Sandi Everlove was a Golden Apple Award winning high school science teacher when she determined she needed to know more to be an effective teacher for ALL of her students. Like many teachers in urban schools, her classes were filled with a diverse student population. Her training had not prepared her to address the learning needs of the English learners, struggling readers, and students with special needs sitting daily in her chemistry class.

Frustrated by the lack of meaningful professional development, Sandi began a quest for compelling, relevant, and on-going professional learning. She believed that the answers to better teaching already existed in classrooms across the county, and we simply needed to unlock the door.

In 2000 Sandi took a leave of absence from teaching, and founded TeachFirst. She believed that teachers, like other professionals, deserved opportunities to continuously develop their skills to meet the changing needs of their students. If professional learning for teachers would ever be on par with the continuing education of doctors, lawyers, and other professionals, the framework and resources for teacher learning would have to enter the 21st century.

The founding mission of TeachFirst was to improve learning for all students – particularly underperforming populations – by ensuring they had teachers with the skills and expertise to meet their needs. It remains TeachFirst’s mission today.

One of the greatest obstacles to teacher learning is the lack of opportunity to watch effective teachers in action. The original vision was to provide “a window” into successful classrooms by videotaping master teachers all over the country and to make those videos readily available to educators interested in honing their skills.

TeachFirst began building an online video library of teachers demonstrating instructional strategies.  Instead of “talking heads”, TeachFirst filmed real teachers, in real classrooms, with real students using the teaching strategies that had made their students successful.

While videos of authentic classroom instruction were powerful tools, TeachFirst soon realized that a video library alone was not enough.  Changing the learning outcomes of persistently underperforming students requires more than “pockets of excellent teaching.”

It requires all teachers to be continuously learning and using instructional strategies specifically geared to their students’ learning needs. In order for teachers to learn, they need opportunities to collaborate, resources to enhance their learning, and instructional leaders with the skills to support and sustain a community of learners—the three components of the TeachFirst Model.

In March of 2009, TeachFirst was acquired by Editure and continues to be a leading provider of sustainable “whole school” professional development to K-12 schools and districts across the country.

TeachFirst has helped thousands of district administrators, principals, teacher-leaders, and teachers create school-wide professional learning communities focused on improving the quality of classroom instruction. Our goal remains the same, better teaching, more learning, period.

TeachFirst is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.