plus Title and LAP students. We collect and display student data in a central spot, for all educators to access. We use this data to group students and I work with our teachers as well as 10 para-professionals to give our students an extra dose of literacy instruction based on students' needs. We have established a system to monitor data and adjust these groups school wide every 6-8 weeks, or more often for individual students if needed.

As the EL teacher in our building, my experience has been working collaboratively with my team to help support and create personalized interventions for all students. All of my experience at Liberty has been spent dedicating my time to growing with my colleagues of various backgrounds and educational expertise. I am very lucky to work closely with a team of LAP and Title teachers to support the needs of our students. This year our focus has been rooted in inclusionary practices that best support using our data to create targeted inventions for all our students including EL, SPED, LAP and Title. Additionally, as a second year teacher I have had the honor to join our AVID/GLAD site team to help lead our continuing education trainings for all of our staff. Through this leadership role I have been able to collaborate with educators throughout my building to increase our teaching practice strategies through a culturally responsive lens. I know that our team is a diverse group of educators that will bring a story to this conference that will inspire and foster an environment that I can continue learning from.

I have been an educator for 15 years and spent most of my career teaching kindergarten and first grade. Most recently, I have been a Title 1 teacher serving kindergarten through 2nd grade students in reading and math. Using data to inform my instruction and to help students be the best they can be has truly become my passion. As a result, I have spent the last 8 years working with data and collaborating with colleagues in data teams. In 2012, my first grade team was a runner up for the 2012 Shirley Hord Learning Team Award through Learning Forward. Additionally, I have worked with Dr. Stephanie Fryberg and WA State Counselor of the Year, Christy Anana in the areas of growth mindset, culturally responsive teaching and creating a positive classroom environment.