Chelnor Griffin

First of all, I'm a woman of faith, so I know that anything that happens in my life has been a blessing of God, so I always put God first and consult Him on anything and everything that I want to do. I'm a very resilient person, I'm very goal-oriented, and I'm a very precise person. When I have a goal, I'm going to accomplish it. I'm not going to let anything stand in my way. I'm going to find the people that I want to connect with who are doing the work that I want to do. If it's something I want to learn, I'm going to research it or find somebody who knows it, and I'm going to sit with them and collaborate. I'm going to find a way to be successful at whatever it is I set my mind to. My resilience, my perseverance, and my faith, and believing in myself that whatever I set out to do, I can do it - that's been my mantra. I have a growth mindset. I don't see things as impossible. I just see things as, oh, I just gotta find a way how to figure it out. I'm also a lifelong learner - I never stop learning. I'm constantly going to conferences, webinars, and professional development on my own, just to continue to learn as much as I can about coaching and about being a coach who coaches literacy.

The biggest challenge right now is figuring out a plan that's going to be workable for every educator, for every school, for every classroom, for every child. It is a heavy lift, it is a heavy task, but it's something that we have to do. Because as an educator, I know that if a child cannot read proficiently, and if a child is not literate, it just so drastically affects their life and their outcome. So the task is bigger than us because of what we need to do. The challenge is how are we going to put everything in place that we need, top-down, as far as resources, human resources, and materials, to be able to move this huge needle that we're trying to move - getting every single child in Georgia reading on grade level by the time they leave third grade. That's a monumental task with all these other challenges built in, and accomplishing that is going to take hard work. As far as opportunity, I see this as a way for us to champion ourselves for other states to also see the work that we're doing. We looked at Alabama, Mississippi, and other neighboring states to see how they moved their reading needle, and we collaborated with them. I see myself as a potential person who can help move the needle by coaching. What our state is really pushing when we go back in the fall is focusing and zoning in on coaching the school-based coach, so that we can make an impact with them, and then they can make an impact with all their teachers, which will then make an impact with the students.