Partnership with Teach For America

Teach For America and Lighthouse Academies are dedicated to ensuring educational equity for all children. This means staffing schools with outstanding teachers and school leaders who are dedicated to academic excellence. Teach For America’s School Leadership Initiative has a goal to increase the number of qualified alumni pursuing pathways to school leadership. With a base of more than 20,000 alumni, 67% of whom are involved in K-12 education, Teach For America is able to meet Lighthouse Academies’ growing demand for exceptional principals and other school leadership positions in its expanding network of schools.

Through the School Leadership Initiative, Teach For America seeks to accelerate the path to the principalship for qualified TFA alumni through a partnership with Lighthouse Academies. This partnership recruits TFA alumni to the Teacher Leader Fellow program and a variety of school leadership positions.

Impact of Partnership

67 TFA Alumni and Corps Member Teachers
25 TFA Alumni School and National Leaders
10 TFA Alumni Board Members

Lisa Rusen

Director of Instruction, East Chicago Lighthouse Charter School

How are Teach For America and Lighthouse Academies aligned?

The driving forces behind both TFA and LHA are data and high expectations. In both organizations, I have felt continually pushed to be a better educator and had access to meaningful data that informs my decisions as a teacher.

What do you love about your job?

 I love the focus Lighthouse places on the whole child and the emphasis on social curriculum. I feel like every day I am socially and academically preparing my students for college.  

Why do you teach and lead at Lighthouse Academies?

 I teach and lead at Lighthouse Academies because I see evidence of our students’ growth on a daily basis and know the work that we are doing is impacting student achievement.

Rahul Jyoti

College Prep Academy Math Teacher, Indianapolis Lighthouse Charter School

How are Teach For America and Lighthouse Academies aligned?

Teach for America and Lighthouse Academies both live by the idea that all students deserve a high quality education no matter where they live. They both believe in holding students to high expectations and working hard to improve teaching. They are also aligned in the way that they assess teacher effectiveness with the Lighthouse rubric being very similar to the TFA rubric.

What do you love about your job?

I love working with people that are as committed to student success as I am. The staff at Lighthouse believes that all students can succeed and will do anything they can to help students learn. I also love the flexibility that is provided at Lighthouse. New ideas are welcomed and anything is possible at Lighthouse as long as it can help students learn.

Why do you teach and lead at Lighthouse Academies?

I joined Lighthouse Academies because of the commitment to students and providing them an excellent education. All of the staff that I have worked with are completely behind the mission that all of our students will graduate from college and work hard to achieve these goals. I continue to teach and lead here because of this commitment by all staff members and belief that the students we serve can and will graduate from college someday.

Chrissy Hart

Principal, Gary Lighthouse College Prep Academy

How are Teach For America and Lighthouse Academies aligned?

The mission to prepare students for college and believing that every child is capable of and will achieve the goal of graduating from college. On top of that the organization is reflective, data driven and seeking to always improve which is a lot like TFA and great TFA teachers.

What do you love about your job?

 I love working with a group of dedicated and like-minded teachers that inspire me to work hard for them and our students every single day. I love our kids and watching the growth that they have made year after year and watching them develop not only as scholars, but as great people.

Why do you teach and lead at Lighthouse Academies?

I teach and lead at Lighthouse Academies because of our kids.