Brittany Burns is an educator with 11 years of teaching experience spanning elementary and middle school settings. She began her career in Florida, teaching for four years in Okeechobee and St. Lucie Counties. Throughout her career, she has served in a variety of educational roles, including general education teacher, special education teacher, and Title I teacher. Currently, Brittany serves as a Title I teacher in Fayette County, West Virginia. In addition to providing academic support to students, she plays a key role in planning and implementing family engagement initiatives for her school. Her work focuses on developing creative and meaningful opportunities to connect families with the school community. She is passionate about identifying strategies that encourage participation among families who may become less engaged as their children transition from elementary to middle school. Brittany is committed to fostering strong school-family partnerships and believes that meaningful family engagement is essential to student success. Her professional interests include family engagement, educational equity, special education, and supporting students in diverse learning environments.

I am Jody Carder-Hamilton from Wood County. I just completed my 28th year in education. I began my career as a 6th grade teacher for 4 years. The bulk of my career, 14 years, was spent as a 4th grade teacher. After that, I worked as a Librarian/Math Interventionist for 5 years. Currently, I am a School/Family Liasion for Wood County Title 1 Schools. I provide parent trainings to assist families in understanding the ways they can help their child from home.

Jennifer Eskridge is a passionate advocate for youth, families, and community growth. Throughout her career, she has dedicated herself to helping students overcome challenges, build confidence, and reach their full potential. Jennifer believes that strong communities are built through meaningful relationships, compassion, and service to others. As a wife, mother, small business owner, and community leader, she brings both professional experience and personal perspective to her work. She is committed to listening, collaborating, and helping create opportunities that strengthen the lives of those she serves.

My name is MaKayla McLemore, and I am the school counselor at Chapmanville Primary School, serving Pre-K through first-grade students. I am passionate about strengthening meaningful connections between families, schools, and the community to support student success. I am honored to be a Family Engagement Fellow and look forward to learning new strategies, sharing ideas with fellow educators, and strengthening the ways we support and engage our students and families.

Angela (Angie) Neal is a Title I Instructional Interventionist at Mountain Valley Elementary in Bluefield, WV (Mercer County). She has been teaching for 23 years, with most of those years being in a third-grade classroom. She also coaches cross-country at Princeton Senior High School, as she is very passionate about working with students of all ages. She is married to Mark, and has two sons, Zack (19) who is a sophomore at Concord University and Reid (15) who is a junior at Princeton Senior High School. She also has two beagles, Ellie and Clover. And lastly, she is very active in her church and believes with her whole heart the importance of living out her calling, which is pouring every bit of herself into those within her realm of teaching/coaching. A motto of hers is, "If you're going to do something, do it with your whole heart, or don't do it at all." She is very excited about being a WV LIFE Family Engagement fellow and all that the opportunity might hold in store for her.