Led by Carrie Santo-Thomas, the Accessibility and Administrative Tools cohort is focused on creating materials that address the use of AI tools for accessibility, as well as materials to guide educators in administrative positions as they make decisions regarding AI usage in their schools and districts.
Meet the Cohort
Carrie Santo-Thomas is a high school teacher with over two decades of classroom experience and a longstanding commitment to supporting teachers as they navigate change in literacy education. She holds degrees in English from Loyola University Chicago and curriculum and instruction from National Louis University. She is a past president of the Illinois Association of Teachers of English and a career-long member of both IATE and NCTE. She currently serves on NCTE’s Build Your Stack committee. Her work is shaped by her experience as a neurodivergent scholar, parent, and teacher, and by a belief that educational leadership works best when it is grounded in the realities of daily classroom life. She is especially interested in helping educators think critically and creatively about emerging tools, including AI, in ways that preserve teacher judgment, student voice, and authentic learning.
Jeff Allyn is an experienced educator, musician, and playwright living in New York. Over the last two decades, he has taught English, developed K–12 curriculum, and built creative programs in music and theater across private, public, and charter high schools from Atlanta to the Bronx. His work reflects a commitment to agency, discovery, and exploration as primary drivers of learning. In recent years, Allyn has written and presented extensively on the ends of English—an examination of its goals and borders as a field of knowledge in light of rapidly emerging literacies—at schools and conferences, and has served as a digital literacy mentor and technology liaison alongside his teaching. Since 2023, he has focused on developing AI-driven language applications and games that promote criticality, ethical reasoning, and decision making. Allyn earned his MA from New York University and his BA from Baruch College.
Autumn Simpson is an English II teacher and curriculum leader outside of Nashville, TN. She believes ELA should be a space where students feel seen, challenged, and encouraged to take risks, knowing their voices matter and their ideas are worth exploring. With six years of classroom experience, she currently serves as her school’s English II Curriculum Lead and as a member of the district’s Writing Framework team, collaborating with educators to strengthen writing instruction across grade levels. Simpson was previously an English II PLC lead, supporting collaborative planning, resource sharing, and instructional alignment among teachers. She is deeply interested in the responsible use of AI in the high school classroom and uses AI tools to support process-based writing, differentiation, and accessibility while keeping critical thinking and creativity at the center. She is excited to collaborate with educators nationwide to shape ethical, student-centered approaches to AI that support strong literacy instruction.
Andy Schoenborn is a teacher and award-winning author in Michigan at Clare Public Schools. He focuses his work on student-centered critical thinking, digital collaboration, and multimedia means. In 2013, he was honored with MCTE’s Ray Lawson Excellence in Teaching Award, in 2014 he received the Great Lakes Bay Region RUBY Award, in 2017 he received the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe’s ISE Award, in 2019 he was honored with the NCTE Linda Rief Award, and in 2022 he was honored as the Communications by Design Impact Teacher of the Year. As a past president of the Michigan Reading Association, two-time past president of the Michigan Council of Teachers of English, and National Writing Project teacher consultant for Central Michigan University’s Chippewa River Writing Project, he frequently conducts workshops related to literacy and technology. His first book, coauthored with Dr. Troy Hicks, Creating Confident Writers, was published in 2020.
Kylee Rae Willette is a high school English language arts teacher with six years of experience teaching 9th- and 10th-grade students across special education, general, honors, and multilingual classrooms. She earned her bachelor’s degree in secondary education, with a concentration in English, from the University of Vermont in 2020. Willette currently teaches at a Title I high school in Maryland, where she has also led creative writing and English composition courses for grades 9–12 and served as advisor to the school’s literary magazine. She earned her master’s degree in innovations in teaching and learning from McDaniel College in 2025. Her capstone project explored the use of artificial intelligence as a writing tool to support recursive writing processes and build student autonomy. Willette is currently pursuing National Board Certification and will continue her teaching career in upstate New York in fall 2026.