Spotlight 4 Success

Send us Fan MailA lot of people show up to an education conference hunting for a single magic strategy. We show up looking for something better: ideas that actually fit real classrooms and real kids. From sunny Myrtle Beach, South Carolina at the SCABSE 2026 Conference, I sit down with guest Taurus Hugee for a fast, honest conversation about what it means to “heighten education” while keeping it personal and true to who you are as an educator.Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailA 98.6% graduation rate with students who arrive not on track to graduate doesn’t happen by accident, and it definitely doesn’t happen by labeling kids and hoping for the best. From the SCAPSE conference in Myrtle Beach, we sit down with Cedrick Richie, principal at Excel Learning Academy in Richland One School District, to get specific about what equity-driven leadership looks like when it’s built into the daily culture of a school. Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailA single preview copy can be the difference between guessing and gaining. We sit down with a teacher who shares how American Book Company (ABC) books went from “something I tried once” to a repeatable system for better classroom instruction, stronger test prep, and measurable student growth. If you’ve ever stared down a high-stakes EOC and a limited budget, this conversation hits home fast.Website: spotlight4success.com 

Send us Fan MailA missed question should not be a dead end, it should be a map. We dig into what makes standards-based textbooks and assessments feel genuinely helpful for students and sustainable for teachers, using American Book Company resources as the jumping-off point.Website: spotlight4success.com 

Send us Fan MailWe’re recording from the NCASA conference in Wilmington, North Carolina, and we keep hearing the same challenge from school and district leaders: students need more support, but schedules and staffing are already stretched thin. So we sat down with Rene and Connie from Book Nook to get specific about what scalable high impact tutoring can look like when it’s built for real schools, real constraints, and real outcomes. Website: spotlight4success.com 

Send us Fan MailA single conference hallway can tell you a lot about what educators are carrying and what they still hope to build. From the NCASA conference in Wilmington, North Carolina, we sit down with Rochelle Brown, a CMS biology teacher with 26 years in education and a North Carolina Principal Fellow preparing for a full-year internship at Croft Community Schools in Charlotte. She talks candidly about the mix of excitement and nerves that comes with stepping toward school leadership and why being part of a cohort and a strong university program matters when you’re trying to grow.Website: spotlight4success.com 

Send us Fan MailWe’re recording from the NCASA conference in North Carolina, and we sit down with Taylor Simmons, Director of Creative Design at Achievable Dream Urban Learning Leadership Center (AADULLC). If you’ve ever wondered what real school improvement looks like when it’s tailored to a district’s actual needs, this conversation gets specific fast. Taylor breaks down how AADULLC operates as an education consulting partner, building customizable K-12 learning solutions that go beyond one-size-fits-all programs.Website: spotlight4success.com 

Send us Fan MailWe’re recording from the NCASA Conference in Wellington, North Carolina, and we sit down with Ashley, a fifth grade teacher from Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools who’s stepping into a new season of education leadership. After 14 years in the classroom, she’s now a principal fellow through North Carolina Central, preparing for an administrator internship next year. That transition brings a big question: how do you move from being responsible for one room of learners to leading adults, systems, and school-wide success?Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailLeadership doesn’t start the day you get the title. It starts in the rooms where you admit what you still need to learn, then go get it. From the NCASA conference in Wilmington, North Carolina, I sit down with Tyneka and Toni, two Wake County Public Schools educators preparing for the next step as principal fellows connected to North Carolina Central University through CCP3 and their MSA pathway.Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailA surprise meetup at NCASA turns into a deep dive on what values based leadership looks like when you actually practice it every day. We sit down with Gina Watts, VP of U.S. Student Transformation at Growing Leaders, and Molly from the student transformation team, to talk about the Maxwell Leadership principles behind their work and why those principles still matter in real schools with real constraints.Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailA paid principal residency sounds almost too good to be true, but North Carolina is doing it and doing it with real rigor. From the floor of the NCASA Conference in Wellington, we sit down with Lauren, director of the North Carolina Principal Fellows Program, to unpack how the state is strengthening school leadership by investing in a clear pathway from educator to administrator.Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailA conference hallway can be louder than a classroom, but it can also reveal what great school leadership sounds like. From the NCASA conference in Wilmington, North Carolina, we sit down with Saida, principal of East Lawn Elementary, to talk about what actually holds a school together when the job gets hard and the needs keep coming.Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailA student prevents a fight before it starts, and a principal turns it into a moment the whole class will remember. That’s the kind of fast, specific recognition that can shift school culture, and it’s the heart of our conversation from the NCASA conference in Wilmington, North Carolina with Dean Cook, Sales Manager at Presentation Solutions. Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailEducational leadership can feel like a mystery from the outside, so we wanted to make it concrete. We talk with Jessica, a vice president in a statewide education technology organization, about what her role looks like day to day, what she’s learning on the board, and how she’ll step into the president role next. Along the way, we get into why consistent communication like newsletters matters for keeping schools informed about edtech trends and what’s changing across a state.Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailYou can feel it in the hallway conversations at KAST: schools are not asking whether technology belongs in the classroom anymore. The real question is how to make it matter. From Louisville, Kentucky, I sit down with digital learning coaches Erica and Sandy to unpack what it takes to support teachers when devices, apps, and expectations keep changing. Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailA school device rollout can look perfect on paper and still fail in the real world if support is slow, warranties are short, and deployment is a slog. That’s why we sat down with Garrett, an account manager at Byte Speed, to talk about what actually makes K-12 IT feel smooth for districts, teachers, and students. Byte Speed has been working with Kentucky schools for decades, and Garrett shares what they listen for when they meet districts at conferences: the everyday pain points behind “we need computing solutions.” Website: spotlight4success.com 

Send us Fan MailA classroom should not feel like a different tech puzzle every time you walk into a new room, yet that’s the reality in many schools with a mix of projectors, older monitors, and newer interactive flat panels. From the KAST conference in Louisville, Kentucky, we sit down with Andrew, AirTame’s Education East territory manager, to talk about a simple idea with big impact: make screen sharing consistent so teachers can spend less time troubleshooting and more time teaching.Website: spotlight4success.com 

Send us Fan MailChromebooks are everywhere in K 12, but keeping them working is the part no one advertises. From the CAST Conference in Louisville 2026, we sit down with Kendal Shomura from Vivacity Tech to talk about what it really takes to keep devices in students’ hands without burning out your IT team or blowing up your budget.Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailReading growth doesn’t always come from a brand-new curriculum. Sometimes it comes from one small shift: letting students have real choice in what they read. From the floor of the NCRA conference in North Carolina, we sit down with Emmie and Shantale, ECU ambassadors and graduate students focused on reading and literacy instruction, to talk about what’s working right now with real learners. Website: spotlight4success.com 

Send us Fan MailWater is the quiet thing we all depend on, until someone treats it like it’s sacred and suddenly you can’t stop paying attention. From the floor of the NCRA conference in Winston-Salem, we talk with author and educator Carol Tremboth about the Native Water Walkers and why their prayerful, relentless miles around the Great Lakes belong in every conversation about clean water, environmental stewardship, and Indigenous activism. Carol shares how her books bring readers to the shoreline, where sacred words, tobacco offerings, and community connection turn “water protection” into something you can feel.Website: spotlight4success.com 

Send us Fan MailA lot of reading struggles aren’t about effort, they’re about abstraction. When phonics rules live only on a worksheet or a whiteboard, many kids never get a concrete “click” moment. From the NCRA conference in North Carolina, we sit down with Meagan Beam, founder of Otter Reading, to talk about a hands-on reading tool she built for the exact problems she kept seeing in her own classroom.Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailLetters can be surprisingly hard for young kids. They’re just shapes until a child can link each squiggle to a sound, then blend those sounds into real words. From the NCRA conference in North Carolina, we sit down with Vicki Norris, a trainer at Letterland International, to talk about a character-based approach to phonics that helps children make that leap with less struggle and more joy.Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailStories can change a kid’s life when they finally feel recognized on the page. From the NCRA conference in North Carolina, we sit down with middle grade author Bobbie Pyron to talk about why fiction isn’t “extra” in literacy work, it’s a direct path to empathy, compassion, and deeper reading engagement for young people. If you care about children’s literature, school libraries, or helping students connect with books again, this conversation lands right where the work gets real. Website: spotlight4success.com 

Send us Fan MailA blue-and-white teacup doesn’t sound like a doorway into history, until you hear what it unlocks in Half Truths. Recording live from the NCRA conference in North Carolina, we sit down with author Carol Baldwin to talk about her debut young adult historical novel set in Charlotte in 1950, a city shaped by segregation and the unspoken rules of the Jim Crow South.Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailAI is everywhere in students’ lives, but what if we used it to push them outside instead of pulling them deeper into screens? From the floor of NCRA in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, we sit down with author Jo Watson Hackl to talk about a surprisingly grounded approach to AI in education: using technology responsibly to strengthen student engagement, spark curiosity, and support reading and writing through real-world observation of nature.Website: spotlight4success.com 

Send us Fan MailLiteracy is getting rewritten in real time and educators don’t have the option to sit it out. From NCRA in Winston-Salem, we sit down with Hiller Spires, Professor at NC State University and NCRA president-elect, to talk about what comes next for literacy instruction as technology accelerates and classrooms adapt on the fly.Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailA dandelion wish sounds small until it spins into a full-blown adventure. From the NCRA floor in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, we sit down with children’s author Darren Farrell to hear how Dandelion Magic turns a simple idea into a story kids want to follow all the way home.Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailA children’s picture book can start in a surprising place: a string quartet performing a concert for plants. From the NCRA conference in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, we sit down with Tonnye Fletcher, a veteran educator who spent 17 years in second grade before making a big career shift into the K to 2 music room, and that pivot becomes the spark for a deeper conversation about creative risk and staying open to change.Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailRecording live from NCRA in North Carolina, we talk with Gina Mays, the owner of Gigi’s bookstore, about what happens when a lifelong educator decides she’s not done serving schools, she’s just changing tools. After 32 years as a teacher and administrator, Gina retires, buys $1,800 worth of books, drives to a conference stressed out of her mind, and discovers a real need for an independent bookseller who understands teachers, students, and school ordering.Spotlight 4 Success: spotlight4success.com 

Send us Fan MailGrace Moser shares how using ABC materials has impacted her classroom. 

Send us Fan MailA single “oh!” from a student can change everything, and it’s the feeling that keeps many of us teaching. From the NCRA Conference in North Carolina, we sit down with Grace, a fifth grade teacher who traces her path back to one vivid moment helping a child finally understand. She shares why she thought she’d teach younger students, how internships surprised her, and what makes fifth grade the perfect mix of joy, curiosity, and just enough sass to keep learning fun and honest. Website: spotlight4success.com 

Send us Fan Mail“Every child can read.” Mary from Hoke County Schools says it plainly, and then she shows the work behind making it real. We’re recording live from the NCRA conference, where she explains how a district literacy committee approaches professional learning like a mission: attend strategically, take excellent notes, then debrief as a team so the best ideas don’t stay in a notebook they show up in classrooms.Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailDeja Moore & Michaela Shy share their testimony regarding ABC products. Website: spotlight4success.com 

Send us Fan MailFluency isn’t the finish line. If you’ve ever watched a student read smoothly and still walk away confused, this conversation puts words to the problem and points toward practical next steps. We are joined by two educators from JT Barber Elementary School in the Craven School District: Deja Moore and Michaela Shy. They share their paths into teaching, why they love working with kids, and what it looks like to keep growing as professionals when the needs in reading feel urgent and school-wide.Website: spotlight4success.com 

Send us Fan MailBrian Edmond, a principal in South Carolina, shares his testimony regarding his school seeing score increases with ABC materials.Website: spotlight4success.com 

Send us Fan MailFelisha Williams. a principal in South Carolina, shares her testimony regarding her success with ABC materials. Website: spoltight4success.com  

Send us Fan MailGladys M. shares his testimony regarding his success with ABC materials. Website: spotlight4success.com  

Send us Fan MailRoderick Hannibal shares his testimony regarding his success with ABC materials. Website: spoltight4success.com  

Send us Fan MailStep onto the LACUE 2025 floor in New Orleans with us and feel the shift from hype to help. We sit down with educator and board member Tisha Whittington to unpack what actually lightens the load for teachers under pressure: clear standards alignment, reliable practice, and tools that let you teach instead of triage. The buzz around AI is real, but the big win is clarity—using tech and tightly mapped content to cut noise, focus instruction, and lift LEAP scores without burning out your team.Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailStep onto the LACUE floor in New Orleans with us and meet Jacqueline Edwards, a computer science instructor from East Baton Rouge who turns high school classrooms into launchpads for software careers. Jacqueline shares how her students earn dual enrollment credit through Baton Rouge Community College, graduate with Python and JavaScript certifications, and walk away with 27 credit hours toward an applied associate degree in software development. It’s a clear, practical pathway: real languages, real credentials, real momentum.Website: spotlight4success.com 

Send us Fan MailTwo decades of conference halls, classroom breakthroughs, and late-night planning come to life as we sit down with Ranay Lozala of Rapides Parish at LACUE 2025 in New Orleans. From board service to district leadership in data and analytics, Renee shares how a statewide conference becomes more than sessions and swag—it becomes a pipeline of ideas, tools, and guardrails that shape learning on Monday morning.Website: spotlight4success.com 

Send us Fan MailSay yes first, figure it out together—that’s the spirit of this conversation with Tracy Phillips from Washington Parish, recorded live at LACUE 2025 in New Orleans. Tracy has taught nearly everything from fourth grade English to biology and civics, and she shares how a single decision to attend a tech-forward conference reshaped her planning, assessment, and classroom culture.Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailBright lights, fresh ideas, and real classroom wins—our trip to LACUE in New Orleans brought all three together. We sat down with fifth grade science teacher Brayondra Allen from Ferriday Upper Elementary to talk about what truly moves the needle for student learning: clear standards alignment, a smart resource mix, and the joy of those “aha” moments when a concept clicks. From the first minutes, her focus is practical and purposeful—learn more to be more for her students.Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailThe buzz of a great education conference can change a school year. From the floor of LACUE in New Orleans, we sit down with Gladys from St. Landry Parish to explore how curiosity about AI, beginner-friendly Canva workflows, and trusted practice materials can turn everyday lessons into steady student growth. She brings 15 years in the classroom to the table, sharing why those eureka moments still guide every decision and how thoughtful prompts help students discover ideas for themselves.Website: spotlight4success.com 

Send us Fan MailThe best conference takeaway is the one you can use on Monday. That’s exactly what we set out to capture in this conversation with Shayla Pandja, the English instructional coordinator for St. Landry Parish, recorded live at LACUE in New Orleans. We dig into the real work of supporting high school teachers: choosing a core curriculum that builds knowledge and skills, layering on targeted practice that mirrors assessments, and making sure every classroom can actually access the tools that promise improvement.Website: spotlight4success.com 

Send us Fan MailWhat happens when a first-year teacher pairs AI with a lesson on kindness—and sees her fifth graders raise their voices with empathy? We sit down with Bethany Collette from Concordia Parish to explore a classroom model that treats technology as a tool and human connection as the goal. From generating relatable reading passages to crafting quick exit tickets, Bethany shows how simple AI workflows free up time for deeper discussion, small-group coaching, and the kind of peer feedback that actually moves writing forward.Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailWalk the LACUE floor with us and meet Lesley Moore, a first-year graphic design and digital media teacher from SPIMA Academy in East Baton Rouge, who’s navigating a new role while chasing the right technology for her students. From the buzz of New Orleans to the quiet of a classroom where a grieving student needed a listener, this conversation blends the promise of AI with the heart of teaching.Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailThe buzz of New Orleans sets a vibrant backdrop as we sit down with Emma Jones from Bogalusa City Schools to unpack how professional learning becomes real student impact. Emma has attended LACUE for five years, and she returns for one reason: to bring home resources she can use tomorrow. From technology that makes lessons click to ideas that elevate student projects, she shares how conferences fuel practical change and renew her energy for the classroom.Website: spotlight4success.com

Send us Fan MailThe floor at LACUE buzzes, but what stands out is a simple transformation: a teacher who once felt overwhelmed now walks with a plan to hand the mic to her students. We sit down with Lauren Domangue to trace how a yearbook program stretched into social media, and why podcasting is the natural next leap for a high school of 1,400 voices.Website: spotlight4success.com 

Send us Fan MailSamantha David gives a testimonial about her experience with ABC Products. Website: spotlight4success.com