Six Ouachita Parish teachers selected as Teacher Leader Advisors

Posted Date: 08/23/2023

Six teachers from the Ouachita Parish School System have been selected as Teacher Leader Advisors (TLA) for the 2023-24 school year.

Ouachita Parish ranks in the state’s Top 5 in total teachers selected and is tied for 1st in the amount of teachers selected from parishes in North Louisiana. Caddo Parish also had six selected.

The six teachers from Ouachita Parish are Maggie Acree (Math, Ouachita Parish Central Office), Amanda Bonney (Math, West Ouachita High School), Rachel Hendricks (Social Studies, Drew Elementary), Lainey Hodge (Math, Sterlington High School), Emily Lincecum (English Language Arts, Ouachita Parish Central Office) and Sabre Masters (Social Studies, West Ridge Middle).

“TLA has taught me more,” Acree said. “It’s the best professional development I’ve ever done. I think it’s for people who want to learn more. People who want to be teacher leaders, even beyond their school, but teacher leaders in the state.”

Louisiana Teacher Leader Advisors play an influential role in raising expectations for students and in ensuring that fellow educators across the state have access to high quality instructional materials and resources, and curriculum-aligned professional learning. Teacher Leader Advisors participate in the Department’s Instructional Materials Review process, create tools for the Teacher Support Toolbox, and develop and lead both virtual and in-person professional development for educators across Louisiana.

Acree is a part of the Instructional Materials Review. She evaluates publisher-submitted curricular materials for quality and is the first-read when team leaders submit content. She also helps tier curriculum which can fall under Tier 1, 2 or 3.

“The Instructional Materials are reviewed using a specific rubric or guideline, and that drives if it is Tier 1, Tier 2, or Tier 3,” Acree said. “There are a set of non-negotiables that have to be met in order for it to be considered Tier 1, the 'highest' rating. Tier 1, it is a green light for anyone in the state to use that curriculum. That’s huge when you think about that. It’s impacting every student in Louisiana, not just at the school level or even district level. It’s a state leader.”

Acree added that the groups of teachers on each team review the materials and find evidence for each indicator and the non-negotiable indicators have to have a 'yes' for it to be Tier 1. Then, those reviews are published on LDOE. 

Teacher Leader Advisors also create instructional tasks and resources in math, science, social studies and literacy and update the ELA Guidebooks and analyze text. Lincecum, who was selected as a TLA in 2020, spends a good portion of her time as a TLA with these tasks.

“It helps me because I’ve gotten to work on a variety of texts from grades 3 to grades 12, so I have a really good understanding of curriculum at each level,” Lincecum said. “So I’ve been able to dig in and work with the content.”

Other projects for TLA include:

• Scoring and annotating student work samples.
• Developing and facilitating professional development sessions.
• Participating in focus groups related to LDOE’s academic strategy.
• Delivering presentations related to updated social studies standards.
• Authoring and reviewing new course framework documents for updated social studies standard.

More about our Ouachita Parish Teacher Leader Advisors:

• Maggie Acree (Mathematics Instructional Coordinator, Ouachita Parish School System): Mrs. Acree earned a Bachelor of Science in mathematics and a Master of Education in curriculum and instruction with a concentration in gifted education, from the University of Louisiana at Monroe. Maggie recently moved to the Ouachita Parish School System Central Office as a Math Instructional Coordinator for Grades 9-12. She spent the past 21 years as a mathematics teacher, with the last fifteen years at Sterlington High School in the Ouachita Parish School District. She taught Algebra II, Pre-Calculus, and Calculus to tenth through twelfth grade students. Maggie has also taught sixth through eighth grade mathematics, including geometry and various levels of algebra. Maggie promotes excellence in mathematics education working with colleagues throughout the school, district, state, and nation. She served as Department Head in her school, and in a number of capacities at the district level that include leading in-services, textbook adoption and alignment committees, and new initiatives. She presents at conferences sponsored by the Louisiana Department of Education, the Louisiana Association for Teachers of Mathematics, and the Southern Region Education Board. She is a member of LATM and the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics. Maggie has reviewed ninth through twelfth mathematics curriculum for the Louisiana Department of Education as a Teacher Leader Advisor and is currently a content reviewer for ninth through twelfth mathematics curriculum with EdReports.org. Maggie is the 2019 Louisiana Awardee for the Presidential Award for Mathematics and Science Teaching. This is Maggie’s eighth year as a Teacher Leader Advisor.

• Amanda Bonney (Mathematics Teacher, West Ouachita High School): Amanda Bonney holds a Master of Science with a concentration in mathematics and a Bachelor of Science in secondary mathematics education grades six to twelve from McNeese State University. For the past seven years, she has taught Algebra I, Algebra II, Math Essentials, Advanced Math, and Statistics at West Ouachita High School in Ouachita Parish. Mrs. Bonney has taught mathematics in Louisiana for sixteen years, served as a Math and Science Instructional Coach, and served as department head. At the district level, she has helped lead in-services, served on the textbook adoption committee, and helped write district high school math assessments and curriculum guides. This is Mrs. Bonney’s second year as a Teacher Leader Advisor.

• Rachel Hendricks (Social Studies Lead Teacher, Drew Elementary):  Rachel Hendricks holds a Master of Education from the University of Louisiana at Monroe. Mrs. Hendricks has taught third through fifth grade social studies at Drew Elementary in Ouachita Parish for the past seven years. Mrs. Hendricks acts as a social studies lead teacher for Drew Elementary and Ouachita Parish Schools where she has experience creating curriculum resources, assessments, and presenting school and district-wide professional development. Along with modeling social studies lessons in grades third through fifth, Mrs. Hendricks serves as the school 504 Coordinator. This will be her second year to serve as a Teacher Leader Advisor.

• Lainey Hodge (Mathematics, Sterlington High School): Lainey Hodge earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology education with an additional certification in sixth through twelfth mathematics from Louisiana Tech University. She has also earned her Master of Education degree in curriculum and instruction with a concentration in STEM education from Louisiana State University in Shreveport. Mrs. Hodge is in her fifth year of teaching mathematics in Ouachita Parish. She taught at Ouachita Parish High for three years and is currently teaching mathematics at Sterlington High School. Prior to her current district, she taught mathematics at Haughton High School in Bossier Parish for six years and at Minden High School in Webster Parish for three years. Mrs. Hodge has worked with curriculum coordinators to develop scopes and sequences for multiple math courses as well as standards-aligned common assessments for the district’s math teachers. Mrs. Hodge is a 2021 and 2023 Louisiana State Finalist in Mathematics for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST). This is her third year as a Teacher Leader Advisor.

• Emily Lincecum (ELA Curriculum and Instructional Coordinator, Ouachita Parish Schools System): Emily Lincecum is the Curriculum and Instructional Coordinator for ELA grades sixth through twelfth with the Ouachita Parish School System. Prior to this position, she taught ELA in grades sixth through ninth for eleven years and served in multiple leadership roles at the school and parish levels during that time. Ms. Lincecum earned her master’s degree in English from Louisiana Tech University as well as a graduate certification in technical writing. She has also completed ELA Content Leader training. Her next goal is to receive an additional degree in curriculum and instruction with a focus on reading and literacy. In May of 2020, Ms. Lincecum was awarded a Teachers and Technology grant from the CenturyLink Clarke M. Williams Foundation for her Digital Classroom Initiative project which focused on the importance of teaching digital literacy through ELA content for student success. She was also previously awarded Ouachita Parish Middle School Teacher of the Year for 2016-2017. This will be Ms. Lincecum’s fourth year as a Teacher Leader Advisor.

• Sabre Masters (Social Studies, West Ridge Middle School): Sabre Masters earned a Master of Education in curriculum and instruction from the University of Louisiana at Monroe. Ms. Masters has been a fifth grade self-contained teacher for the past five years at Claiborne Elementary in Ouachita Parish. Prior to teaching fifth grade, she received educational experience in Japan, taught second grade in Rapides Parish for one year, and taught third grade at Claiborne Elementary for two years. In 2018, Ms. Masters was awarded Claiborne Elementary Teacher of the Year and Ouachita Parish Top Five Teacher of the Year. Over the past five years, Ms. Masters has led multiple professional *Does not participate in Instructional Material Reviews 26 8/1/2023 developments for Ouachita Parish in the content area of social studies and provided support to other classroom teachers. She was also a presenter of the release of the social studies companion document to Ouachita Parish and participated in multiple DBQ Project trainings. A fifth grade social studies student resource book and fifth grade social studies benchmark assessments were created by Ms. Masters to be used by the teachers in Ouachita Parish. This will be her second year as a Teacher Leader Advisor.