Strengthening the practice and increasing the potential of individuals and teams to ensure student success
Collaborative Educational Practice, Inc. was founded to answer the call for relevant, personalized, and job-embedded professional development to promote continuous learning for staff and students. Utilizing core systems such as the inquiry-based learning cycle along with strengthening the professional learning community, individuals, teams, schools, and districts improve their practice and their potential to impact the success of every student.
Our team
Dr. Amy Bryant
Amy’s core values in her career and in her life are making a difference and courage. These values are evident throughout her career as she sought assignments to inspire students, teachers, and leaders to collaborate and invest in the power of best first instruction. Believing that continuous learning is key for everyone, she works toward co-learning with clients and customizing their path to take courageous steps to reform systems and processes to make a difference in the lives of students, teachers, and leaders. Our greatest gift to the 21st century is a generation of college, career, and civic ready students.
Amy’s journey in education started 24 years ago as a bilingual late-exit elementary teacher in Vista Unified School District. During her time in Vista, she also taught at the middle school level in ELA and history, and became a National Board Certified Teacher in English as a New Language. She also served as a Teacher on Special Assignment; instructional coaching and program oversight inspired her to mentor National Board candidates, as well as teacher induction candidates. Her love of working with adults on instructional practice inspired her doctoral specialization in curriculum and teaching. From there she served as the Director of Curriculum and Instruction, as well as an Elementary Principal in Capistrano Unified School District and in Carlsbad Unified School District. Consulting brings all of these years of experience together to share and grow along with the districts she has supported through the years.
Amy holds a B.A. in Spanish from San Diego State University, a M.Ed. in Cross-Cultural Teaching from National University, and an Ed.D. in Curriculum and Teaching from Northcentral University.
Vanessa de Guzman
Vanessa brings over 25 years of experience in education from Kinder through graduate school. She started her education career with Teach for America as a secondary science teacher in Oakland Unified School District. When she moved over to the international school system, she joined the International Baccalaureate team at the American School of Lima in Peru and, in a once-in-a-life-time opportunity, coordinated field studies in the Amazon for local communities of students and adults. In full circle of the teaching and learning of science, Vanessa was the lead author of a multi-state alternate certification pathway for secondary science teachers through The New Teacher Project and Insight Education Group.
In the service of students and educators, Vanessa directed professional development at one of the country’s first nation-wide charter school systems; furthermore, she helped expand the reach of two California-based professional development companies that support urban and rural districts. Vanessa has led teams in strategy, development, and implementation of service models for sustained improvement in the areas of teacher expertise, leadership development and systems coherence. Currently she is a field supervisor for Masters candidates in the area of Teaching and Learning at the University of La Verne.
Vanessa holds a B.A. from Northwestern University and a M.A. from Harvard University.
Cheryl krehbiel
Cheryl is a lifelong educator who has held a variety of positions – from teacher through deputy chief – in major urban districts. She also held leadership positions in national nonprofits that support and serve districts. Cheryl brings deep knowledge of College and Career Ready Standards, coaching, professional learning, and curriculum implementation.
Cheryl served as Senior Director of Strategic Program Implementation at the New Teacher Center (NTC). In that role, she was responsible for building the internal capacity of NTC staff about the CCRS, creating and testing new tools for teacher and principal mentoring ensuring alignment to the standards. Additionally, she served as client lead for principal and principal supervisor coaching work in several districts. Previously she served as Deputy Chief for Professional Development in the District of Columbia Public Schools and was responsible for the planning, delivery and implementation of a comprehensive professional development plan to increase the skills and knowledge of teachers, principals and other school staff so that student achievement improved. She also worked as Vice President of Edbuild, a DC non-profit organization and as a Staff Development Specialist in Montgomery County, Maryland and coordinated the Teacher-to-Teacher Workshops for the U.S. Department of Education, which produced numerous on-line offerings as well as face to face workshops where teachers from around the world could learn from some of the most successful teachers in the nation.
Wendy York Davoud
After graduating from Texas A&M University, Wendy taught middle school students in Texas and after relocating to Southern California, she served as a Secondary Literacy Coach in the Perris Union High School District. In 2008, Wendy was honored as Pinacote Middle School’s Teacher of the Year and was recognized by a non-profit organization for outstanding contributions to literacy. During her tenure as a classroom teacher and coach, Wendy worked as a consultant for the Riverside County Office of Education providing curriculum training for English Language Arts and Math adoptions to teachers and administrators. For the last ten years, Wendy has provided professional development and coaching supports to over 200 districts across the nation in several areas including curriculum design, English Language Learner strategies, Reciprocal Teaching, Direct Instruction, Process Writing, implementing common core standards, and the essential leadership and instructional practices foundational to “coherence making” and systemic improvement. As the founder and president of Lead.Teach.Learn.360, Wendy partners with superintendents, central office administrators, principals, school leadership teams, teachers, and industry-leading experts to ensure the best practices in leadership and instruction provide ALL students with opportunity to demonstrate equitable growth in learning and are equipped with the social-emotional, culturally responsive, and academic skills required to have exciting options for their futures.
NancY padilla, Ed.d.
Dr. Nancy Padilla has been passionate about teaching and learning for almost four decades working collaboratively with hundreds of administrators and teachers, scores of TK-12 schools, and over a dozen school districts in and out of California. With a Doctorate in Urban Educational Leadership from the University of Southern California, she has primarily worked with under-served student populations as a teacher, mentor, school site administrator, coach, and consultant. An award-winning leader with K-12 principal experience, her schools were recognized for success at each level--elementary, middle, and high school. After ‘re-wiring’ from public school service in 2013, Dr. Padilla founded her own company, Performance Education Partnership (PEP). She has been coaching district and site administrators as well as teachers in multiple school districts in California and Arkansas to foster capacity-building leadership, provide high-quality professional development, and facilitate system coherence with lead learners. Ever the student, Nancy still actively engages in her own professional growth by staying current on emerging educational research around social emotional learning, closing equity gaps, efficacious teaching practices, data-informed decision making, and the use of technology to transform and inspire today’s learners. Consistently demonstrating energetic leadership, strong human relation skills, and a passion for the greater good of all in the education community, her participatory style builds a “let’s see what we can do” climate grounded in high integrity and trust.
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Photo above by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
Gallery Photos by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash; Photo by You X Ventures on Unsplash; Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash