Teacher Profiles
Name: Esther Alexis
School: Batiste Cultural Arts Academy
Cohort: 2010
Esther teaches 2nd grade at Batiste Cultural Arts Academy, which is part of the ReNEW network. She feels that her past professional and personal experiences as a first generation American have provided her with a clear sense of the value and richness of education. Before moving to New Orleans and joining teachNOLA, Esther was teaching middle school students and directing a Breakthrough Collaborative program on Long Island in New York.
Esther is inspired by the endless potential that her future scholars and young leaders have and walks into the classroom every day reminding her students that they are going to college in the year 2021 and that they come to school to “work and learn.” Her many academic and social goals include instilling the ideal that education is the great equalizer in all of her students.
Name: Avery Himes
School: Success Preparatory Academy
Cohort: 2008
Avery Himes, a recent graduate of Morehouse College, is a kindergarten teacher at Success Preparatory Academy, a transformation charter school that opened its doors in 2009. Avery teaches “amazing” kindergartners who remind him everyday that he “made a great decision” to come to New Orleans.
The biggest surprise to Avery has been the amount of time he spends lesson planning. Although lesson planning is time consuming, Avery believes that such planning is instrumental in helping him succeed in the classroom. The hours spent lesson planning are quickly forgotten when Avery interacts with his students’ “huge personalities in miniature bodies.” One minute Avery’s students have him frustrated, and the next minute they have him laughing, but Avery genuinely relishes these “adventures” in his classroom and is continuously reminded of why he committed to teaching in New Orleans.
Name: Kaycee Eckhardt
School: Sci Academy
Cohort: 2007
Kaycee Eckhardt was raised in small towns in New Mexico and across Louisiana. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, she returned to the States from living abroad with the desire to support the recovery effort and effect change and growth in the city. In her second year of teaching she helped found New Orleans Charter Science and Math Academy. Kaycee's reading program is designed to meet every child at their level, and raise that level rapidly, with the philosophy that expert reading can be learned and taught. The average growth of her freshmen scholars is 3 years - this year her goal is 3.5.
Kaycee is fiercely passionate about her scholars and their chances at college success. "A compassionate person doesn't have an option," she says. "Education is the civil rights movement of our time. New Orleans is the front line of that movement and daily I am an agent for change in the lives of the kids in my classroom. They are the reason I work as hard as I do - they are the reason I am here."
Kaycee was awarded the Louisiana Charter School Association's Teacher of the Year Award in 2009, and she was also selected to participate in NBC’s national initiative Education Nation, which seeks to engage the public, through thoughtful dialogue, in pursuit of the shared goal of providing every American with an opportunity to pursue the best education in the world.