Achievethecore.org :: LA Core Advocates

Mission

Louisiana Core Advocate’s mission is to provide support for educators across the state as they implement the standards in their practice. Through collaboration with the state department, Core Advocates support teachers in implementing quality, aligned instructional materials. Many Core Advocates serve as Louisiana Teacher Leaders and Teacher Leader Advisors, working in conjunction with the Louisiana Department of Education to create, vet, and implement materials aligned to the standards.
Our Work

ELA/literacy Focused Core Advocates

Our ELA/literacy focus in Louisiana:

Standards-Related Challenge: Students have difficulty reading and responding to increasingly complex texts as they progress through the grades.

Campaign to Address This Challenge:Teachers will select high-quality texts worth teaching and will employ planning and classroom practices that maximize the texts and student learning in instruction.

The ELA team in Louisiana is led by high school English teacher Lauren Trahan. The mission is to support teachers from across the state by providing them with tools and resources to evaluate the level of text complexity, create assessments aligned to the skills required to comprehend the complex text being taught, and scaffold knowledge acquisition where gaps in mastery exist. This comprehensive campaign allows teachers to access complex text and be the catalyst for independent learning in the classroom.

Accessing complex text using achievethecore.org ELA/Literacy assessment resources, the Academic Word Finder, the Instructional Practice Guide, and text complexity resources allows administrators, educators, and instructional coaches to monitor mastery of content and vocabulary development both in the classroom and at the professional level.

Mathematics Focused Core Advocates

Our mathematics focus in Louisiana:

Standards-Related Challenge in our State: Students who have gaps in mathematical understanding are struggling to make connections and build on content from year to year.

Campaign to Address This Challenge in our State: Teachers will leverage the coherence of the standards in order to develop classroom instruction that connects and builds mathematical understanding across grade levels.

The math team in Louisiana is led by high school mathematics teacher Jessica Hunter. This collaborative campaign focuses on helping teachers identify and support the gaps that students exhibit in mathematical learning through analyzing the coherence that is present in the standards. The mission is to support teachers from across the state by providing them with tools and resources to evaluate their students’ level of understanding and build lessons that provide coherence across the focus standards for each grade level. This comprehensive campaign allows teachers to understand coherence across grade levels, identify prerequisite skills that students need at each grade level, and make informed decisions in planning lessons to support student mastery of standards.

Resources such as the Louisiana focus documents, the Coherence Map, Illustrative Mathematics tasks, and the Progressions Documents allow administrators, educators, and instructional coaches to monitor mastery of the standards in the classroom and at the professional level.
Who We Are

Louisiana Core Advocate Captain - Amy Deslattes

Amy Deslattes is the Louisiana State Captain. Amy has been teaching English language arts for nineteen years and received National Board Certification in ELA/AYA in 2010. In 2011, she was one of two high school teachers asked to serve on the Remedial Education Commission in partnership with the Louisiana Board of Regents and the Louisiana Department of Education to offer recommendations regarding student performance gaps between K-12 education and secondary institutions. She has served as a member of the Louisiana Teacher Advisory Council for four years and co-authored the twelfth grade ELA scope and sequence and unit one plans found in the Louisiana Teacher Support Toolbox on LouisianaBelieves.com. She has also been involved in Teacher Leader trainings as part of the Louisiana Believes initiative to prepare teachers across the state for instructional shifts necessary to help Louisiana school children become college and career ready by the time they graduate high school. Amy currently works at Lafayette High School in Lafayette, Louisiana as Assistant Principal.

ELA/literacy Content Lead - Lauren Trahan

Lauren Trahan is the leader of the literacy team in Louisiana. A veteran teacher of ten years, Louisiana Teacher Leader Advisor, and LA Core Advocate, Trahan has a passion for all things ELA and is a proponent of growing and stretching as an instructor of relevant and applicable reading and writing. She is a graduate of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and is certified fourth through twelfth grade. Lauren has enjoyed teaching all grades within that band, but particularly enjoys teaching 10th grade. She is currently the tenth grade ELA instructor at Erath High School in Erath, Louisiana. Read Lauren’s contribution to the Aligned Blog here.

Math Content Lead - Jessica Hunter

Jessica Hunter is the leader of the math team in Louisiana. Jessica has been teaching high school mathematics for eight years in Northeast Louisiana. Jessica has been a Core Advocate since November of 2013. She is also the current high school mathematics liaison for Northeast Louisiana Teachers of Math (NELATM). She has completed instructional material reviews for the Louisiana Department of Education, Student Achievement Partners, and Edreports.org. Jessica is a current Teacher Leader for her school and prior Teacher Leader Advisor. She is in the process of completing her dissertation for a Doctorate in Educational Leadership at Louisiana Tech University. Jessica is a geometry teacher at Sterlington High School in Sterlington.
Stay Informed

To be a part of our work please contact us at LACoreAdvocates@studentsachieve.net

Follow us on Twitter: @LaCoreAdvocates

Read our stories at LaCoreAdvocate.wordpress.com