A district leader in adolescent literacy initiatives, language arts teacher Darrell Yater models a variety of best practices both in and beyond his classroom at White Oak Middle School in Cincinnati. Teaching more than 100 heterogeneously grouped seventh graders, Yater and his teaching team engage students in creative activities that inspire a love of reading and reflection through writing. He uses student assessment data as a guide to improving instruction, organizes his classes and presentations around literature circles and employs Marzano's academic vocabulary strategies to help build literacy. His effectiveness as an educator has helped his students score above the district average on the Ohio Achievement Test (OAT) and above the 70th percentile on quarterly district assessments. Chair of the school's language arts department and leader of the intervention assistance team, Yates has developed and presented professional development workshops throughout the district, mentored several first-year teachers, and is a part-time faculty member at Xavier University, where he teaches courses on reading in the content area.
I currently support secondary curriculum needs in all areas. Most recently I facilitated a complete redesign of our curriculum documents, supported the implementation of district common formative and summative assessments, designed alternative programming at our middle schools, and lead the science curriculum council in furthering quality science education and STEM initiatives.
1994 Miami University, B.S.
