ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) – At least at the time each and every seven years, the Virginia Office of Instruction works on revisions to benchmarks of mastering. The proposed adjustments to record and social sciences have been in the spotlight since the tumble of 2022.
Additional than 50 Virginians went to a community hearing at the O. Winston Connection and Heritage Museum of Western Virginia, with far more than 30 voicing their viewpoints.
“Governor Youngkin type of hijacked the method underneath his administration, turned down the doc from August 2022 and then wrote his own document that just experienced a great deal of really absurd specifications,” stated Emily Yen, a workers researcher with the Virginia Instruction Affiliation.
Virginians versus the existing revisions collected in advance of the conference and have been accompanied by Roanoke leaders. They say very important parts of background are becoming left out.
“One of the key challenges that we see is remaining deleted, is reference to labor heritage. The latest benchmarks have several items of labor background and this will take out the connections in between the New Deal and why we have a 40-hour workweek. The Reasonable Labor Benchmarks Act is not in in this article and we just see that as a huge trouble. We also see that labor heritage is inextricably joined to civil rights historical past,” reported Yen.
“It is time to notify the full story. What is getting proposed will take this country backwards,” reported Penny Franklin, vice-chair of the Montgomery County College Board at the meeting.
But not absolutely everyone felt the similar way. Amy Snead shared some of what she’s heard from Bedford County instructors.
“I was genuinely encouraged by proposed SOL’s. More mature versions remaining place for unique interpretation, which definitely is not needed with educating historical past. All in all, I would be pleased to see these SOL’s authorised,” claimed Snead, speaking for one particular of the lecturers.
Snead also shared she’s in favor of them remaining accepted, as nicely.
“There’s a superior aim on the foundational components of our government, and primarily for the younger college students focusing on citizenship and responsibility, steps and consequences for the selections that you make in lifetime and truly taking that foundation upon which they can make them for the rest of their tutorial potential,” mentioned Snead.
Public comment will carry on to be heard until March 21 and a choices on the system is predicted in April. Virginia Board of Instruction users current at the meeting declined on-digital camera interviews.
FORT SMITH — Just one of Nancy Martinez Tejada’s plans as board president of the Literacy Council of Western Arkansas is to encourage others in the group.
Initially from El Salvador, Tejada, 35, was a student at the Literacy Council and served on its board before getting elected board president in August. She lives in Fort Smith with her husband and two boys and runs her have small business.
Tejada said people can do “incredible factors” when they master a different language, as she did with English by means of lessons the Literacy Council offered.
“I believe what she desires is to make positive other folks know that, even however it’s hard to start off, you can accomplish just about anything you want to if you just place the function into it and get the assist you have to have,” Bente Eriksen, executive director of the Literacy Council, explained.
Eriksen said the council, a nonprofit business, supplies tutoring services about a variety of subjects. This contains grownup essential education and learning, typical educational growth test preparing, English as a next language, Spanish, citizenship and drivers education, as nicely as wellbeing, economic and digital literacy.
The council features the solutions totally free of cost to everyone 16 and more mature, in accordance to the organization’s web page. New pupils can enroll at any time, immediately after which they are matched with a volunteer tutor and tutoring classes — which are furnished either 1-on-one particular or in small groups — are scheduled based mostly on pupil needs and availability. The business begun two more packages very last year — a outfits closet in August and a foodstuff pantry in October.
Eriksen mentioned the council not only allows its college students through its educational services, but their people and friends by extension. By its other providers, these kinds of as the dresses closet and food stuff pantry, Eriksen would like the firm to be known as a local community room that will give any sort of enable to any individual who arrives in.
“We do not seem at if they have a beginning certification, or if they have their position simply because they are persons — all of them — and all of them need to have support,” Eriksen stated. “Many of the areas individuals switch to say, ‘Yeah, yeah, we will help you,’ but it stops there. We want to be the position that truly can enable.”
Tejada explained she started off getting one-hour courses twice a week on studying, creating and talking English with a personalized tutor at the Literacy Council in 2013. Prior to this, she received a typical instructional growth certification via the Crawford County Grownup Education and learning Center in Van Buren in 2009 and a high school diploma in El Salvador.
Tejada was inspired to acquire the courses by her desire to get a improved occupation and have whole conversations with different styles of individuals. She stated while she knew a minor English at the time, she was scared to a particular extent because of to her accent.
“Which is just one of the major fears that many folks like us have,” Tejada said.
Tejada continued her training by way of the business for nearly a 12 months. She explained the courses she took permitted her to study a language and lose her fears to the position she was in a position to start her company in January 2018 — Avanty Multiservice at 2231 Midland Blvd. She offers solutions as a notary community, insurance coverage agent and tax preparer, doing work primarily with the Hispanic group in the River Valley.
Eriksen stated Tejada began serving on the Literacy Council’s board about three many years in the past.
“I wished to return a little something of what I was presented,” Tejada mentioned.
Eriksen stated Tejada is executing very properly as president of the board soon after her fellow board members voted her into this place. As a former student of the Literacy Council, Tejada is aware of what the business is carrying out and can do to enable individuals. She also has a impressive outreach to the Hispanic group.
“Obtaining a former pupil sitting down on the board is amazing,” Eriksen explained. “I have previous volunteers, I have previous tutors sitting down on the board, but acquiring a pupil on the board, she is why we are right here, and she can explain to everyone why we’re listed here and that is priceless.”
Eriksen stated Tejada qualified prospects by case in point, functioning to personally handle wants of the Literacy Council as they arrive up. She credits Tejada as one particular of the major instigators for the generation of the organization’s foodstuff pantry late very last calendar year.
100 people have been enrolled in the Literacy Council’s lessons in complete as of Thursday, in accordance to Eriksen.
Nancy Martinez Tejada, president of the board of directors at the Literacy Council of Western Arkansas, sights drawings submitted for a bookmark contest Wednesday at the Literacy Council in downtown Fort Smith. Tejada, a previous pupil of the Literacy Council at first from El Salvador, began her tenure as president of the board in August. Stop by nwaonline.com/picture for present-day photo gallery. (River Valley Democrat-Gazette/Hank Layton)
Nancy Martinez Tejada, president of the board of administrators at the Literacy Council of Western Arkansas, stands in the vicinity of the entrance Wednesday at the Literacy Council in downtown Fort Smith. Tejada, a previous college student of the Literacy Council originally from El Salvador, began her tenure as president of the board in August. Pay a visit to nwaonline.com/picture for present-day image gallery. (River Valley Democrat-Gazette/Hank Layton)
Nancy Martinez Tejada, president of the board at the Literacy Council of Western Arkansas, stands near the entrance Wednesday at the Literacy Council in downtown Fort Smith. Tejada, a former college student of the Literacy Council originally from El Salvador, started her tenure as president of the board in August. Go to nwaonline.com/picture for today’s picture gallery. (River Valley Democrat-Gazette/Hank Layton)
Since the pandemic, centres for excellence in instructing and discovering (CETLs) have played an at any time additional vital purpose in supporting larger education establishments to deal with calls for for additional on the internet education.
While the get the job done of CETLs differs throughout institutions, most are billed with supporting faculty skilled development by way of a array of methods and pursuits. Below are 8 techniques CETLs can use to tackle the enhanced demand for online instructing:
1. Increase obtain to school advancement
Deliver supplemental pathways to instruction and information, giving college higher flexibility by means of techniques this sort of as:
Raising access to shorter consultations with CETL personnel. At our CETL, we promoted this and saw enhanced uptake of the support.
Building a lot more shorter tutorial films in an online repository that college can obtain at any time, anywhere. Our information analytics, comments and comments, plus progress in subscriptions confirmed this had large arrive at and uptake by school.
Developing an on-line group of follow to maintain college guidance. We preferred to deliver an natural environment wherever faculty could simply share and come across examples of finest follow, so we utilised Microsoft Yammer to set up a campus-vast on the internet discussion board.
2. Supply illustrations of quality on-line training
Sharing templates and examples of helpful on the internet study course layout, material and supply is a effective way of setting up faculty abilities in on the net instruction. CETLs can supply operating examples of excellent on the net programs that can be shared through the understanding administration system (LMS). An additional selection is to invite chosen faculty to share short video clips showcasing their courses, which can be accessed via an on the web movie repository.
3. Start a college-led ability-developing celebration
We wished school to direct presentations of ideal exercise in on-line educating, so we organised an “unconference” event, which we deconstructed as The UWI College Café. College of the West Indies (UWI) faculty have been invited to share successful designs and techniques utilised in their on line classes. This sharing took position in seven-member teams at 20-moment intervals, where each and every presenter used a laptop to showcase their system with fellow faculty sitting around a table. Members swapped groups every single 20 minutes so that inside of an hour, they had all watched at minimum 3 shows. We first explored this solution on the web and have transitioned to an in-particular person event.
4. Assistance active understanding and college student engagement in on the web instruction
Recognising the challenge of university student engagement on-line, we released workshops masking competencies these as acquiring H5P interactive studying routines inside of the LMS, creating interactive tutorial video clips and educational graphics making use of Canva. Because then, we have found more use of H5P interactive routines in the LMS this kind of as displays and movies featuring several-option queries, blanks for college students to fill in, textual content pop-ups and other interactive elements.
5. Come across techniques to spouse with your IT workforce
Your campus IT company should really be a critical husband or wife in developing high-quality on-line education and learning. By working closely with IT, you will be capable to immediately deal with any obstacles to on line mastering and make advancements. We keep close interaction and check with frequently with our campus IT pertaining to new functions and updates in the LMS. Our knowledge indicated a different student expertise when applying the LMS, so we labored with our IT crew to embed a generic study course template within the LMS. This provided a fundamental framework for school to create classes and intended a much more constant on the web finding out practical experience for students. While school can modify the template, it suggests they no more time start out with a blank slate.
6. Start a A single Button Studio
A 1 Button Studio (OBS) is a simplified video recording established-up that can be employed devoid of preceding movie manufacturing knowledge. Faculty, on moving into the studio, will activate the OBS recording provider by urgent a button and this will coordinate all the parts – online video camera, computer program, lighting and sound, so faculty can concentrate on presenting the content. At the time accomplished, the faculty can then access their recording completely ready for editing on their very own gadgets ahead of embedding it into their on the internet classes. We are operating to assure our college have entry to A single Button Studio by the summertime semester of 2023.
7. Integrate resilience-pushed pedagogy in college advancement
The aid for emotional and psychological properly-staying for faculty provides an opportunity to address instructing resilience. When it has many definitions, instructing resilience is utilised right here to imply faculty’s potential to adapt and be successful inspite of adversity. It is vital that faculty improvement themes are extended to examine wider matters of properly-remaining and coping techniques wanted when meeting the increased desire for online training.
8. Advocate for high-quality on the internet education
The high quality of online education continues to be uneven. A lot of faculty extol their abilities as on the net educators having lectured applying video clip-conferencing platforms considering that the pandemic. The return to in-person instructing saw an elevated simply call by learners and school alike for ongoing elements of online training. To meet up with this desire, institutions have to ensure adherence to high-quality benchmarks for on the web education and learning through the provision of pointers and assist systems. Guidance units may include monitoring mechanisms where by on the internet classes are evaluated or audited in opposition to instruments such as this on-line training course top quality evaluation rubric developed by the Point out College of New York (SUNY).
LeRoy Hill is director of the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Understanding at St. Augustine Campus, The College of the West Indies
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Maine Education and learning Commissioner Pender Makin (remaining) and Gov. Janet Mills (suitable)
Conventional educational mastering — like reading, crafting, and math — should be a lessen precedence in Maine colleges than social-psychological finding out and programming on race and gender, Maine Department of Schooling Commissioner Pender Makin explained to lawmakers on Wednesday.
“Academic finding out is surely going to get a backseat to all of these other items,” Makin informed lawmakers on the Instruction and Cultural Affairs Committee.
Makin’s remarks came amid a legislative hearing on the federal Section of Education’s recent risk to withhold Title 1A administrative cash because of to difficulties with Maine’s pupil testing.
Close to the end of the hearing, Republican lawmakers questioned Makin about the tradeoffs that arrive when a university decides to concentrate on fairness, diversity, gender concept, and social-psychological programming.
In response, Makin expressed the see that students are physiologically incapable of finding out about math, reading, and creating unless lecturers first handle their social-psychological requires.
“I guess, I would say it definitely does arrive down to mind science,” Makin reported.
“Every little one in the area requires to come to feel secure. If one person doesn’t experience safe and sound in the space, the small children who feel fairly safe and sure about themselves come to feel much less protected,” she reported.
“Your child who is in a classroom who observes the marginalization or bullying or diminishing of a different human becoming, that produces anxiety in the uninvolved baby who is in that placing,” she reported. “It makes disorders that are averse to the high tutorial targets that we set for our pupils.”
Education Commissioner Pender Makin
Makin, a previous public university administrator, has served as Gov. Janet Mills’ Instruction Commissioner considering that 2019.
Social-emotional studying (SEL) is a controversial technique to childhood schooling that has been increasingly adopted by educational institutions across the nation.
Underneath SEL, university staff turn into dependable for training small children self-consciousness, social recognition, partnership abilities, and responsible decision-generating. That can include things like the benefit of shaking palms and building eye get hold of, conflict resolution, or listening to some others and obtaining empathy.
When implementing SEL, quite a few domains previously assumed to be the position of parents fall into the purview of educators, administrators, steering counselors, social staff, and other college staff.
“SEL Can Be Imagined Of As Wholesome Humaning,” the Maine DOE site says.
SEL is inextricably sure up in contemporary progressive theories about fairness and gender are introduced into general public educational institutions.
In Maine, education officers rely on the Maine Built-in Youth Well being Study (MIYHS) to notify their approach to SEL, and they believe that MIYHS information show bullying on the foundation of race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender is the best impediment to making absolutely sure all learners experience secure and succeed academically.
[RELATED: Maine’s High School Students Are Far More Likely Than Peers to Identify as LGBT. Why?…]
SEL is controversial for the reason that it serves as the automobile for progressive theories about gender and race, at times described as “gender ideology” and “Critical Race Theory” (CRT).
On gender, this incorporates, for instance, telling young students that there are dozens of potential gender identities they can pick out from, that gender is a social construct unrelated to biological sex. It also includes telling pupils that often physicians make a “mistake” when observing the gender of a new child youngster, as was done by way of a now-deleted Maine DOE online video.
For CRT, this involves, amid other things, teaching college students that white people today have inherent privilege, though non-white college students have inherent victimhood. CRT is also the driving pressure at the rear of the “equity audits,” which additional and far more Maine universities have employed range consultants to complete.
In Makin’s perspective, adopting this politically billed strategy to educating in general public faculties is vital in get to make all college students truly feel protected plenty of to interact their prefrontal cortexes in academic discovering. In the SEL framework, only by teaching these theoretical beliefs about gender and race can bullying be removed from the classroom.
For Sampson, the SEL strategy is counterproductive and ultimately undermines tutorial finding out.
“They’re turning lecturers into psychologist and therapists,” Sampson said. “They’re earning kids nervous about gender and race when they are emotionally immature and cannot tackle this things.”
“You explain to a baby that they have white privilege, that they can be any gender they want, and the consequence is a confused, traumatized little one who cannot study the principles,” she explained.
Rep. Sheila A. Lyman (R-Livermore Falls), a retired community university instructor, questioned no matter whether the prioritization of social-emotional mastering meant teachers would be assuming the purpose of moms and dads.
“As a practitioner, I know the time restraints,” explained Lyman. “I labored with many quite a few kids that had some large social-emotional requirements.”
“So I have an abundance of thoughts and possibly problems when I hear you say that this might be the priority,” stated Lyman.
“There’s a large amount of worried folks appropriate now, with dealing with the tutorial piece, the social-psychological piece, what is likely to be the precedence, where by do mothers and fathers get to weigh in, and how is it heard and listened to,” she claimed.
In reaction, Makin clarified her remarks about “academic learning” taking a “backseat” and provided lawmakers with a lesson in mind chemistry.
“I’m not stating we acquire in excess of the parenting. I’m declaring the mind will prioritize for us, and the studying will not happen until these other parts are in position, and we know that,” stated Makin.
“When I said the priority: Our complete goal, as a university technique, a general public let us say Pre-K by means of 12 faculty schooling process, is to get young children academically and you know all set in all people different techniques to enter the entire world and to be prosperous for their next step,” stated Makin.
“The priorities, what I was trying to explain is, in the brain. The brain prioritizes for us. The brain will not discover the math or the looking through or any of the other content locations when in dysregulated, coursing with cortisol and norepinephrine, it will — like the very little editor in their head is going to get pushed out of its seat, and the dysregulation can take around,” she reported.
“Learning will not materialize for the kids until they are regulated,” she claimed. “So that is the prioritization for us.”
Lawmakers also requested thoughts about the slipping Maine scholar examination scores — a measure of the quality of Maine’s faculties.
Makin at to start with appeared to deny that Maine’s test scores have slipped in current yrs.
“Why are we continuing to see this decline? Do you have any explanations for it?” questioned Rep. Heidi Sampson (R-Alfred).
“I do not know that we in Maine are looking at a specific drop,” said Makin.
Final October, the release of the Countrywide Evaluation of Education Progress (NAEP), sometimes called the Nation’s Report Card, showed sharp decreases in math and reading from 2019 to 2022, which includes looking through scores at the lowest degree in three a long time.
[RELATED: Secret audio reveals Maine teacher ranting about politics, mocking Trump-supporting parents]
Makin explained missing a yr and a fifty percent of school all through the governing administration lockdowns, homelessness, material use issues, and typically heightened concentrations of nervousness have all contributed to the difficulties Maine’s learners and universities are confronting.
“What we are viewing is a big boost in psychological wellbeing,” she claimed. “We have a crisis of disengagement.”
Rep. Barbara Bagshaw (R-Windham) afterwards pressed Makin on her declare that university student examination scores have not fallen in modern yrs.
“You really don’t think our take a look at scores are slipping?” requested Bagshaw.
“It is dependent which examination scores,” stated Makin.
She said Maine has seen decreased test scores on the NAEP than in past years, but she questioned regardless of whether higher exam scores really should truly be the goal anyhow.
[LISTEN BELOW: Maine Wire EIC Steve Robinson joined WVOM’s Ric Tyler this morning to talk about Education Commissioner Pender Makin’s remarks…]
“At the close of the working day, do we worth higher test scores over all else? And if we do, there is a confirmed way that I could get our check scores shifting forward. What we do is we teach to the examination,” she stated, introducing that accomplishing so could appear at the price of scholar creativity.
In reaction to the federal Section of Education’s threat to withhold income from MDOE more than alterations to scholar assessments, Makin certain the committee that her company experienced responded properly and that the $117,000 in administrative funding underneath Title 1A funding was not at chance.
Makin’s watch that conventional tutorial instruction have to take a backseat to progressive ideas about social-emotional understanding, race, and gender is diametrically opposed to what most Maine residents want from their general public educational institutions.
In a Maine Wire / Co/Efficient poll, bipartisan majorities reported they needed Maine’s public schools to get away from DEI and gender-centered programing and focus more on the essentials, like studying, math, composing, and science.
[RELATED: MAINE WIRE POLL: Most Maine Voters Say Schools Should Get “Back to Basics,” Ditch DEI and Gender Programming…]
77 per cent of Maine voters reported colleges should really be centered on the basic principles instead than paying out time on how gender, sexuality, and race influence the life of each day Americans, together with 91 percent of Republicans and 62 percent of Democrats in the poll.
Sampson, who has previously served on the Maine Condition Board of Training, claimed in a cellphone interview that providing classic educational instruction a backseat in Maine schools would a recipe for catastrophe.
“Children are unable to understand in this variety of surroundings,” she said. “That’s why check scores are down.”
“Commissioner Makin uncovered her priorities, and they are not the priorities Maine moms and dads wishes.”
Kimberly Miller, a record teacher at Starr King TK-8, helps seventh-grader Marjan Amini with an assignment Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023.
Hector Amezcua
hamezcua@sacbee.com
School districts across California are still struggling with teacher and staffing shortages even as retirements and concerns about the pandemic have waned.
About 20,000 teaching positions are still vacant across California – 2,300 of which are across Sacramento County’s 13 school districts.
But hiring new employees is not the only goal, said Dave Gordon, Sacramento Superintendent of Schools. SCOE is committed to fostering diversity on campuses and encouraging teens and young adults to pursue a career in education at the start of their college journey in hopes to retain strong, qualified candidates.
“One of our goals to better serve our young people is to hire more people who look like our young people and those they serve,” said Gordon. “That’s been difficult to achieve.”
About 80{af0afab2a7197b4b77fcd3bf971aba285b2cb7aa14e17a071e3a1bf5ccadd6db} of U.S. public school teachers are white, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics. In California, about 23{af0afab2a7197b4b77fcd3bf971aba285b2cb7aa14e17a071e3a1bf5ccadd6db} of the student population is white, while 63{af0afab2a7197b4b77fcd3bf971aba285b2cb7aa14e17a071e3a1bf5ccadd6db} of teachers are white. Nearly three-quarters of the California teacher workforce is female, according to the California Department of Education.
“Greater diversity of teachers may mitigate feelings of isolation, frustration, and fatigue that can contribute to individual teachers of color leaving the profession when they feel they are alone,” the CDE states on its website.
A job fair could help
The Sacramento County Office of Education hopes to fill those jobs through an employment fair on Saturday, March 18.
More than 60 school districts from Sacramento to the Bay Area will participate, including Natomas Unified, Sacramento City Unified, Elk Grove Unified, Twin Rivers Unified and Folsom Cordova Unified. About 45 school districts will be on-site. Registration is free.
School districts across Northern California are looking to hire more teachers, language, speech and hearing therapists, mental health clinicians, and para-educators. Office staff and food service members are also in need.
SCOE is also looking to hire 300 mental health clinicians over the next few years.
Folsom Cordova Unified officials are focusing on hiring Spanish and 17 special education teachers. They have 61 teacher openings for the 2023-24 school year. The district is also looking for 20 additional bus drivers, 83 learning assistants, and 35 year duty supervisors.
Shortages have been around for a long time
Teacher shortages are not new.
Teacher prep programs have seen dwindling numbers in recent years, according to The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. They predate the coronavirus pandemic, but they have been exacerbated in recent years with concerns over health, safety and the state’s high cost of living.
Education experts say exams that education systems use as barriers to entry to the profession disproportionately impact aspiring teachers of color. Gordon doesn’t think education officials have confronted these barriers squarely enough.
“Many of our young people are from underserved communities, and they don’t have the support from their families,” he said. “They need paid work along the way to get through the stages of community college, then a four-year college, and a very long and expensive licensure.
School districts across the region significantly raised substitute teacher wages in recent months, placing a bandage on a crisis not going away any time soon.
“Retirements and resignations are slowing down, but I don’t think they have disappeared entirely,”Gordon said.
But shortages have continued to stress families out this school year. In August, Elk Grove Unified made changes to its special education program due to staffing shortages, separating dozens of specialists from students who trusted them.
Gordon said one of the challenges is creating a pipeline from high school to employment in many of these careers in education. Getting students into mentorships and internships early on their careers is key, Gordon said.
“This is more than an employment fair,” Gordon said of the event. SCOE is working to assist students with support and training.
“We really believe one of the weak spots in our system in finding young people is trying to help them financially,” Gordon said, adding that many students need assistance with early steps like registering for community college and accessing mental health clinicians.
The employment fair will take place at SCOE’s office at 10474 Mather Blvd in Mather, CA on Saturday, March 18 from 9:00 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Linked tales from Sacramento Bee
Sawsan Morrar covers faculty accountability and society for The Sacramento Bee. She grew up in Sacramento and is an alumna of UC Berkeley Graduate University of Journalism. She beforehand freelanced for different publications like The Washington Put up, Vice, KQED and Funds General public Radio.
Columbus State University’s College of Education and Health Professions has added
five new inductees to the college’s Hall of Fame during a ceremony on March 2.
2022 Education Inductees
Christine Hull ’05, ’12 of Columbus is a two-time Columbus State alumna and Muscogee County School District’s
executive director of pre-K-12 curriculum and instruction. During her two decades
with MCSD, she has served in a variety of teaching and administrative roles, including
assistant principal, principal and director of advanced learning and teaching programs.
After earning a bachelor’s in secondary English education from Georgia Southern University,
she enrolled in CSU and completed a master’s in secondary English education in 2005
and an educational specialist in educational leadership in 2012. She was a top-10
finalist for Georgia’s Teacher of the Year in 2011 and MCSD’s Teacher of the Year
in 2009.
Dr. Susan Elder ’11, ’12, ’17 of Columbus holds three degrees from Columbus State and, since 2009, has served as
a special education teacher in the Muscogee County School District. She transitioned
from a 13-year journalism career in 2003 to the teaching profession, serving as a
paraprofessional in two school systems before her current roles, which include teaching
part-time in the College of Education & Health Professions. She earned a bachelor’s
in journalism from the University of Tennessee before attending CSU, where she completed
a master’s in special education, an educational specialist in special education and
a doctorate in curriculum and teaching with a leadership add-on. She is a recipient
of CSU’s Excellence in Teaching Award and was among MCSD’s top 10 Teachers of the
Year in 2018.
Dr. Jacqueline Flakes ’94, ’96 of Midland, Georgia, is a two-time Columbus College alumna and principal of Key Elementary
School in Columbus, where she has served since 2015. She began her 27-year education
career as one of the first employees of CSU’s Coca-Cola Space Science Center, where
she was the coordinator of educational services. While serving at CCSSC, she spent
two summers training at Harvard University’s Center for Astrophysics. Since 2003,
she served several different school districts in a variety of teaching, administrative
and principal roles. After earning a bachelor’s and master’s in middle grades education
in 1994 and 1996, respectively, she earned a doctorate in educational leadership from
Valdosta State University.
2022 Health Professions Inductees
Lt. Col. Brandy Clayton, RN, Ph.D. ’06 of Puyallup, Washington, has devoted her 23-year nursing career to serving soldiers
and their families in the U.S. Army. As her education broadened, so did her contributions
to educating future nurses and strengthening the future nursing workforce. In addition
to her bachelor of science in nursing degree she earned from Columbus State in 2006,
she completed a master of nursing degree in nursing education from Grantham University.
She is scheduled to receive her doctorate in nursing education from Liberty University
in May 2023.
Dr. Dell Miller, DNP, RN, FNP, EMTP, CEN ’75, ’91 of Opelika, Alabama, is a two-time Columbus College alumna and RN staff nurse with
the Alabama Department of Public Health. Her 48-year medical career includes a variety
of emergency medicine, teaching, clinical and administrative hospital-based roles.
For eight years, she served on the CSU School of Nursing faculty and as the school’s
assistant director of the undergraduate nursing program. In addition to her associate
degree in nursing (1971) and bachelor of science in nursing (1991) from Columbus State,
she holds a master’s of science in nursing from Troy University, and a family nurse
practitioner, an MSN in acute care nurse practitioner and a doctorate in nursing—all
from the University of South Alabama.
To date, more than 55 education, nursing and other health professions graduates of
Columbus State University have been inducted into the college’s Hall of Fame. The
Hall of Fame was established in 2005 to honor Columbus State’s education graduates;
it expanded in 2018 to include health professions graduates with the merger of education,
nursing, kinesiology and related disciplines into the College of Education & Health
Professions hold a degree or certification endorsement from CSU; have been active
in their chosen field for a minimum of 15 years; and have made extraordinary contributions
to their chosen profession as demonstrated by their nomination packet. Awards can
be bestowed on honorees posthumously.
The nomination process is an open one and remains open throughout the year. Nominations
can be submitted online through the CSU Alumni Association. Nominations are reviewed by a committee of current
and former college faculty and community leaders.
Media contact: Michael Tullier, APR, Executive Director of Strategic Communication + Marketing, 706.507.8729,
mtullier@columbusstate.edu
PREVIOUS HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES
Dr. Susan Andrews, 2007 (Education)
Matt Bell, 2017 (Education)
Jeff Branham, 2015 (Education)
Jessica Burnett, 2019 (Education)
Stacey M. Carlisle, 2021 (Education)
Pamela Carter, 2013 (Education)
Kim Cason, 2013 (Education)
Rebecca Claiborne, 2011 (Education)
Ronie Collins, 2010 (Education)
Dr. Dorothy Lee Coverson, 2020 (Health Professions)
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/gray/LPBV5CDJBVAEZHLI4UAFRNYG6I.png "Virginians weigh in on proposed history and social sciences standards of learning")
Christine Hull ’05, ’12 of Columbus is a two-time Columbus State alumna and Muscogee County School District’s
Dr. Jacqueline Flakes ’94, ’96 of Midland, Georgia, is a two-time Columbus College alumna and principal of Key Elementary
Dr. Dell Miller, DNP, RN, FNP, EMTP, CEN ’75, ’91 of Opelika, Alabama, is a two-time Columbus College alumna and RN staff nurse with