Denver Teach to Lead Summit

The Teach Like Me Campaign was invited to participate in the US Department of Education's Teach to Lead Summit in Denver on January 9th, 10th and 11th. The team consisted of Shawn Sheehan (campaign founder), Joel Deardorf (campaign co-manager/video) and Levi Patrick (OSDE Director of Secondary Mathematics). We began the summit with a speed-networking activity where we had the pleasure of meeting amazing educators from across the country including places like Minnesota, Washington D.C., Florida and Nebraska! It was so incredible to hear all the powerful ideas teachers and administrators had to pitch.

The next day, we dove into our work on developing our idea further, making more connections with others, and honing our 7-second pitch. We got to hear from some teachers in Louisiana who demonstrated how Teacher Leadership raised enough money to build a wonderful playground at a school that had been hit by Hurricane Katrina. On our last day, we created our logic model to refine our process, action steps and expected outcomes. The result was an organized plan of action to further our Teach Like Me Campaign!

The major takeaway was that Teacher Leadership is reform-proof. It can withstand the ebb and flow of various educational reforms and empowers teachers to lead from the classroom!