Ed Leaders In Literacy Podcast

Dr. Jill Dunlap Brown

Jana Schmidt

What's Inside: In this episode, we chat with Dr. Jill Dunlap Brown and Jana Schmidt about their work as leaders in the field of literacy. Together Dr. Jill Brown and Jana Schmidt wrote Matching Reading Data to Interventions: A Simple Tool for Elementary Educators to serve as an accessible guide for teachers so they can better determine their student's instructional needs.

Dr. Jill Dunlap Brown has worked in the education field for 20 years as a teacher, literacy coach and Assistant Superintendent for Elementary Education in a school district of 19,000 students. She is currently an Educational Consultant with Brown & Schmidt Consulting providing literacy training and support to teachers, leaders and school systems. Jana Schmidt has worked as an associate director in the Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis Department at the University of Missouri-Columbia and as an educational consultant. Jana served as a language arts coordinator for kindergarten through eighth grade in a school district with approximately 19,000 students.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Science of Reading

• The Simple View of Reading

• Scarborough's Reading Rope

• National Reading Report

This podcast episode was sponsored by Heggerty Phonemic Awareness

What’s Inside: In this episode, we chat with three dynamic educators working to change the way teachers collaborate, teach and learn in New Orleans: Nan Sterling, Dr. Jawan Brown-Alexander, and Adrienne Dowden.

Nan Sterling serves as the Executive Director of Instructional Quality with New Schools for New Orleans (NSNO) where she provides opportunities to support charter schools with professional learning and curriculum implementation. Dr. Jawan Brown - Alexander is Chief of Schools at NSNO and Adrienne Dowden is an educational consultant and owner of ASD Educational Consulting Group, LLC. ASD a consulting company that specializes in providing on-going job embedded professional development who works with NSNO on their school-based initiatives.

Jawan, Nan and Adrienne share their experiences navigating the challenge of providing consistent, high-quality research -based professional development in a district made up of several different Charter management Organizations (CMO) while also providing the time and space for teachers to collaborate and learn across CMOs.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The New Teachers Project

• ASD Educational Consulting

• NSNO

• Isabel Beck

• Tim Shanahan

This podcast episode was sponsored by Heggerty Phonemic Awareness

What’s Inside: In this episode, we chat with Shanna Beber, Director of Literacy, and Catsaha Edwards, Literacy Professional Development Specialist, with the Louisiana Dept of Education (LDOE). Beber and Edwards share their work in Louisiana to support the initiatives passed in two recent pieces of state legislation: Senate Resolution 182 and House Resolution 222. These resolutions provided the funds and resources to establish the Early Literacy Commission whose purpose is to guide the state-wide implementation of practices rooted in the Science of Reading research base.

Beber and Edwards, both former school-based educators, are now a part of a larger team who are leading Louisiana school districts through this process by creating an approved list of professional development providers, designing accessible, "on-demand" professional development for leaders and teachers, holding office hours so that school leaders can call in for support. On the podcast, they share the insights they've gained while providing training, gathering data, and connecting with stakeholders amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the disruptions of hurricane season.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Literacy Foundations Professional Development Providers

• Louisiana Comprehensive Literacy Plan

• Louisiana Literacy

• Excel in Ed

This podcast episode was sponsored by Heggerty Phonemic Awareness

What’s Inside: In this episode, we chat with Brent Conway, Assistant Superintendent of Pentucket Regional School District in Massachusetts about his experience with district literacy improvement. Several years ago, Brent began his administrative career as a principal of a school in danger of state takeover. With this task ahead of him, he set about doing the strenuous work of school turnaround which included changing schedules, curriculum, and mindsets. Brent is a firm believer in systematic, explicit instruction. 

Brent currently serves on the Massachusetts Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education's Literacy Champions advisory group, charged with developing the state’s Early Literacy Guidance Plan. He has contributed to the development of guidelines for schools and districts in implementing the Massachusetts Dyslexia Law and is a founding member of the Northshore Literacy Leaders group which has brought in speakers such as Emily Hanford to help build professional knowledge and dialogue around the science of reading and evidence-based practices. Brent recently spoke to the MA Board of Education on the state’s work with early literacy and serves on the MA Reading Association’s Professional Development Committee. He regularly speaks at professional conferences on the need for professional development on literacy and tiered literacy systems, among other topics.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• "Annual Growth for All, Catch -Up for Those Who Are Behind" 

• Nancy Young, The Ladder of Reading by Lynn Fielding, Nancy Kerr, and Paul Rosier

• https://heggerty.org/blog/case-study-brent-conway-from-pentucket-regional-school-district/

• https://curriculummatters.org/profile/brent-conway/

This podcast episode was sponsored by Heggerty Phonemic Awareness

This podcast episode was sponsored by Heggerty Phonemic Awareness.

In this episode, we chat with Nita Cherise, state-level trainer and podcast producer at Glean Education about her experience as a school leader, trainer, and coach about what teachers need to know about literacy instruction.

Nita explores her experience rising through the ranks from teacher to coach to school leader. She talks about how she supported her students with high quality literacy instruction and the importance of bringing your whole self to the classroom.

Links: See links mentioned in this podcast listed below -

• August, The Short Movie (Featuring Nita Cherise): http://caitlyngreene.com/august

• Debbie Diller: https://www.debbiediller.com/

This podcast episode was sponsored by Heggerty Phonemic Awareness.

What’s inside: Palo Alto Unified is widely recognized as the one of best school districts in California, but a dive into district literacy data reveals a different story.

In this episode we chat with Todd Collins, school board member at Palo Alto Unified School District, about his journey investigating how his district was supporting their “most challenged and least resourced students”.

His exploration led to an understanding of how all districts should look at their district data with an eye to equity and how doing so can reveal important opportunities for school improvement. Todd’s data dive also prompted him not only to learn more about literacy instruction best practices to help guide decisions he may make in Palo Alto related to his board duties, but also motivated him to create the California Reading Coalition, an initiative founded with the vision of bringing reading experts and change makers together to collaborate on issues regarding literacy improvement and equity specifically related to California.

Links: See links mentioned in this podcast listed below -

• Palo Alto Unified: https://www.pausd.org/

• California Reading Coalition: https://www.careads.org/

This podcast episode was sponsored by Heggerty Phonemic Awareness.

What’s inside: In this episode, Andratesha Fritzgerald, Director of Teaching & Learning at the East Cleveland City School District and founder of  Education Consulting firm Building Blocks of Brilliance, joins us to talk about her life-changing, impactful work in and outside of the classroom as an instructor and fierce advocate of UDL (Universal Design for Learning). 

Andratesha shares her experiences building capacity in her students to affect social change as well as supporting and leading Teachers in implementing Anti-racist practices in instruction. 

In her latest book, Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to Success, Andratesha shares how implementing UDL can help teachers uncover the genius within each and every student. Through this book and her work in the field, Andratesha helps teachers create classroom environments that set students up for success by meeting their individual needs.

Links: See links mentioned in this podcast listed below -

• Book: Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Pathways to Success: http://castpublishing.org/books-media/antiracism-universal-design-learning/

• Andratesha Fritzgerald’s Professional Development Organization: Building Blocks of Brilliance: https://www.buildingblocksofbrilliance.com/ 

• Universal Design for Learning: CAST: https://www.cast.org/

This podcast episode was sponsored by Heggerty Phonemic Awareness.

What’s inside: In this episode, we chat with Alana Mangham, M.S., the Literacy and Learning Specialist for the Center for Development and Learning. She is also a member of Louisiana’s Early Literacy Commission and the Reading League Louisiana chapter’s vice president. She talks with us about her experience in Rapides Parish as the K-5 English Language Arts Curriculum Specialist and the lessons learned from their district literacy success.

Alana’s work with Rapides Parish and the success with the K-3 literacy plan gained national attention and documented, on the EAB report, “ Narrowing the Third Grade Reading Gap”. In this podcast, she shares her passion for early childhood literacy, evidence-based reading practices, and building literacy progress through facts, reading science, and classroom implementation.

Links: See links mentioned in this podcast listed below -

• Plain Talk Literacy Conference: https://www.cdl.org/plain-talk/

• EAB report: “ Narrowing the Third Grade Reading Gap.”.

• Growing Brains: Growing Reading Brains

This podcast episode was sponsored by Heggerty Phonemic Awareness.

What’s inside: In this episode, we talk with two school administrators from New Madrid, MO, Principal Angie Hanlin and Superintendent Sam Duncan about the work they’ve done to raise literacy rates in their district and how other school districts can use their recipe for success to turn their district literacy rates around as well.

Links: See links mentioned in this podcast listed below -

• Plain Talk Literacy Conference: https://www.cdl.org/plain-talk/

• Schools Cubed Educational Consulting: https://schoolscubed.com/

• New Madrid School District: https://www.nmceaglenation.com/

This podcast episode was sponsored by Heggerty Phonemic Awareness.

What’s inside: In this episode, Leslie Zoroya, Reading and Language Arts Coordinator at the Los Angeles County Office of Education, joins us to talk about her work in the field of literacy. Leslie shares her experience working as a middle school reading interventionist and coordinator at juvenile justice schools. Her work now at LACOE focuses on supporting Los Angeles teachers to build an understanding of the Science of Reading, diverse learners, Structured Literacy, and anti-racist instructional practices to help improve student reading proficiency and build educational equity in their county.

Leslie is passionate about the ways in which literacy intersects with social justice and racial equity. She is part of a team at LACOE that lead the charge to create a white paper on Supporting the African American Learner which has just been published. And is also a collaborator on the “Getting Reading Right” project that hosts an incredible amount of resources to support teacher delivery of Structured, systematic reading instruction.

Links: See links mentioned in this podcast listed below -

• African American Learner Initiative Website Link: https://www.lacoe.edu/Curriculum-Instruction/Equity-Diversity-and-Inclusion/African-American-Learners

• African American Learner Document Link: https://www.lacoe.edu/Portals/0/Curriculum-Instruction/Supporting_the_African_American_Learner.pdf?ver=2021-02-28-192734-950

• Leading Literacy Podcast Link: https://www.lacoe.edu/Curriculum-Instruction/Reading-Language-Arts/Leading-Literacy

• Getting Reading Right Link: https://www.lacoe.edu/Curriculum-Instruction/Reading-Language-Arts/Getting-Reading-Right