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To her role as Curriculum Editor at Springboard Collaborative, Andrea Avery relies on 20 years' experience as an English teacher and administrator alongside deep expertise as an editor, copyeditor, and writer. She is fascinated by the nuance and complexity of language, and its power to reflect--and to contest and construct--values, ideals, and reality. She also just really likes spelling and is knowing that the mashup of ? and ! is called an interrobang.

Andrea taught high school English for 14 years in an independent school in Arizona, where she especially enjoyed creating new courses. A favorite course was an editing elective, where students conceived their own literary magazines, solicited for submissions, curated selections, wrote acceptance and rejections, edited the collection, proofread every word, and hand-made zine-style first editions. She also served as Director of Curriculum and Instruction for the PK-12 program, where she helped lead faculty in efforts to reform scheduling, grading, assessment and curriculum to make them more student-centered, equitable, and supportive of learning.

Before working in education, Andrea worked in marketing, communications, and design as an editor and copyeditor. She helped her teams and clients create and uphold editorial style standards to ensure clarity, consistency, and trustworthy brand identity. As she moved into education, she brought along her editor's keen eye for detail and her endless fascination with the push-pull of rules and nuance in language use. Her own writing about education has appeared in the Harvard Educational Review, Radical Teacher, Independent School Magazine, The Oxford American, and the New York Times Learning Network. Currently, she is co-authoring a book on equitable classroom talk for Teachers College Press. Andrea holds a BA in Music, an MFA in Creative Writing, and an Ed.D in Leadership and Innovation, all from Arizona State University.

Growing up, Andrea was a huge fan of Amelia Bedelia. She related to Amelia's eagerness to follow the rules and get things just right, and cheered for Amelia's irrepressible creativity and unapologetic originality.