Elevate Teaching: 2024 Impact
Dr. Rose Chu reflects on this past year
Greetings Elevate Teaching Champions!
I hope your new year is off to a great start. On behalf of the Elevate Teaching Team, I would like to take a moment to express our sincere gratitude for each of you and reflect on the incredible work we've accomplished together in 2024 for the Elevate Teaching movement.
2024 brought significant progress as we launched Phase 2 of Elevate Teaching, celebrating the award of the Teacher Marketing and Outreach Campaign grants from the MN Professional Educator License and Standards Board (PELSB). Below are some highlights of each of our focus areas:
Marketing: We engaged in robust discussions about our marketing strategy with your feedback directly shaping its direction. An impactful marketing campaign featuring out-of-home ads launches in early February! A shoutout to Neka Creative for their expertise in marketing, and to Us Creative for their expertise in developing the landing pages connected to the campaign.
Outreach: To expand access and outreach of the movement, we made the physical champion toolkit of six messages digitally available online. We shared Elevate Teaching in the community through presentations, workshops, meetups, and various learning opportunities such as conferences. We continue to deepen our youth engagement efforts and successfully piloted the Youth As Champions program. A design team of diverse educators was launched to co-create resources to support Community Action Champions to elevate teaching in their local context.
Bridging: Many of you illuminated what is needed to ensure those inspired to explore teaching are on a path to becoming a teacher. A high-level roadmap of the process was subsequently developed. Recently, we began a partnership with PELSB, the MN Department of Education (MDE) and TEACH.org to implement bridging strategies and support for those ready to become a teacher. The U.S. Department of Education formed TEACH.org to work with local education agencies of different states in the bridging space. This marks a crucial step towards Elevate Teaching’s sustainability beyond June 2025 when the Phase 2 funding concludes. Stay tuned!
It's been inspiring to witness our collective dedication to elevating the teaching profession in Minnesota and beyond. You showed up at our quarterly convenings and connected with other champions like yourself, generously sharing your insights and feedback. Elevate Teaching has been in the community with many of you through our outreach activities. You eagerly share with us the many ways you are (or can be) leveraging resources of Elevate Teaching to support your efforts locally. Your contribution is invaluable to the momentum of this movement to shift how we talk about, view and relate to the profession. YOU are the movement. Thank you.
Looking ahead in 2025, I'm filled with hope and optimism for what we can achieve together amidst challenging and uncertain times. Let's continue to champion the cause of elevating the teaching profession, not only to attract dedicated and diverse educators to our schools, but also to support them to grow and thrive in service of our students and families. YOU are our greatest strength as part of a growing Action Network to Elevate Teaching (ANET). Your passion, expertise, and generosity inspire us every day. Together we are closer to realizing the vision of teaching as a respectable and honored profession in our society.
I look forward to fostering even stronger connections and advancing the movement with you. I wish you all a happy, healthy, and productive 2025!
At your service, with love and gratitude,
Rose
On behalf of The Elevate Teaching Team (Alex, Anna, Jazz, Scott, Shehla, Sophie and Zara)