Kenan Fellows Program for Teacher Leadership (KFP)

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2024-25 Cohort

In May of 2024, KFP announced its latest cohort of 37 Fellows. These 37 Fellows hail from 24 North Carolina counties; five of the counties are new to KFP: Dare, Northampton, Pamlico, Swain, and Yancey. Nineteen members of the new cohort teach in low-income (Title 1) schools. Half of this cohort is from rural communities and the majority teach in high school or middle school; three teach at the elementary level, and two work in their district’s central office. This new cohort of Fellows began their KFP experience on May 15th, 2024. To date, they have completed eighty hours of professional development and their 120-hour industry immersion experiences. The culminating celebration for this cohort will take place April 25th, 2025 at the Park Alumni Center in Raleigh, NC.

The 2024-2025 Fellowships were made possible through the generous support of KFP’s corporate, education, government, and foundation partners including: The BelleJAR Foundation, Biogen Foundation, Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Duke Energy, Duke University Marine Lab, Dogwood Health Trust, Goodnight Educational Foundation, Kenan Institute for Engineering, Technology & Science, N.C. Department of Environmental Quality, N.C. Department of Public Instruction, North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives and Four County EMC, North Carolina Farm Bureau and Sampson County Farm Bureau, NC State Genetics and Genomics Academy, NC State EE Lab, Nutrien, Meta, and NSF grants to Dr. Toshi Hige and Dr. Amy Maddox of UNC-Chapel Hill.

A complete list of the universities, industries, and foundations that provide support for KFP through funding and/or hosting/mentoring Fellows can be found at https://kenanfellows.org/partners/ and  https://kenanfellows.org/fellows/2023-24/

2023-2024 Cohort End-of-Fellowship Impact Summary

In April of 2024 the 2023-2024 Kenan Fellows were provided the opportunity to report data on the impacts that they are having on the larger North Carolina education community. As of April 23, 2024, thirty-five of the thirty-eight Fellows had responded to the survey. Impact highlights from this cohort follow:

  • 8,695 students served
  • 27 of the 38 educators provided 262 hours of professional development to 1,650 other educators
  • 18 of the 38 educators gave presentations to 1,259 non-educator education stakeholders
  • 12 teachers had given 20 regional, state, and national conference presentations to 1,461 people
  • 15 of the educators had been awarded grants totaling $158,935
  • 19 of the educators had received accolades in addition to the Kenan Fellowships, including 8 Teacher of the Year awards

Educators from the 2023-2024 cohort, as well as KFP alumni, were featured in the following news articles:

STEMwork Professional Learning Institutes

The original intent of the STEMwork program was to activate the 600+ KFP alumni by engaging them as facilitators for small teams of local teachers in their county or school district and to develop a program offering that could yield revenue to support KFP’s program operations. The yearlong course originally consisted of visits to local businesses and industries and eight online asynchronous modules that guided teachers through the process of developing Project Based Learning (PBL) units that they implemented in their classrooms.

The PBL units were to link classroom instruction to the local businesses that the teachers visited at the beginning of the course. Initial uptake of the program was strong in 2021-2022 and 2022-2023. The large number of teams during these initial phases were supported by significant grant funding from the Dogwood Health Trust and the BelleJar Foundation. During these first two years, KFP experienced strong teacher engagement during the summer site visits followed by significant program attrition during the portion of the program that involved teachers working through asynchronous online modules during the school year.

Mountains to Sea

The Mountains to Sea program (MTS) leverages KFP’s statewide network of partnerships and alumni to create a semester-long experience for teachers that focuses on giving educators from a specific region of North Carolina a statewide perspective on a single topic. Thanks to funding from the NC SMT center, in the fall of 2024 twenty educators from Eastern NC – half of them KFP alumni – and two preservice teachers from the NCSU College of Education participated in a combination of virtual and in-person visits, to learn about local impacts of and statewide variations in the effects of climate change and the attendant resiliency of local communities. End-of-program surveys demonstrate that MTS is a valuable vehicle for alumni re-engagement, is a robust and inspiring experience for teachers, and is a strong recruiting tool for KFP’s Fellowship program. KFP intends to maintain MTS as an annual program for the foreseeable future and may seek to increase the number of MTS scholars cohorts served each year. 

Notable Kenan Fellows Alumni Accomplishments in FY 2023-24

Awards

  • Susan Miller-Hendrix was recognized as “Outstanding Instructional Leader” by the N.C. Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education Center (SMT Center).
  • Carrie Jones, Ph.D., NBCT is a recipient of the 2024 AACT Teacher of the Year Award and the 4Cs Grant. 
  • April Clinard was spotlighted as a Rock Star Teacher Nominee by the N.C. Association for Public Charter Schools.
  • Ian Roper was named NC Boys and Girls Coach of the Year by the US Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.
  • Dorothy Holley was selected for an Einstein Fellowship and received the NC Science Teachers Association District Three High School Outstanding Science Teaching Award.
  • Leslie Rhinehart of Polk County Middle School is a recipient of the 2023 North Carolina Science, Mathematics and Technology Education Center (SMT Center) Career Award for Science and Mathematics Teachers.
  • Lindsay Stalls, Alexandra Boyd, Tiffanni Craig, and Annie McEntyre have been selected as NC Space Education Ambassadors.
  • Keith Burgess was recognized by the Association of Middle Level Education for creating a classroom culture that introduces middle school students to STEM careers.
  • Rachel Polmanteer, director of resource development at the Center for Inquiry Based Learning, received the 2023 North Carolina Science, Mathematics and Technology Education Center (SMT Center) Outstanding K-8 Educator Award.
  • Tomika Altman-Lewis was recognized for her outstanding contributions to education by Gov. Roy Cooper during Black History Month.
  • Holly Kolorova was selected as a 2024 Blue Ridge Institute Educator of Excellence.
  • Paola De Avila received an ELD award from the NC Department of Education for excellence in English as a Second Language instruction.
  • Nancy Cattrell is a recipient of the NC Science Teachers Association High School Distinguished Service Award.
  • Robin Bulleri is the first recipient of the Margaret Kepner Distinguished Service Award.

Grants

  • Shavon Via received $25,000 in grants to support her Fellowship project to construct a solar powered greenhouse on her school grounds.
  • Jean Sciacca received a $15,000 grant from Goodwill Industries of Eastern NC for her school, Durham Performance Learning Center.
  • Kimberly Mawhiney director of STEM and Grants at Northeast Academy for Aerospace and Advanced Technologies served as a lead grant writer on a $500,000 Golden Leaf Grant for a career center project for the school.
  • Susan Miller-Hendrix served as the lead on a $180,000 Student STEM Enrichment Program grant awarded by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund to the Public Schools of Robeson County.
  • Edwin Davis received a grant for $12,500 to support genetics instruction in his classroom
  • Holly Kolarova is a recipient of a North Carolina Farm Bureau Ag in the Classroom grant, the Henderson County Education Foundation Supporting Teachers mini-grant, and a grant from the Home Depot foundation.

Media Recognition

  • Alicia Moss and one of her students were interviewed by Queen City News about their school’s robotics program.
  • Dorothy Holley was featured in the American Association of Chemistry Teachers member spotlight on their website.
  • John McGuire was featured on ABC News13’s Thanks to Teachers on-air segment.

Publications

  • Amanda Clapp wrote a chapter for the book “On Teaching Evolution”. 
  • Emily Lahr published three academic articles.
  • Kim Collazo has published a children’s book that integrates STEM and literacy, “Emersyn Blake and the Spotted Salamander”. 

Teacher of the Year

  • Anita Rubino-Thomas has been selected as a 2023-24 Teacher of the Year finalist for Northeastern NC.
  • Beth Campbell was named 2023-24 Teacher of the Year at Phillips High School in Wake County.
  • Eric Eaton was named Teacher of the Year for Polk County Middle School.
  • Joy Mason was named 2023-2024 Teacher of the Year for George Watts Montessori Elementary School.
  • Whitney Masterson was named the 2023-24 Teacher of the Year for Mills Park Middle School in Wake County and is a semi-finalist for WCPSS TOY Northwest Region.

Other Outstanding Achievements

  • Beverly Owens was named as a Lead Science Communication Fellow on the Titanic discoverer research ship and will conduct live ship-to-shore interactions with classrooms from the Pacific Ocean.
  • Christine Sudzina Schut’s 7th-grade AVID students presented their research from the “Plant the Moon Challenge” (PTMC) at the Kennedy Space Center. 
  • Ursela Garvin served as commissioner for the North Vegas Educational Advisory Council.
  • LaTanya Pattillo was selected to serve as the chair of the Board of Directors of the Public School Forum of North Carolina.
  • Nichole Efird earned her certification as an Indigenous National Board Certified Teacher. 
  • Claudja Dwight was selected to serve on the Superintendent’s Teacher Advisory Committee for Guilford County Schools.