As director of economic opportunity, I worked on a highly effective and nimble team that supported implementation of the Walmart Foundation's Retail Opportunity Network (RON), which was founded in 2015 as a part of Walmart's $100 million Retail Opportunity Initiative. At the time, the Network was a collection of 70+ organizations working to drive systems change for the U.S. retail sector by developing ways to make it easier for frontline retail workers to advance in their careers. Projects included building systems for tracking and amplifying engagement and participation among and beyond the RON members, managing the Retail America: Pathways to Opportunity podcast series, co-designing and MC'ing semi-annual convenings for RON grantees, facilitating knowledge-sharing among the Network's members and identifying best practices and learnings across various organizations.Simultaneously, I continued to fulfill the responsibilities of National Director of Professional Learning for our Teacher Fellows Network (TFN) while additionally supporting our Senior Director of Education and Economic Opportunity on development efforts, long-term and short-term strategic planning, understanding the impact and expanding the influence of HSG TFN fellows and alumni, coaching State Directors across the US and building more effective systems for tracking engagement, market saturation and participation among our 50,000 educator professional learning network.

As national director of professional learning and curriculum for Hope Street Group's (HSG's) education and work force teams, I operationalized protocol for designing and refining competency-based professional learning and training. Working directly with over 30 subject matter experts from HSG's Teacher Fellows Network, I co-facilitated the design, implementation and continuous improvement of our competency-based face to face and synchronous, virtual professional learning suite that supported leadership competency development for programs in Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Hawaii, Utah and Arizona. Additionally, I co-lead a team of subject matter expert, alumni professional learning facilitators across the US.In this role, I also advised practitioner and system engagement strategies in the manufacturing, healthcare and retail sectors, as well as, provided support for the implementation of GoodPaths, a modularized, evidence-based career navigation training program for Goodwill Industries International career navigators in three pilot-member sites.

In my role as director, I was fortunate to coach and support three cohorts of State Teacher Fellows, nearly twice as many Alumni Fellows and several dozen of our most engaged professional learning network members. The Fellows gather school-level practitioner perspectives on education policy topics in Kentucky through Fellow-designed surveys and moderating focus groups across the state. The data gathered is used to create policy recommendations to the Kentucky Department of Education. The data and recommendations are then shared by the Fellows with policy makers and education shareholders in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Additionally, the Fellows drive small and large scale initiatives at the local, regional and state level. From supporting and building internal editorial boards in Owensboro and Louisville that allow teachers the opportunity to share their practice with non-educators, to driving a state-wide dyslexia public awareness campaign that resulted in improved dyslexia legislation, to partnering with the Kentucky State Teacher of Year and the Collaborative for Student Success to launch kyedpolicy.org and the Policy Together legislator-teacher exchange initiative, to leading professional learning for thousands of their peers at the local, district, regional and state level, to driving a teacher-led professional learning movement, JCPS Forward, in the largest district in the Commonwealth, the Fellows align their work to the Kentucky Teacher Leadership Framework and focus their energy and efforts on initiatives that have deep impact on their peers and the entire Kentucky education system.While director, I attempted to create the conditions, the professional learning and on-going layers of coaching support that developed the competence, confidence and credibility of the Fellows in order to bolster their personal teacher leadership goals and improve teaching and learning across the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Lead to increase teacher voice and influence: worked to enlarge teachers’ role indecision-making beyond the classroom and in concert with other stakeholders. Lead to professionalize teaching: worked to reform educational systems to create greateropportunities for teachers to learn and lead beyond the local level.Lead to connect to the larger community: worked to expand the world of theclassroom beyond the school.Lead groups and teams: contributed to positive school change to enhance studentlearning.Lead through modeling and coaching: developed capacities of peers.Lead from the classroom: developed capacities of students and self.

Curio Learning is an online professional learning aggregator that allows educators to stack and share curated resources that refine teacher practice from across the virtual landscape while recognizing individual and collective expertise. I worked with the co-founders to refine national engagement and outreach strategies.

Designed a data-driven, competency-based, career pathway workshop model for Central Kentucky middle and high public school students in partnership with Idea Festival Bluegrass. Convened and facilitated educators, regional employers, institutions of higher education, industry certification providers, and policymakers to simulate on the job tasks aligned to career clusters for students.Created an informal space for students to connect their K-12 learning to potential career pathways and post-secondary readiness outcomes.

Advised Mini-Maker Faire implementation within the context of the K-12 education system of Louisville metro.Served as liaison to the Kentucky public and private education community.Informed strategic planning for K-12 outreach.

Supported a stable of writing coaches (all practicing educators).Provided free coaching and editorial support to teacher-writers seeking to share their practice with both educator and non-educator audiences. Delivered professional learning and on going support to networks of teachers on writing blogs, op-eds, articles and how to provide actionable feedback to other teacher-writers.

Sevenzo is a virtual community that fosters the sharing of bright spots and implementation success stories, while curating and aligning current practices with emergent research on what works. Previous Sevenzo challenges focused on professional learning videos and personalized professional learning needs of educators across the U.S., creating a sense of belonging for students, and promoting practices that create a caring classroom. Advised challenge design, national engagement strategies, capturing student voices in Kentucky, and measuring impact.

Redwood is the only parent cooperative elementary school in Kentucky. The school is completely managed by the parent board and parent president. Promoted intentionality around strategic planning efforts.Supported the head teacher.Advised the creation of community outreach strategies.

Designed, facilitated and aligned statewide programs that encouraged the development and retention of local, young talent in order to increase the cultural and intellectual capital of Central Kentucky.

Facilitated deep learning and meaningful instructional strategies for high-ability students (K-8).

Facilitated the spread of teacher expertise beyond the classroom and onto CTQ-KY's virtual platform.

Explored any and all connections between stakeholders throughout the state, and especially along the I-64 corridor, that expanded the scope and implementation of Maker education in KY.