The Best of Us

S4/E9: When You Give Educators the Space to Experiment with AI with Chelsea Waite & Caitrin Wright

Chelsea Waite of the Center on Reinventing Public Education and Caitrin Wright of Silicon Schools Fund share what they learned from a cohort of educators who designed and piloted their own AI use cases — and why the most promising results had less to do with efficiency and more to do with strengthening human connection.

S4/E8: Sara Scribner on Rethinking Teacher Prep from the Ground Up

Sara Scribner shares how a rural New Hampshire district stopped waiting for special education teachers to arrive and built its own pipeline instead, covering tuition, providing housing, and keeping every graduate in the classroom.

S4/E7: Allie's Rodman's Case for Personalized Professional Learning and Whole Educators

How can districts design professional learning that treats teachers as the adult learners they are? In this episode, Allie Rodman—a former teacher, coach, assistant principal, school board member, and author of two books on professional learning—explains why the field has spent a decade building SEL programs for students but never did the same work for the adults in the building. She shares how sitting on a school board revealed the gap between what districts say they value and what they actually fund, why teacher voice means co-creating from the start rather than asking for input at the end, and what it looks like when over 90% of teachers choose personalized learning—even when it means using their own time.

S4/E6: From Lab Scientist to Learning Designer—How Curiosity and Stories Drive Adult Learning with Nadira Singh

What if the key to better professional learning is asking more questions instead of giving more answers? In this episode, Nadira Singh shares how she uses curiosity, empathy interviews, and a scientist's mindset to help educators across 142 schools learn and grow.

S4/E5: When Students Lead the Change—How Voice and Goals Drive Teacher Retention with Katy Meyers

When Katy Meyers' first-year teacher announced she was leaving education, Katy flipped the question: instead of asking why teachers quit, she researched what makes them stay. The answer—being heard matters more than being fixed—transformed how she leads, and it applies to students too.