In May 2018, I was named the 2019 Kentucky Elementary Teacher of the Year and was offered an opportunity to take a semester-long sabbatical working with the Kentucky Department of Education. I wondered how to make the most of my time.

I had been teaching in Jefferson County for 19 years, most recently teaching creative writing through hip-hop at Phillis Wheatley Elementary School, located in the west end of Louisville, Ky., which serves a student population that is 99 percent African American. Given my experience, I understood the unique opportunities of teaching students of color and the necessity for developing strong relationships. Over time, I’ve developed my own strategies, but I wondered how other educators and school communities were supporting students of color, especially African American students.

I decided to use my sabbatical to travel the state and find out.

Strong teachers ask big questions and solve problems—sometimes by digging into our own practice or the learning outcomes of our students, other times by talking to our peers about their experiences or seeking out novel resources and ideas. Researchers do this too.

In the spirit of considering myself as a teacher and researcher, I decided to engage in some action research to gain insight into the experience of my peers, leverage their expertise and to reflect on how to incorporate what I learned into my practice to better support my own students.

Success Academy is one of 20 schools I visited in and around Kentucky. I identified practitioners sharing about practices they had found effective when supporting students of color and contacted them to see if I could come see their work in action, interview them and talk with their students.

Read the full article about effectively supporting students of color by NyRee Clayton-Taylor at EdSurge.