We sit down with the 2024 Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year Ashlie Crosson to discuss her award, her feelings on PSEA membership, and why she stands by the phrase, "what's good for teachers is good for students." Hosted by PSEA President Aaron Chapin and Treasurer Rachael West.
We sit down with the 2024 Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year Ashlie Crosson to discuss her award, her feelings on PSEA membership, and why she stands by the phrase, "what's good for teachers is good for students." Hosted by PSEA President Aaron Chapin and Treasurer Rachael West.
Do you have some feedback for us? Send an email to podcast@psea.org.
Learn more and watch for upcoming episodes at psea.org/podcast.
Voiceover (00:02):
Welcome to Duty Free Lunch, the official podcast of the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Join us as we unpack the issues that matter most to you from cutting-Edge classroom strategies to thought-provoking policy discussions, if it impacts PSEA members, it's on the menu.
Aaron Chapin (00:24):
Hello and welcome to Duty Free Lunch. I'm PSEA President Aaron Chapin, and I'm here with PSEA treasurer, Rachael West. Hello, Rachael.
Rachael West (00:33):
Good morning, Aaron. How are you doing?
Aaron Chapin (00:34):
I'm doing great. It's another great day here in Harrisburg. Rachael, I was thinking on the way in today, I bet you'd agree that our students and schools in Pennsylvania have some of the best educators and support staff in the nation.
Rachael West (00:48):
Absolutely. I'd put our colleagues and our members up against anybody else. I think that's part of what makes this job such an amazing one. We get to spend so much time with all of those amazing educators and support staff.
Aaron Chapin (01:00):
I was constantly amazed when I was back in the classroom, just how great my colleagues were and all the inventive things that they came up with. That really leads us to today's guest. Our guest is the 2024 Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year, Ashlie Crosson. Ashlie is a Mifflin County High School English teacher and a member of the Association of Mifflin County Educators. A few weeks back, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to visit with her colleagues and meet Ashlie, and I knew as soon as I was talking with her that we needed to have her on the podcast. So, she's here today. It's an honor to have her to discuss her award, her feelings on PSEA membership, and her thoughts on the current state of teaching. So welcome, Ashlie.
Ashlie Crosson (01:51):
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Aaron Chapin (01:52):
Ashlie, have you been on a podcast before?
Ashlie Crosson (01:54):
Never.
Aaron Chapin (01:55):
Well, join the club. This is new for us too, but it's going to be great. We're going to talk just a little bit about your job, the award and everything there is. Just feel at ease. It's going to be great.
Ashlie Crosson (02:06):
Sounds good to me.
Aaron Chapin (02:07):
All right. Well, so tell us what it was like because Rachael and I have never been teacher of the year.
Rachael West (02:15):
Nope.
Aaron Chapin (02:16):
Even though I'm sure I have lots of students that think that. But what was it like when you found out that the Pennsylvania Department of Education had named you the 2024 Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year? What was your immediate reaction and was it completely unexpected?
Ashlie Crosson (02:33):
Do you want the honest answer?
Aaron Chapin (02:34):
Yeah. This is straight talk here.
Ashlie Crosson (02:37):
My immediate reaction was run. So we're mentored by the two previous teachers of the year, so that's Elizabeth Raff and Ryan Hardesty, and they are remarkable mentors for us. They had told us if your name is mentioned or if your name is called you might not feel just joy. I was like, okay. Then they went on to explain all the things you're going to do in the next two years and how overwhelming it is. I was like, oh, that makes a lot of sense. So then when my name was announced, my immediate reaction was like, oh, these other 11 people are absolutely amazing, are you sure it wasn't one of their names on the envelope? I think it's not me.
(03:19)
But after that, then I was pretty excited. I'm really looking forward to advocating for our teachers and our profession and our schools. It's a tremendous honor. Feels like a big responsibility right now. As for completely unexpected, somebody did the math for me, there was an 8% chance that any finalist would win. So I guess I started to warm up to the idea, but I was also very comfortable with any of the other 11 finalists. They really are remarkable. So, I don't know. They don't tell you what made you stand out. So the world will never know.
Aaron Chapin (04:00):
Well, I'm guessing you, like many of us in the classroom, think that you're just doing what you should be doing and what you need to be doing. That it's just a bizarre set of circumstances for you to be nominated in the first place or even to be chosen.
Ashlie Crosson (04:15):
Yeah. There's 10, 20 teachers in every district who are worthy of Teacher of the Year, if not more. So I'm really just the spokesperson for all of us. I'm not better, I'm just holding the title.
Aaron Chapin (04:30):
Even more unique, Rachael, is that she comes from a very small community. I just traveled out there a couple of weeks ago and it's just outside State College, correct? Yep. So it's a very small community.
Ashlie Crosson (04:41):
Yeah.
Rachael West (04:43):
Oh, wow.
Ashlie Crosson (04:44):
We've never had so much as a semi finalist, let alone a winner.
Rachael West (04:49):
That's amazing. What a great honor for your town as well. I'm sure everybody there is really excited in that community, just knowing that somebody from their community is now holding this title.
Aaron Chapin (04:58):
You're a rock star.
Ashlie Crosson (05:00):
It does feel good. I grew up in that community and I came back to teach there about 19 years into my career. So, to be able to come back and do something positive for my community, that feels really good.
Aaron Chapin (05:14):
Excellent.
Rachael West (05:14):
That's awesome. So I know that Aaron mentioned all of us are in our classrooms doing our thing and thinking we're just doing our thing. Do you have any idea what it was that made do you stand out, that think was the thing that made you get this honor?
Ashlie Crosson (05:32):
I don't know if I have a thing. I think all of the finalists definitely have certain things on their resume that are atypical. For me, I'm a Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms Fellow, so I hold a national fellowship and a fancy piece of paper signed by the president. So, maybe that's part of it. But I think beyond that, you have to submit three videos in your finalist round. For my introduction video, you have to introduce yourself and your community. I had all 1200 of the high school students in my video and they introduced our school with a big drone.
Aaron Chapin (06:10):
That's cool.
Ashlie Crosson (06:11):
We had some high production value going into the finals. But I think ultimately, PDE wants to see teachers who are passionate about what they're teaching, passionate about the profession, and passionate about serving their community. I think I try to do that most days.
Rachael West (06:28):
Well, it sounds like if you had that high school all behind you in that intro, I think that shows that your community is behind you and that you are an important piece of that community.
Ashlie Crosson (06:41):
The nice thing about rural schools is your school system really is your landing point for your community. So, they will rally behind their teachers pretty quickly.
Aaron Chapin (06:52):
That really is what makes up so many of our schools in Pennsylvania. We always think of the big cities or the very large suburban schools, but a lot of our local school districts are just that, small community schools. They are the backbone of these communities.
Ashlie Crosson (07:07):
Yeah, absolutely. Our rural population is one that maybe gets a little bit overlooked in the political discourse and whatnot, especially in our purple state. But there are a lot of issues facing our schools that are very similar to what faces urban districts, especially when it comes to the underfunding issue. So that's something that I'm like, we should all be able to get behind. I would really like to have more conversations within this role about what underfunding looks like in rural areas because so often when we talk to legislators about it, they look at urban underfunding. I was like, it looks different over here, but it's still happening.
Aaron Chapin (07:46):
Sure. So again, I've had the opportunity to meet you on a couple of occasions now, but I think a lot of our listeners would just be curious to know what's your educational career look like up until this point and where do you see it going? For our listeners that aren't seeing you right now, you're still fairly young and you've got a lot of career ahead of you. So, where have you started? What's it look like? And where do you think it's going to start going?
Ashlie Crosson (08:10):
Yeah, sure. So I graduated from college. I went to Susquehanna University and I graduated in 2011. That's a doom and gloom year for public educators in Pennsylvania. So actually, I started teaching in Delaware out of college because the education cuts from Governor Corbett were so steep that I couldn't get a job because there were no jobs to be had in that year. The district I work for now furloughed over 50 people that year.
Aaron Chapin (08:38):
Which is pretty significant considering the amount of... It's about 300 members or so, something like that.
Ashlie Crosson (08:42):
Yeah. Eventually they got called back, but I was competing against people who had three, four years in the classroom. So I spent a year in Delaware and then I came back, I worked in Bellefonte Area School District, which is also outside of State College, for eight years and gained my sea legs there. Very appreciative for all the coaching and mentoring that I received. Then I came back home to Mifflin County, and I've been there for the past four years. I have my master's degree from Penn State and a couple other things, my gifted credential.
(09:14)
But beyond that, where things go from here. Well, since I hold this role, my classroom looks very different for the next two years. I have a lot going on outside of the four walls of what I'm teaching. But I think for me, looking at where do my feet fit with an education, I'm very comfortable and happy in the classroom. I became a teacher because I wanted to work with students and I wanted to inspire the next generation. So, I don't necessarily see myself leaving. However, I'm also in this transitional part in my career where I've spent a baker's dozen of years advocating for my students and doing what I can to help them. Now I'm starting to feel that call to do the same for my colleagues and to advocate for teachers. So we'll see where that leads.
Aaron Chapin (10:05):
I know that very well. Again, we spend the first really third of our career just getting settled, grounded, feeling like we know what we're doing. Then for a lot of us, I know Rachael and myself and Jeff, we feel the same way. It's like all of a sudden once you feel grounded, feel comfortable, there's that next component, again, standing up for your colleagues and making sure that they're getting what they need.
Ashlie Crosson (10:28):
Yeah, I think it's part of our innate lifelong learning philosophy that's not just a boilerplate thing for most teachers. We really do constantly grow, constantly reflect. So yeah, that becomes a natural leap for some of us. That being said, I have no interest in ever being an administrator. I could never do their job.
Aaron Chapin (10:47):
It's a tough job.
Ashlie Crosson (10:48):
I'll advocate for teachers in a different way.
Aaron Chapin (10:50):
No, that makes complete sense.
Rachael West (10:53):
It's funny, that bridge between the students and the teacher advocacy leads into my next question for you. So I've heard you talk about the statement that a PSEA UniServ said that really struck a nerve with you, which is what's good for the teacher is what's good for the student. Can you elaborate on what that means for you?
Ashlie Crosson (11:13):
Yeah, sure. So I had the privilege of going to Gettysburg this summer. That was my first trip to Gettysburg. I don't think anybody who goes to Gettysburg doesn't fondly remember their first trip, then just immediately looks forward to the next one. But I took the bargaining pathway while I was there because we're bargaining this year, and I wanted to see what I needed to do at the table. But one of the UniServ reps was one of our instructors, and his name was Adam. He was talking us through how do you handle whether it's administrators, board members, community members or whatever, who are maybe to consider some of the asks or the changes that you're requesting in your CBA and within your community. He said his motto is consistently, what's good for teachers is good for students.
(12:06)
It was just like a light bulb moment for me because, up until this point, and I think for a lot of new educators, we have this idea that the best way to serve our students and serving kids is at the forefront of our job and our ideals every day. We think, well, in order to do that, I have to sacrifice myself. That I have to put myself and my family and my time and everything else on the line to better serve my kids. That's how we end up with such high levels of teacher burnout. So to hear him say, "If you want to advocate for your students, advocate for yourself," was like, oh.
Aaron Chapin (12:46):
That's right.
Ashlie Crosson (12:49):
I just felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. Yeah. I don't know. It was really revelatory for me.
Aaron Chapin (12:56):
You know what, Ashlie? It's not the first time I've heard it. I think a lot of us as educators feel like it's just not in our DNA. We always are there for the kids first and foremost, and to ask something for us, it's very foreign to educators.
Ashlie Crosson (13:09):
It really is.
Rachael West (13:10):
Just that reminder though that you can't pour from an empty cup. So, we keep expecting our teachers to pour from empty cups. If we aren't looking out for ourselves, nobody else is looking out for us either. We are only going to serve our children well if we are being well-served. So it is that moment where you're like, wait a minute, why are we doing this this way? We should definitely be looking out for ourselves too. I understand that you weren't necessarily very actively involved in your association until recently. So what changed? What made that shift? How did you end up at Gettysburg last year?
Ashlie Crosson (13:48):
So I thought about this a little bit on my drive in and how I ended up here at this table. I think as cliche as it might be at this point, a few years out, it was COVID. Up until then, my union was doing all the union things and it was just behind the scenes for me. But then COVID came and suddenly the power and the voice of our union became the thing that was protecting us and protecting our students. Our administration was turning to us saying, what do you need? How do we do this? Because it was a bigger problem than they could solve on their own. So they were willing to come to the teachers and say, help.
(14:30)
So for me, when I saw that, then I was like, oh, well, what else can we do? How else can I get involved? I had a scholarship to go to Gettysburg from Central Region, and so there are a lot of opportunities to get involved in PSEA without it digging into the pocketbook. For me, that's important. But then now I look at it and I'm like, okay, well this is giving me a way to be a bigger part of my profession, not just for my students, but as a professional. That I think is another hardship that's hard for teachers. The PSEA does a really good job bridging that for us.
Aaron Chapin (15:07):
Well, and again, this isn't the first time that we hear this as an example. You could think, look, there's lots of things that take place inside school districts that teachers want to stand up for their kids. But I think back, I haven't been doing this maybe for half my time as a teacher, but it started when it came after the cuts back in, what you referenced earlier, back in '09, '10, and '11. I got involved because I couldn't stand to see these significant cuts, and I got more involved. That's what happens sometimes for educators.
Ashlie Crosson (15:39):
Yeah. Now, our profession has become really politicized and the strength of your union is what's going to weather the storm, however this storm plays out.
Aaron Chapin (15:52):
Absolutely. Exactly.
Rachael West (15:54):
So what do you see as a big gap right now in the education field? We're talking about what we're doing to strengthen ourselves and weathering this storm. So what do you see as the gap in this storm and how do you think we could remedy that?
Ashlie Crosson (16:14):
The teacher shortage is definitely a huge issue. Everybody knows that, so I don't know how much we have to talk about it, but the educational funding issue and the commission and the report that's coming out of that is also high on our priority list. I think the other thing, and president Becky Pringle talked about this in a previous podcast, we have a diversity issue that we need to address. I'm really excited for the ways that the PSEA is working to do so, especially through Ed Rising. So I think we have gaps, but I think we're also becoming very aware of them and we're problem solving them.
Aaron Chapin (16:52):
Yeah. What Ashlie's referencing is in Ed Rising, we have instituted this year we're looking for high schools to start to identify some potential future educators by offering programs inside their school districts that could be during the school day or after school. We're hoping that we can inspire the next generation, and that's what we're trying to do. We need to find educators to go into this profession. It's just not going to happen. So we need to go out into our schools and really show them the magic of what it's like to be an educator. So, hopefully we can fix that diversity gap that exists right now.
Ashlie Crosson (17:31):
When I taught in Delaware, I had a learning support teacher, and he was very professionally dressed, strong black man. I was like, "How'd you end up here?" He's like, "Those kids need to see me here." I was like, "Oh, never mind. Question answered. Whatever you want to do in the classroom, please let me know." So to see that play out firsthand and how that impacted, I taught in a high minority school in Delaware, and he was absolutely right. I can be a role model to an extent, but I definitely shouldn't be the only one.
Aaron Chapin (18:03):
Yeah. Across Pennsylvania, we've seen the studies, so many of our school districts, so many of our kids have never seen a teacher of color ever in their high school, elementary time.
Rachael West (18:17):
I'm one of them. I've still not had a teacher of color in my entire education career. So I think that it is a huge piece that is a gap. It's the mirrors and windows, right?
Ashlie Crosson (18:33):
Exactly.
Rachael West (18:33):
So everybody needs to see people that look like them and people that don't. So, I appreciate you bringing up that being a really big gap.
Aaron Chapin (18:42):
Well, Rachael, that's going to take us to our bonus round.
Rachael West (18:44):
Okay. Pop quiz.
Ashlie Crosson (18:47):
Okay.
Rachael West (18:47):
What excites you most about the future of teaching?
Ashlie Crosson (18:51):
Oh, everything. So I think I am really excited that when I go to a PSEA event, I see so many college students there. I didn't come to a PSEA event as a college student.
Aaron Chapin (19:02):
I didn't even know it existed when I was in college.
Ashlie Crosson (19:02):
I didn't either.
Aaron Chapin (19:02):
I went to Penn State. I didn't know the union existed.
Ashlie Crosson (19:07):
I didn't either. So, that has me really energized. Beyond that, I am energized to see where we go from here. I mentioned earlier, I am a Teachers for Global Classrooms fellow, and if I can try to find anything good that came out of the chaos that was 2020, it's that we had this thing happen to us at a global level. So, I think that helping students identify their global competencies and strengthen their global citizenship is the next page in public education. There are already a lot of states who are working to adopt those kinds of standards, add those kinds of certificates to their high school diplomas. I think Pennsylvania is ready to take on that step, while we solve a lot of other things. But that's one that's in the classroom that I want to see. What are we doing to build the next generation?
Aaron Chapin (20:02):
Wow. This is a great gathering for us today. It's a good refresher. Good reminder just how great our teachers are in our schools, Rachael. Ashlie is just one of many, but you are just a great example of what we do for our kids. So thank you for all that you do. That energy, I love it. It's amazing.
Ashlie Crosson (20:23):
Thank you for having me, and thank you for being such strong leadership for all of us.
Aaron Chapin (20:26):
Thank you very much. For all of our listeners, Ashlie will be around as we go through the spring and hopefully into the summer. I know you'll be coming to our House of Delegates in May, and hopefully maybe you'll think about coming to Gettysburg. I know you got a very packed schedule, but our Gettysburg-
Ashlie Crosson (20:46):
It does overlap, but I'm going to try to come for a few days.
Aaron Chapin (20:47):
Well, that would be great. Make sure that if you see Ashlie out, talk to her, because she's just another shining example of what our educators are like in Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, we are all out of time today. Our guest has been Ashlie Crosson. She's the 2024 Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year. It's been an absolute pleasure, as I said, to have you on this podcast, and we can't wait to see you at the next PSEA event. So thank you again, Ashlie, for coming in. Thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. Do you have some feedback, perhaps a question, maybe you need some advice? Please email us at podcast@psea.org. Again, I'm Aaron Chapin.
Rachael West (21:31):
I'm Rachael West.
Aaron Chapin (21:32):
And you've been listening to Duty Free Lunch. Bye for now.
Voiceover (21:35):
You've been listening to Duty Free Lunch with the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Visit psea.org/podcast to learn more, and don't forget to subscribe and share. Paid for by the Pennsylvania State Education Association.