Her Story
About Christina
I'm an assistant principal for elementary education, currently in my second year in this leadership role. I started in education in 2020 and have been at the same campus for all six years of my career. My first four years were spent teaching, and then I moved into the role of assistant principal in my fifth year. My main area of expertise is centered around instructional practices, specifically the best practices that we can apply for student learning, and creating a strong intervention system when that learning hasn't been fully mastered. I work with teachers and coach them through how we can set up a strong intervention system so that we can close these gaps. Daily, I go into classrooms and do observations, looking for the glows and naming those for teachers, but also identifying things that can be quickly fixed through on-the-spot coaching. I also look for next steps that need more time and attention. When teachers have their planning periods, I'll meet with them for an hour, and we'll go through the lessons together. They'll identify their areas of strength and next steps, and I'll name the ones I found, which helps us see if we're on the same page. We also talk about intervention and whether it affected overall mastery, and what we need to quickly fix for the next days to make sure we're consistently closing the gaps. I also make it a point to look at student work during observations. My most notable professional achievement would be the systems I have created and implemented to support foundational learning. When it comes to foundational learning, that's the basics like understanding the alphabet, phonemic awareness, phonetic awareness, and if students don't have that basic understanding, then all other learning is going to be a struggle. I've worked with teachers to identify what is the starting point we need to make sure that we hit to make sure that these foundational skills in reading are being built upon, working with each grade level because each has different needs.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Christina
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success first and foremost to my mom. My mom was, for a better part of my life, a single mom. She raised myself and also my younger sister all by herself, with the help of my grandmother, but ultimately by herself. She didn't let being a single mom be an obstacle or be an obstacle for us to not be able to get the same opportunities as everybody else. I would definitely say my teachers growing up. I had teachers who were just amazing. I had teachers who saw me failing in subjects, like 8th grade math, and they didn't give up on me, even when I had already, at that point, given up on myself. I was already telling myself in 8th grade I wasn't going to college because I wasn't good at anything. I remember specifically my 8th grade math teacher. She kept me in an extended math block and just worked with me every day, and by the time I knew it, I was passing 8th grade math, and by the time I got to 9th grade, I was in the top 10 of my class, which was not a goal that I had ever had for myself and was not something I thought was ever gonna happen.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I ever received was from one of my uncles at my high school graduation party. He was asking me what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and at that point, I didn't know. I was fresh out of high school, I had no idea. He asked if I knew what he did for work, and I said I wasn't sure. He said, I have never worked a day in my life. I enjoy what I do. I don't consider it anything that I'm actually working. With that, he led into, that is something that you need to think about when you're thinking about the rest of your life. Like, don't ever consider it as you have to go to work. No, you get to go to work. When I was thinking about my career path, that was something that has been burned in my mind ever since that day, and I've just carried it along with me. I just feel like I'm at that point where it's not work. It's not something that I have to do, it's something I get to do. It just makes me really happy, and that's just something that I really would like for people to know.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
My advice to young women in my industry is always going to be, even if your voice shakes, advocate for whatever it is that you're advocating for. I say that because I think about myself in a room with other principals or other APs who have been in the role longer, and I want to voice something. My voice always shakes. It's not because I'm scared, it's just a natural thing for me. My voice just gets really shaky, and so it's just always burned in my brain. Even if your voice shakes, say what you need to say, especially if you're advocating for kids, for yourself, for your teachers. So yeah, even if your voice shakes, say it.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenges I would think are centered around just making sure that we have resources for everybody. I think about when our teachers have X amount of kids and they're short 5, it's always like, oh, well, I'm gonna go out and buy it for them, and I tell them, please, please don't. Let me try to problem solve, and while we do end up finding what the teachers need for their kids, I just wish that the challenge wasn't there initially. I would definitely say just the amount of resources.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Some important values that I hold are definitely centered around honesty. I'm really big on honesty, and it can be applied to all situations. I would definitely say authenticity. I like when I can be myself in certain situations, whether it's problem solving or anything like that, but then I also really push for teachers, like, just bring your authentic self, like, that's all I ask for, and I know that things will move smoothly, or days will go by smoothly, so long as we're always bringing our authentic selves, because that's also what our kids deserve. But then also compassion. I am really, really big on compassion. Being an assistant principal also means being a manager, and something that I've always said is, it's people first. I'm never gonna put my needs in front of them. If they bring a situation to me and they need something, they need a quick need right then and there, my response is always going to be, do what you need to do. I will support you.
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