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Elevating & Celebrating Effective Teachers & Teaching event at WCU

Happy to pass along this note about the upcoming Elevating & Celebrating Effective Teachers & Training event that NCCAT friend and alum Ben Owens passed along ...

 

Good evening! I am writing this note to let you know about the upcoming Elevating & Celebrating Effective Teachers & Teaching event that will be held at Western Carolina University on Saturday, February 3rd. This event is open to educators from Western North Carolina who applied for or attended either of our two state-wide events (ECET2 Carolinas in 2016 or ECET2NC in 2017) AND/OR outstanding educators who would want to see the magic of an ECET2 event first hand.

Superintendents: We are asking that you or another leader from your district identify one or more potential nominees per the second criteria above. These could be other teachers, coaches, or administrators from your district who were either not able to attend or to apply to one of the statewide convenings in Charlotte, but whose role would make them uniquely qualified to benefit from or contribute to the event's focus on scalable solutions for equity and new teacher supports in our schools in Western NC.

If you are unfamiliar with ECET2, it's a national, teacher led program sponsored by Teacher2Teacher, with generous financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the New Venture Fund. In addition to several national ECET2 events, there have been well over 100 regional events over the past five years, including two amazing events here in North Carolina. The primary goal of every ECET2 event is to harness the power of teacher leader networks so that we can improve teaching practices that better serve our students. The Teacher2Teacher network has a core belief that teachers hold the keys to ensuring education policy is well informed, instructional shifts are made with fidelity, and educators are equipped with the right professional development supports to be effective in the classroom.

The Western NC ECET2 event is one of four regional follow up sessions this spring, following the great work teachers did from across North Carolina in October at ECET2NC - work that was highlighted in this article from EdNC. Our hope is that even more teacher leaders will use these regional events to build on that work by sharing additional tools, ideas, and resources that help build stronger collaborative networks between beginning and veteran teachers, as well as innovative instructional strategies to address inequity in schools across the state.

 

Western Carolina University has graciously agreed to host this event, although space is limited. Please use this Google Form to apply for a formal invitation. Note that priority will be given to attendees and applicants for this or last year's event in Charlotte, followed by nominations for educators new to the ECET2 community. The deadline for nominations will be Friday, January 5th at midnight, so please don't delay!

 

Our tentative agenda includes a 9am start time, with morning sessions focused on equity and new teacher strategies developed in October by the Western NC ECET2 Colleague Circles, as well as the work WCU is doing to address these same issues. We will then have a networking time at 11:30, followed by lunch (lunch is on your own, but we encourage all attendees to go with a new friend). Beginning at 1:00, we will do an EdCamp style "unconference" that is focused on these same topics of equity & new teacher supports. We will wrap-up the day no later than 4pm. Please note that anyone who did not attend the October meeting in Charlotte is encouraged to be at the 9:00 session, but would not be expected to be present for the day's events until 10:30.

 

Please let me or anyone on the planning team know if you have questions or want to know more about ECET2 - the planning team is cc'ed to this email. We look forward to helping you, your school, and your district learn, collaborate, and celebrate teaching excellence here in Western North Carolina!

 

Sincerely,

-Ben

 

Ben's email is [email protected].