MARY LACEY HOLMES
Welcome!
I appreciate you visiting my site! I invite you to take a moment and look around. To learn more about my background, experience, skills and how we could potentially work together, simply contact me.
ABOUT ME
Professional Educator
Throughout my life, I’ve approached every challenge with enthusiasm, creativity, and ceaseless desire to achieve success. This passion and drive have paved the way to countless opportunities, unique experiences and exceptional relationships both personally and professionally. I am a change maker and seeking to collaborate with other professionals looking to create equitable and sustainable solutions to improve educational outcomes for all students.
"Fatigue makes cowards of us all."
-Vince Lombardi
MY EXPERIENCE
Roles & Responsibilities
July 2019- Current
HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER AND NATIONAL HONOR SOCIETY ADVISOR
I currently work as a Social Studies teacher and the National Honor Society Teacher Advisor at Franklin Academy High School. As an educator, I teach AP Psychology, Honors and Standard Civics and Economics, as well as Standard Psychology and Sociology. My AP students see great success in my course and score above the school, state and national average. I am practiced at finding unique ways to connect the content to the students during instruction and strive to provide students with appropriately rigorous work. I assess student understanding by regularly evaluating data to track growth and target my instruction. As an advisor, I oversee the largest Honors society at our high school. I monitor monthly service projects, student mentorship programs and student led tutoring programs. We served our community for a collective 3,000 hours.
August 2017- June 2019
HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, CURRICULUM DESIGNER, TEACH FOR AMERICA CORPS MEMBER
During my time at Garinger I taught Latin American Studies, African American Studies and Civics & Economics. I was one of two teachers in the entire district to instruct Latin American Studies. To enhance my professional skillset I joined the Beginning Teachers Leadership Institute and the Charlotte Teacher's Institute. In the latter, I was able to research, design and publish a Latin American Studies unit in partnership with UNC-C and CMS. Additionally, I joined the selective Latin American Studies Curriculum Development Team where I successfully co-wrote the 6th unit of study to be used by all high schools across the district beginning in September 2019. While working at Garinger High School, I was a Teach for America Corps Member. As a TFA alum I am one of 50,000 people, both past and present, who works for a powerful, impactful movement that seeks to understand education inequities in both theory and practice.
June 2015- November 2016
ENGLISH LANGUAGE SPECIALIST
During my time in Ethiopia, I directly taught 276 students. I facilitated weekly teacher trainings that focused on professional development as well as successfully started community economic development projects. One example of these projects is the community gardens my students and I built at school to help bring fresh vegetables closer to campus for students to eat. I also served on the STOMP Malaria Committee and helped create and monitor Peace Corps Malaria projects across Ethiopia. To monitor my growth, I submitted quarterly monitor and evaluation reports to Peace Corps. I actively advocated for gender equality in local community and participated in numerous multicultural and multilingual immersion opportunities. This complete cultural immersion sharpened my understanding of community, school and student needs to make more sustainable change.
ACADEMICS
Learning and Living
August 2018- May 2020
AMERICAN UNIVERSITY
The EPL program prepares educators and other professionals to serve as leaders in education organizations. Students gain the knowledge and skills in leadership, policy, law, economics, and research to effectively administer education programs and policies at all levels. While studying at American, I conducted research projects for the DC Public School System, Teach for America DC and Smart Start. I wrote policies and utilized data systems like STATA and Excel.
August 2011 - May 2015
UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI
The degree program at the University of Mississippi is approved for grades 7-12 licensure in secondary English. There are three phases for education majors: Phase I: Core Curriculum ; Phase II: Teacher Education Program; and Phase III: Student Teaching. During the professional education common-core coursework, teacher education candidates are required to observe and teach in selected classrooms, learning about effective teaching, developing professional dispositions working directly with practitioners and school students at varying grade and developmental levels.
MY SKILL SET
What I Do
Through my educational and professional experiences, I’ve had the opportunity to build a strong, diverse skill set that has proven to be an asset in many different situations. Read below to learn more.
CURRICULUM DESIGN
Curriculum involves planning activities, readings, lessons, and assessments that achieve educational goals. I have published two units of study for Latin American Studies. I have also designed courses of study focusing on Civics, Psychology and Sociology. In each of my courses, students demonstrated growth and understanding.
I am knowledgable on principles of Social-Emotional Learning, trauma informed instruction and student-centered practices.
“We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community. Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own.”