STATEMENTOFINTEREST

STATEMENT OF INTEREST
How clichéd is it to say that it’s important to give back to people and organizations that have sustained us? Despite that cliché, it is the reason that I am interested in being on the SRI Board. At times in my professional life when I’ve needed inspiration, I could turn to my colleagues at SRI and be inspired. When my sense of efficacy was shaky, I could turn to my critical friends group and find that my efficacy was growing. When I needed resources, I could turn on my computer and find what I needed at the SRI website. But even more importantly, if I feared that I was wandering from my beliefs, I could return to my journals influenced by SRI and find “true north” once again. So, yes, SRI has given me much, and in turn, I would be honored to serve.
One of SRI’s successes has been an unflinching commitment to students and teachers. Its beliefs resonate in the work that it does, and not once have I seen the organization compromise. Despite the pressures that educators and school systems face to conform, SRI has maintained its vision and mission, and continues to remind all of us of the power of “transformative learning communities fiercely committed to educational equity and excellence.” Even as other movements that claim to be professional learning communities have grabbed the spotlight, SRI has maintained a sharp focus on the importance of educators directing their professional growth and staying focused on equity.
As well as this being a success, it is also a challenge. In Colorado I’ve watched what happens when a major organization captures the headlines and shifts the focus from teachers defining their needs to those outside the classroom mandating what teachers need to learn and how they can collaborate. Too often missing from those mandates is attention to equity while attention is focused on data. Too often the “data” that teachers understand is excluded from the conversation. Way too often student work is overshadowed by test scores; the study of spreadsheets and numbers overshadow the study of student discourse and engagement. I worry about large movements that have the power to outshine a quieter movement such as SRI. I worry about other national mandates such as Common Core State Standards and their future assessments. I worry about how SRI can stay clear to its mission and vision in the current context and provide the support that teachers and students desperately need and deserve.
I bring with me years of experience as an educator and an educator who has been committed to the work of SRI for many years. I understand the pressures on teachers and the importance of collaboration. Because I’m fortunate to work in a variety of contexts, I recognize many commonalities in schools and school communities that cross the lines of demographics while at the same time I recognize those challenges prevalent in large urban schools.
BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT
Even though teaching was all I wanted to do, there was a time when the odds of living that dream were slim. As a teenage mother and wife, I worked hard to finish high school and then struggled to attend college. Knowing what it was like being an “alternative” student, my passion has been the disenfranchised student. When Horizon High where I was teaching affiliated with the Coalition of Essential Schools, I trusted that our system could be reformed to work for all students, including those I worried most about. In the 90s I was trained in “critical friends” and since that time, I’ve incorporated that way of thinking and acting into all of my professional life. As a member of the National School Reform Faculty, I continued facilitating a critical friends group at Horizon High even after I left the school to work at Colorado Department of Education. A few years later with a team of like-minded educators, we
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formed Colorado Critical Friends Group and hosted summer coaches trainings. Even though I’m no longer in the classroom, I still belong to a critical friends group where we meet monthly to share our professional dilemmas and learn together. And even though I’m no longer working daily with “alternative” students, I have not forgotten the importance of caring for all of our students, and my critical friends group ensures that I keep that commitment forefront in my practice.
Experience
•Co-director of Colorado Critical Friends (2002-present)
•Staff developer with Public Business Education Coalition (2005 – present)
o Current assignments include working with 2 urban high schools in Denver, Colorado and 1 suburban middle school in Ft. Collins, Colorado
•Independent consultant (1986-present)
o Current assignments include international schools in Indonesia and Colombia •Senior Instructor at the University of Colorado at Denver School of Education (2000-2005)
•State Literacy Coordinator at Colorado Department of Education (1996-2000)
•Middle and High School English teacher (1971 – 1996)
Education:
1997 Ph. D., University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado
1987 Masters of Education, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado
1969 Bachelor of Arts, University of California, Irvine, California
Publications
The Just-Right Challenge: 9 Strategies to Ensure Adolescents Don't Drop Out of the Game with John McDermott, Spring 2013.
ClockWatchers, with John McDermott, Heinemann, 2009.
“Critical Friends Groups” chapter, in Powerful Designs for Professional Learning, ed. Lois Brown Easton. National Staff Development Council, 2004
Numerous other articles
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