NCTE Professional Dyads and Culturally Relevant Teaching (PDCRT)
The PDCRT program, initiated by the Affirmative Action Committee of the Early Childhood Education Assembly (ECEA) of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) was developed to create a space within NCTE to support early childhood Educators of Color and educators who teach Children of Color, children who are emerging bi/multilinguals, and children from low-income households in studying about culturally relevant pedagogies and generating, implementing, documenting, evaluating, assessing, and disseminating classroom practices and process reflections from work done in preK to fifth-grade classrooms.
Meet the 2023–2025 Dyads
Luis Bernard is a teacher in a special education program for students from primarily Spanish-speaking homes. He was born and raised in Mexico but attended college in the United States. His formal education is in the fields of special education, bilingual education, and early childhood education. His teaching practice and philosophy include collaborating with the interdisciplinary team that serves the students in his program. His focus is teaching neurodivergent Latinx students who use a multimodal form of communication.
Lilly Padia is an assistant professor of teacher education at Erikson Institute in Chicago and a former public school teacher in the Bronx. Her research looks at the intersections of language learning and disability. Specifically, she focuses on children who are multilingual and do not speak to communicate and their expansive forms of communication. She centers families’ communication practices and systems to highlight what school professionals can learn from children and families to co-learn toward liberation.
Cristina Celaya is currently a dual language teacher at Biltmore Preparatory Academy in the Creighton School District in Phoenix, Arizona. She received her master’s in education from NAU in early childhood education with a reading endorsement; prior to that she graduated from ASU with her BA in elementary education. Cristina has taught for twenty years total in other various Arizona public schools as well as in a private school focused on language immersion. Cristina’s experience involves teaching overseas in international schools in the Philippines and Brazil. She is passionate about learning from different cultures and life experiences, and she travels to grow in that richness of exposure.
Alexandria Estrella Bridges is a clinical associate professor in teacher preparation and directly works with and coordinates the Elementary Multilingual Education (EME) program at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. Her research interests involve literacy development, educational policy, and classroom practices that impact the experiences of culturally and linguistically diverse students. Dr. Estrella Bridges is also passionate about centering culturally relevant and sustaining practices in P–12 classrooms while also supporting efforts to prepare more Black and Brown educators for these classrooms. She is formally a middle school language arts teacher and has now served as a teacher educator for over ten years.
Laquita Ngando Duvall—MEd, Reading Endorsed Teacher, ESOL Endorsed Teacher, and Personalized Learning Endorsed Teacher. Laquita is an educator for the Dekalb County School District. This makes her fourth year teaching fifth grade. Her interest in education is rooted as far back as high school, when she enjoyed tutoring younger students. Educational degrees include a bachelor’s and master’s degree in elementary education from Kennesaw State University. Laquita is a team player on her school’s ELA leadership team. Her professional passion is working with students and stakeholders to build authentic literacy skills.
Dr. Virginie Jackson is an assistant professor of literacy education and a program coordinator in the Department of Elementary and Early Childhood Education in the Bagwell College of Education (BCOE) at Kennesaw State University. Dr. Jackson’s research focuses on culturally responsive literacy practices and critical literacy development of young learners through digital literacy. Her work centers on the preparation of preservice teachers to teach culturally and linguistically diverse students in engaging, multimodal, and multifaceted ways.
Kyanna Samuel is in her fourth year of teaching kindergarten. As an undergraduate student, she received numerous awards and recognitions, including the Martin Luther King Jr. Award for Social Justice. She believes all students are capable of success, and she works daily to ensure that all students receive not only the tools needed for success but also the skills of knowing how to use those tools wisely.
Jennipher Frazier has been in education for twenty years and is in her tenth year as an elementary literacy coach. She is a wife, mother, and educator who understands the importance of having a strong foundation in literacy and instructional environments that support and provide culturally relevant instruction throughout the day. Therefore, she strives to give all children opportunities to experience and develop cultural awareness and critical consciousness while being academically successful.
Born and raised in Jamaica, Kadesha Scharschmidt is an English language arts teacher who teaches reading and writing to fifth-grade students at Hodge Elementary School in Savannah, Georgia. Kadesha believes that a good teacher cannot begin or continue to inspire learning without being a learner. Kadesha is also the grades 3–5 teacher leader for ELA and was a part of her district’s curriculum collaborative team which oversaw the writing of fifth-grade learning plans for the 2023–2024 school year. She holds two master’s degrees in reading and literacy and educational leadership and a bachelor of arts degree in guidance counseling.
Jarvais Jackson is an assistant professor of elementary education and culturally responsive pedagogy in the Department of Elementary and Special Education at Georgia Southern University. Jackson earned his PhD in teaching and learning from the University of South Carolina. His career experiences include teaching in elementary and middle school classrooms and, most recently, serving as director for the Center for the Education and Equity of African American Students in Columbia, SC. Dr. Jackson’s research highlights Black people’s learning experiences seeking an equitable learning experience for Black students. His research and scholarship extend internationally; he has participated in Fulbright-Hays Group Abroad Studies in Ghana, Nigeria, and Barbados. Through his research and service, Dr. Jackson seeks to bridge the gap between research and practice.
Alexa Weeks, Smithland Elementary, Harrisonburg City Public Schools, Harrisonburg, VA
Chris Hass is an assistant professor in early childhood, elementary, and reading education at James Madison University. His major research interests include culturally relevant teaching, social justice education, and student activism. He currently serves as an editor for the Civic Literacy column in Language Arts and has published one book, Social Justice Talk: Strategies for Teaching Critical Awareness. Prior to moving to higher education, he spent twenty years teaching in elementary and early childhood classrooms.
Meet the 2023–2025 Co-Directors
“Teaching is a craft.
Teaching is a joy.
Teaching is a calling.
Teaching is a profession that impacts lives.
Unfortunately, teachers are also under attack; whether physically from violence in schools, emotionally from working the frontlines of a global health pandemic, and professionally through nationwide anti-CRT policies and book banning. This is why a program such as PDCRT is so critical. PDCRT is a community of educators committed to serving children’s diverse abilities through culturally and linguistically sustained curriculum and practices. A channel that amplifies educators’ and scholars’ work that seeks to validate and serve communities. PDCRT provides a supportive environment for educators to learn together, support each other, and support children in reaching their full potential. This will be a space for educators and teacher educators to reclaim their joy.”
Sandra Lucia Osorio (she/her/ella) is an associate professor of raciolinguistic justice and Director of Teacher Education at the Erikson Institute, Chicago. She is a former bilingual educator who worked with children from diverse racial, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds for over 10 years. Her own personal narrative growing up bilingual and having a deficient-based identity placed upon her because of her linguistic and cultural differences has served as a source of motivation to become an educator and researcher. Osorio considers the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) one of her professional homes. She participated as part of a dyad in PDCRT for Cohort 4. She is also a member of the Elementary Section, is a Language Arts journal coeditor, and has served as Latinx Caucus chair, Elementary Section Steering Committee member, Early Childhood Education Assembly chair, Rainbow Strand Program chair, and as a member of Cultivating New Voices (CNV), Nominating Committee, and Mentor Program Task Force.
Kamania Wynter-Hoyte is an associate professor in the Department of Instruction and Teacher Education at the University of South Carolina. Her scholarship is anchored in African diaspora literacies that foster liberation in teacher education and early childhood spaces. She teaches culturally relevant pedagogy, literacy methods, and linguistic pluralism courses with an emphasis on countering anti-Blackness and draws from her years of experience as an elementary school teacher in diverse school settings. Wynter-Hoyte is the recipient of the 2018 Early Childhood Education Assembly’s Early Literacy Educator of the Year Award from the National Council Teachers of English. She has participated in PDCRT as a dyad in cohort 5.
2023–2025 PDCRT Application
Applications Due: Wednesday, June 14, 2023
Send to Kristen Ritchie: kritchie@ncte.org
Please submit all application materials as outlined in this document as ONE PDF file.
Before deciding to apply, please carefully review the PDCRT Participation Requirements below.
The PDCRT program, initiated by the Affirmative Action Committee of the Early Childhood Education Assembly (ECEA) of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) was developed to create a space within NCTE to support early childhood Educators of Color and educators who teach Children of Color, children who are emerging bi/multilinguals, and children from low-income households in studying about culturally relevant pedagogies and generating, implementing, documenting, evaluating, assessing, and disseminating classroom practices and process reflections from work done in preK to fifth-grade classrooms. The program is guided by a definition of culturally relevant pedagogies as that which requires a commitment to:
- Developing a critical consciousness that recognizes inequities and injustices; strengthening that consciousness in ourselves and others through our work with students, colleagues, administrators, families, and community members
- Broadening what counts as normalized/centered social, cultural, linguistic, and heritage knowledge; validating students’ home, community, and heritage knowledge and using it as foundational to teaching; focusing particularly on knowledge marginalized, neglected, or distorted in typical curricula, policies, and practices
- Supporting all children in developing the skills and strategies that will enable their success within existing systems as well as the knowledge and ability to use their literacy and content knowledge to challenge and change unjust systems
Applicants must apply as dyads—teacher and teacher educator partners complete one application together. At least one member of the dyad must be an Educator of Color, but preference will be given to dyads in which both members are Educators of Color. The teacher must work in a preK–fifth-grade classroom. Requirements for classroom demographics must also be met as outlined in the participation requirements on page 2 of this document. The new dyads will be notified in the summer of 2023.
The following application items are to be submitted as one PDF document and sent as an email attachment by Wednesday, June 14, 2023, to NCTE via kritchie@ncte.org:
- PDCRT Dyad Application Information Form
- Joint Statement from the dyad (addressing required questions on application form)
- Dyad Letter of Agreement
- Administrator Letter of Agreement
- Résumés of each dyad member
Items 1-4 above can be found in this single application document.
PDCRT Participation Requirements
Please know that, by submitting an application, BOTH members of the dyad are agreeing to the following requirements:
- Both dyad members must be members of the National Council of Teachers of English and NCTE’s Early Childhood Education Assembly (ECEA) and maintain their active membership throughout their participation in the PDCRT program:
- NCTE membership information: https://ncte.org/membership/
- ECEA membership information: https://sites.google.com/view/ecea-ncte/membership
- The dyad teacher must work in a preK–fifth-grade classroom where the majority of the students represent low-income households (at least 50% qualify for free and reduced lunch) and at least 75% of the students are Children of Color.
- At least one member of the dyad must be an Educator of Color; however, preference will be given to dyads that consist of two Educators of Color.
- The dyad teacher educator must commit to weekly work with the teacher in the classroom, and the dyad must commit to meeting regularly (no less than once every two weeks) to discuss readings, plans for teaching, and the process of the work.
- The dyad must commit to:
- Building and using further knowledge about culturally relevant/sustaining practices
- Collecting, organizing, archiving, and analyzing data about the dyad relationship, classroom work, student and family interactions, etc. and using data in biannual dyad reports as well as other publications and presentations
- Collecting, organizing, analyzing, and reporting on literacy assessment data for selected students at three predetermined times throughout the school year (details to be provided after your acceptance)
- Engaging fully in the project’s professional development activities (reading and discussing readings, viewing and discussing videos and weblinks, active participation on the PDCRT Facebook site, etc.) and using new knowledge to develop, try out, and document culturally relevant practices in the classroom
- Sharing work electronically and through other means of virtual communication; thus, each dyad member must have regular and dependable access to the internet
- Participating in all virtual meetings with all program dyads (typically monthly virtual meetings), the first virtual meeting to be scheduled for the first week in December
- Regularly checking email and responding promptly to project emails
- Submitting signed consent forms from parents/guardians of the students each year by a designated date (forms will be provided)
- Attending and participating in NCTE’s Annual Convention: Some funding will be provided by the program (see Dyad Letter of Agreement in the application document); participants are responsible for any funding not covered by the program
- Participating in the project’s three-day Summer Institutes—some funding will be provided by the program (see Dyad Letter of Agreement in the application document); participants are responsible for funding not covered
Questions? Please contact Kristen Ritchie.
The PDCRT program, initiated by the Affirmative Action Committee of the Early Childhood Education Assembly (ECEA) of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) was developed to create a space within NCTE to support early childhood Educators of Color and educators who teach Children of Color, children who are emerging bi/multilinguals, and children from low-income households in studying about culturally relevant pedagogies and generating, implementing, documenting, evaluating, assessing, and disseminating classroom practices and process reflections from work done in preK to fifth-grade classrooms.