Driving Instructional Excellence: A Conversation with Erica Winston, Director of Teacher Development
Erica Winston is an accomplished education professional with over a decade of experience transforming teaching and leadership in charter schools across New Orleans. A Harvard Graduate School of Education alumna, Winston has consistently driven significant improvements in teacher effectiveness and student performance through innovative coaching strategies and professional development programs. Her career spans roles from classroom teacher and head of schools to coach and content lead with a proven track record of supporting educators and achieving measurable academic growth. As the new Director of Teacher Development (DTD), Winston shared with us a few thoughts on this new role and the impact on our school communities.Ìý
Tell me about your new role and the impact it will have on our teachers/staff.Ìý
The Director of Teacher Development (DTD) role is a reprised role from earlier years at FLS that aims to impact student achievement through developing network leaders, school leaders, and teachers in creating and executing a clear vision of instructional excellence in all FLS classrooms. The goal is to provide support to the FLS community so that the path to delivering the vision is clear and students are successful because they are taught by our highly impactful teachers.
What are you most excited about in this new role?Ìý
I am most excited to work alongside content and school-based leaders to align network and school-based coaching and development practices.Ìý I have learned so much from content leaders, school directors, leaders, and teachers, and I can’t wait to collaborate on teaching and coaching best practices while supporting them to further develop their skillfulness with helping teachers deliver the FLS vision of instructional excellence.Ìý
What is your goal over the next few months in this new role?Ìý
Over the next few months, my goal is to continue to develop, refine, and operationalize the FLS vision of coaching and teaching excellence while working to meet my Wildly Important Goal of a 10%+ increase in proficiency on SY24 state assessments by coaching school and network leaders in strengthening their coaching skills to impact student achievement in their teachers’ classrooms.Ìý