I began working in classrooms as an English language teacher for recently resettled communities in Oklahoma City in 2012. Through that experience, I became passionate about teaching and schools as a place where students can gain confidence and grow both as scholars and people. In the twelve years since that intial experience, I have worked in a variety of educational spaces as a professional educator. Below, I have outlined three of these spaces, starting with the most recent and working back in time. These include a community education program, an independent school, and a public school.
From December 2021 - July 2022, I served as the Director of the Spero Transitional Education Program (STEP) through the Spero Project in Oklahoma City. STEP was a temporary program to offer educational services to Afghan students who recently arrived to Oklahoma City and were not yet able to enroll in neighborhood public schools. Through STEP, I managed 25+ employees serving over 250+ students. Collectively, we worked to provide students with an on-ramp to learning about life and school in the United States through trauma-informed care, culturally relevant teaching, and hands-on learning and engagement.
From August 2015 - July 2020, I served as a mentor, educator, and academic administrator at Odyssey Leadership Academy (OLA) in Oklahoma City. OLA is a 6-12th grade independent school focused on curating values of wisdom, compassion, and service in students through school-house model classes, socratic dialogue methods, and justice-oriented themed courses. While at OLA, I created over 20+ original core humanities and elective courses, and oversaw the development of 30+ core STEM courses. I directed three city-wide conferences, multiple public-facing events, and served as a representative for the school across conferences in the U.S. I managed community partnerships, planned school trips to places such as New York City and Washington, D.C., and I worked collaboratively with the team to provide resources for students as they sought academic endeavors after graduating from OLA.
From June 2013 - July 2015, I served as a 7th grade English Language Arts and Social Studies teacher through Teach for America at Lowery Middle School in Donaldsonville, Louiaiana. As a 7th grade teacher, I developed curricular materials aligned to district and state standards, collaborated with other middle school instructors to plan field trips and school events, and facilitated multiple parents nights to enrich the school's community engagement. I also started a literacy program during my first year that continued on, encouraging students to "Read to One Million Words" and formed community partnerships to financially support the program and sponsor reading incentives. As a Teach for America corps member, I led multiple professional development sessions on teaching middle school ELA and developing literacy programs for students.