Bragg, still known around the school as Miss Mac or Miss Macdonald after she got married last summer, was a classroom teacher for eight years in fourth, sixth, and seventh grade. Principal Julie Dixon said she has planned meaningful professional development, coached teachers, completed academic and behavioral Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) interventions with at-risk scholars, brought a thriving after school/tutoring program to life, and led the Social Committee to ensure that staff is consistently recognized and celebrated.
Becoming an instructional coach last year aligned with the leadership path she had taken behind the scenes of the classroom and has allowed her to share her expertise with incoming teachers.
Kelly Bragg has been a teacher for eight years at Linden and has filled in at different classrooms since becoming an instructional coach.
“At Linden, we are truly a family and everyone supports everyone,” she said. “When I started (National Heritage Academies), I know I had my struggles. That’s why I decided to go into being an instructional coach, so I could be there to support those people as they had their own struggles.”
Getting teachers used to the NHA way with weekly observations and ratings can be intense for new teachers and those coming from a public school background. Now as an instructional coach, Bragg has tried to use those measures as coachable moments that helped her so much when she was a teacher.
“I would not be where I am today without having the extensive coaching and the week-to-week observations,” she said. “That’s one thing that has really got me far with the people that I work with, I’m just doing anything and everything to help support you to make you a better teacher. It’s not a ‘gotcha’ moment. It's ‘how can we move forward’ and ‘how can we make you the best teacher possible?’”
Kelly Bragg helps students make volcanoes as part of Linden’s 3-5 STEM and K-2 science after school programs.
In keeping with her do-it-all mentality, Bragg hasn’t completely left the classroom on a day-to-day basis. She finished last year teaching eighth grade English Language Arts because Linden was down a teacher and returned to the classroom last month to fill in for Aneisha Smith's eighth grade math position during her maternity leave. The latter was an opportunity for her to connect with many kids she taught as fourth graders, making it just the latest example of her maintaining Linden’s level of excellence.
Keep up the excellent work, Ms. Bragg!
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Linden Charter Academy
Linden Charter Academy is a tuition-free, public charter school in Flint, Michigan, serving students in kindergarten through eighth grade. It is part of the National Heritage Academies network, which includes more than 100 tuition-free, public charter schools serving more than 65,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade across nine states. For more information, visit nhaschools.com.
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