Looking back, seventh-grade math teacher Brittany Everett can see that helping others learn came naturally to her early on. Growing up in Baltimore, she says, “As a child when I would play school with my friends, I always ended up being the teacher.” Throughout school, she also helped her peers with schoolwork. “I guess I was predestined to become a teacher,” she says.
Ms. Everett completed her degree in elementary education from Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans and stayed in that area to teach after graduation. Four years later, she moved back to Maryland to continue her career. When she started working at SEED MD in 2021, she knew she had found a special place.
At SEED, Ms. Everett is building strong connections with her students for several reasons. One is shared experiences, “I can identify with students more—most of them come from Baltimore, too, so I can relate to them.” Another is the small classes offered at SEED. “Because I have smaller class sizes, I can implement small group projects. I can also build strong relationships with students. They feel like they can come to me, and I see that they want to work hard and want to learn.” Activities such as “lunch bunch”, where small groups of students have lunch with teachers, also help her to get to know her students outside the classroom.
Ms. Everett has been focusing this year on finding the best ways to help students build back learning lost during the pandemic, using her skills to help students adapt and adjust. “Teachers must look at themselves to see what they can do differently to make things easier for their students,” says Ms. Everett. “It’s easier for me as an adult to adapt than it is for a twelve-year-old.” Like most students, her seventh graders were behind academically due to the disruptions of the last two years, but she is pleased with the strides they’ve made.
“I’m proud of how well my students and I have adjusted,” she says. And she’s proud of her students’ progress. “On the MAP (Measures of Academic Progress), 98% of my students showed growth, and 73% of my students met their projected growth for math.”
Ms. Everett is also intent on her own professional growth. She has taken on the role of planning and leading meetings for the seventh-grade teaching team. She has also found strong mentorship at SEED. “Ms. Conyers, the middle school math coach, is amazing. I get to bounce a lot of ideas off her, and she helps a lot.” Ms. Everett has a Master’s of Education degree in educational leadership from Concordia University of Nebraska and plans to eventually become a school leader—a path for she’s been destined since she was a little girl in Baltimore.