Fayth Keldgord, a 6th-grade teacher at Olive Vista Middle School in Los Angeles Unified School District (CA), has been named the Open Up Resources 6–8 Math Teacher of the Month for December. Keldgord is being recognized for her outstanding work in her classroom and ongoing support of teachers across the country as a member of the Open Up Resources National Professional Learning Community.

Keldgord’s work with Open Up Resources 6–8 Math makes her one of the most innovative teachers in the country. The Open Up Resources 6–8 Math curriculum inspires a new way of teaching math by transforming classrooms into hives of activity focusing on discussion, questioning, debate, and the deeper conceptual learning of mathematics that follows. 

Teaching colleague,  Sharon Robinson nominated Keldgord for the extensive work she did bringing the Open Up Resources 6–8 Math curriculum to their school and leading their team in implementation. Robinson shared, “Fayth worked diligently to bring us a high-quality primary source for mathematics  instruction and is a tremendous teacher and leader within our school.”

Beyond leading implementation efforts, Keldgord has also helped her team rapidly improve student achievement. She was excited to share that last year their sixth-grade team more than doubled their state assessment scored in their first year of implementing the curriculum. 

“Beyond the scores, I was amazed at how my students were aware of the shift in instruction,” Keldgord explained. “One of my students shared with me how excited they were to move away from being drilled with practice and instead had a curriculum that provided them with interesting problems and cared about them as people.”

Open Up Resources is a non-profit on a mission to increase equity in education by making excellent, top-rated curricula freely available to districts. You can learn more at www.openupresources.org. Learn more about our National Professional Learning Communities here.