Hi friends! A little life update: As many of you may know, after a lot of prayer and consideration, this May, I packed up my townhouse in Houston and moved to Tennessee to join Teach for America. After a summer of training in Nashville, this fall, I will begin teaching first grade at a Title I school in Chattanooga. As I prepare to welcome my students into a fresh school year, one of my biggest focuses is creating a classroom environment that feels joyful, safe, and conducive to learning. A big part of this endeavor is making sure that my classroom is well-stocked with supplies and materials, from pencils to an area rug (and everything in between). As a first-year teacher in an under-served school, I will be in charge of acquiring most of these items personally. I so appreciate your consideration in partnering with me financially as I enter this new and exciting chapter! 

A little bit more about my decision to join TFA…

Throughout my childhood, I attended Texas public schools. Each fall, I was welcomed into classrooms where I was given the tools and support I needed to succeed academically. I had access to extensive libraries, multiple fine arts and foreign language programs, and, most importantly, a network of teachers and parents working tirelessly to ensure that I was on track for college readiness. Though I naïvely believed that all children in state-funded schools were afforded the same privileges, through a handful of volunteer experiences during and after college, my eyes were opened to some of the staggering realities of educational inequity in our country: low-income students fail to graduate high school at six times the rate of higher-income youth and this disparity begins in early elementary school; on average, there is a 1.5-year learning gap in reading and math between 4^thgraders growing up in poverty and their higher-income peers. 16 million children in the U.S. currently live below the poverty line, and only 14% of them are expected to graduate from college. In America today, the circumstances children are born into largely predict the opportunities they will have in life. Over the next two years, my hope is that I will help TFA take a tiny step forward in their mission of realizing the day when every child has an equal opportunity to learn, grow, influence, and lead, regardless of what zip code they grew up in. 

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