Marian Wilkins
Marian Wilkins, a native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina recently moved to the DMV area in 2015. She currently serves as the Math Instructional Coach and LEAP Leader at Kelly Miller Middle School in Washington, DC. As a Mathematics LEAP Leader, IC Wilkins facilitates weekly professional development seminars to deepen teachers' content knowledge and develop and grow their instructional expertise. Each week IC Wilkins engages in weekly one-on-one, goal-oriented coaching touchpoints with each member of her department. The touchpoints are tailored to the individual needs of each teacher and can vary between co-planning, observation and debrief, and modeling and debrief. In the afternoons, IC Wilkins coordinated the afterschool program and Kelly Miller Middle School. The afterschool program was designed to offer a variety of programming options for scholars that differ from the regular school day. IC Wilkins partners with the East River Collaborative, DC Scores Soccer, Do the Write Thing, Higher Achievement, City Year Corps, and others to create a robust afterschool program. Additionally, Math and ELA teachers work in the newly created Iready Math and ELA Lab afterschool. This lab serves two purposes for each of our scholars, a filler for missed skills and acceleration of new content. IC Wilkins also serves as the Math testing coordinator and assists with promotion and high school placement for her 8th grade scholars. IC Wilkins oversees the Knock it out the PARCC Faculty and Parent Professional Development seminars and has been nicknamed the "iReady Lady" by her scholars.
Previously she was a middle school Math and Social Studies teacher in North Carolina for 9 years. At Kernersville Middle School IC Wilkins served as a grade level chair and a member of the academic leadership team. IC Wilkins created the Ladies of Distinction team, a performance art based organization that served the community. These ladies were and currently are the only middle school color guard team in the district that performs for the school and the greater community. Each year LOD partners with a local sorority to complete their yearly community service projects throughout the community. In 2014, LOD partnered with the Phi Omega chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated to host a screening of Girl Rising, a movie that, in telling the stories of nine young women in poorer countries around the world, shows what an important role education plays. The theme for the month was Girls Rising above their circumstances both locally and globally. The quote for the month was “An educated girl can empower herself, lift her family, help her community, change her country.”
IC Wilkins received her Bachelors Degree from North Carolina Central University in Middle Grades Education, Math and Social Studies. Her Masters from North Carolina A&T State University in Special Education and is currently working on her Education Specialist Degree in Educational Leadership and Administration from The George Washington University (class of 2018). IC Wilkins was an adjunct professor for three years at North Carolina A&T State University and Forsyth Technical Community College. This work haelp broadened and shape her work in Mathematics. Working with scholars from the middle school and college level allowed IC Wilkins to design lessons and programming that will prepare her scholars for the rigor of upper level Mathematics even at the middle school level. She holds teaching certificates in North Carolina and the District of Columbia. When IC Wilkins is not working she enjoys spending time with her two sons, Jaedyn (14) and Jayson (10), reading, and shopping. Her young Kings are her motivation and her goal is to ensure that they know they can do all things through Christ who strengthens them. IC Wilkins believes that it takes an entire community to reach, teach, and change the trajectory of our scholars' lives. She believes that all scholars can learn and should not be defined by the circumstances of their past.