Meet the Mentors

Louise Lindsay knew she wanted to be an educator when she was still in grade school.

In short order, she earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the College of South Carolina, and headed into the classroom.

Now, after spending more than a decade in K-12 education across the country, she also knows what works and what’s missing in preparing students—and their teachers—for success.

“I was searching for something real,” Lindsay says. “Teachers are facing real struggles. They have complex situations and they need multi-level solutions to deal with those challenges.”

So last December, Lindsay found the National Urban Alliance.

Unlike the teachers she works with through NUA, Lindsay confesses she has sometimes been the recipient of one-off professional development sessions with arms folded.

“So many professional development programs are over-commercialized,” Lindsay says. From the beginning, she was attracted to NUA’s use of proven strategies over untested devices and techniques.

“I’ve experienced professional development that’s based on great ideas but no extra level of scaffolding,” Lindsay says. “NUA is using brain research to inform the strategies they use, but they also believe in relationship building—and that has fidelity.”

Lindsay was drawn to NUA’s genuine investment in teacher support.

“NUA doesn’t just go to a school one time a year, but 10 times a year. What makes it real is that mentors go into the classroom and teach, they don’t just walk away, hoping for the best.”

As an NUA mentor, Lindsay works with K-8 teachers in Buffalo, New York, as well as middle and high school teaching coaches in Connecticut. Before joining the National Urban Alliance, she taught social studies throughout the southeastern region.

“I’ve taught rural and urban settings—Anacostia in D.C., Boston, Charleston, Newport News,” Lindsay says. “I’ve been able to see what common threads are and what’s different from classroom to classroom, and I think that experience has demonstrated to me the importance of cultural relevance from student to student.”

Lindsay uses that sensitivity in her own work with her teaching mentees. “The most challenging part of working with the coaches I see is not being in the building every day with them,” she says. “I can empathize with what they’re going through.”

Lindsay is still pleasantly surprised by how enthusiastic her teachers are about training with NUA.

“The way the teachers have grabbed on to the strategies,” she laughs, “It’s both surprising and rewarding.”