Today our guest is Dr. Chris Clayton the Director of Education Services for the Educator Pipeline and Profession for the Pennsylvania State Education Association.

We talk to Dr. Clayton about the importance of developing and supporting a robust educator pipeline. He highlights several of the opportunities available for building pipelines and shares insights on the initiatives already underway in Pennsylvania. Dr. Clayton also details the ways they offer year-round support to new and aspiring teachers—professionally, financially, and in the classroom.

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In addition to his work with CharacterStrong as a Presenter and Consultant, Dr. Christopher M. Clayton serves as the Director of Education Services for the Educator Pipeline and Profession for the Pennsylvania State Education Association.  In this role with PSEA, he is responsible for providing support to over 178,000 educator members on issues involving teacher certification, student achievement, pedagogical best practices and research in teaching and learning and directs the Student PSEA Aspiring Educator Program, serves as the State Coordinator for the Pennsylvania Educators Rising (high school students) Program, and coordinates PSEA’s New & Early Career Educator Platform.

He earned a Ph.D. in Language and Literacy Education and an Ed. S. Degree in Education Leadership, Administration, & Policy at The University of Georgia along with a Master's Degree in Curriculum & Instruction from Regis University in Denver, CO.  He is a National Board-Certified Teacher (2008, renewed in 2018) who was named the Washington Puyallup Valley Teacher of the Year in 2011 prior to starting with PSEA where he served as a high school English and International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge teacher and coach for over ten years in Southern California and Washington state before becoming a district administrator and Director of Curriculum & Instruction in a large metro-Atlanta school district with 138 schools and over 100,000 students.  He moved to Hershey to begin his role with PSEA in 2014 and happily resides there with his wife, two daughters, son, and granddaughter.