Nominated by Angela Church

Welcome to our new column featuring the people behind professional learning that is making a difference for students, educators, and schools. Our first installment directs the spotlight on Stacie Angel, supervisor of instructional services for the Berkley School District in Berkley, Michigan.

Angel was nominated by Angela Church, a secondary instructional coach in the same district. Church recognizes Angel’s network leadership, her skillful collaboration, how she integrates job-embedded learning and coaching, and the ways Angel lifts up those around her. Here are some highlights of Angel’s work, in Church’s words.

LEADING JOB-EMBEDDED, STANDARDS-ALIGNED PROFESSIONAL LEARNING

Stacie led our district in embracing a new literacy approach, supported the implementation of instructional coaches, and has been at the forefront of intentional design that centers learners. She’s also led job-embedded professional learning through the Oakland Schools Job-Embedded Professional Learning Network, which strives to support facilitators of job-embedded professional learning and deepen our understanding of effective coaching, leadership, and professional learning in school districts across the county.

As one of the network’s primary facilitators, Stacie has helped member coaches, district leaders, educators, and administrators dig into Learning Forward’s Standards for Professional Learning and supported them in making connections between their work and the standards.

For the 2022-23 school year, Stacie developed professional learning with her colleagues so sessions for the network were grounded in the standards. We read and analyzed portions of the text, which allowed us time to get familiar with the standards as well as use them to identify how to prioritize our time and resources back in our own districts.

LEVERAGING PROFESSIONAL LEARNING TO IMPROVE LITERACY

Recently, Stacie introduced our district to disciplinary literacy for middle and high school students. This involves specific reading strategies for understanding, analyzing, and interpreting different content-area texts, since specialized vocabulary and unique text features appear in different disciplines. Though it’s new, already we are seeing educators embrace problem-based learning, diversify classroom text offerings, and move toward cohesion at the secondary level. Stacie supported this implementation with instructional coaches while consistently focusing on learner-focused intentional design.

Stacie’s guidance has led to a cultural shift that emphasizes learning for everyone. The professional learning process provided time for educators to identify how they read and think about their content areas and how they will implement the practices in their classrooms. The staff work together in deeper ways, as we’ve begun to establish a culture of collaborative inquiry.

Our processes of developing inquiry questions, identifying instructional practices to address the inquiry, gathering data, and then reflecting on those practices and students’ growth have been rewarding. Together we look closely at what we’re teaching and what we want students to know, make adjustments, and refine implementation and practice. This cycle of continuous improvement has developed with Stacie’s leadership.

A FOCUS ON COLLABORATION

One of the things I admire about Stacie’s approach is how she continuously develops and nurtures collaborative structures. Throughout her work, Stacie centers community and uplifts her colleagues. Through her work in the Job-Embedded Professional Learning Network, Stacie has invited other educators to join the leadership team and facilitate portions of the professional learning, allowing educators to highlight the work they are doing in their home districts.

Within the Berkley School District, she leads in a similar way. She seeks opportunities for teachers to share their practices, successes, and challenges so that educators can learn from and with each other.

If you would like to nominate a changemaker, visit bit.ly/48YhHHL.

Download pdf here.