PopPD was founded by Alissa McDonald and Megan Kensington. They met through a mutual love of designing and sharing meaningful learning experiences for adult learners.
Over craft beer and French fries, Alissa and Megan discovered they had similar stories. First, that they each had a High School English Teacher for a mom… (Weird, right?)
What’s more… both Alissa and Megan left the classroom after years as ambitious educators who thrived in the classroom and loved their profession. They shared stories of feeling a passion for more, a drive to innovate… but they hit a wall when trying to find opportunities for growth in their teaching profession.
They set a goal to focus on supporting educators to share their unique genius with other educators around the world through a new, modern way of providing Professional Development experiences, online.
PopPD was created as a platform for educators to share their passion and create lasting change in the world of education.
Change in education is fueled by conversation and innovation among educators with a mix of perspectives, cultures, and backgrounds.
We are deeply committed to supporting educators, amplifying unique perspectives, and sparking joy through our platform. We also acknowledge that professional development in isolation is not the solution to the systemic change needed in education. We will uphold our vision for turning professional development on its head in service of educators, but this is not the only work we do to push forward change in education.
We align our diversity, equity, and inclusion work with 3 pillars: Our Coaches, our teacher participants, and our team. Everything we do within these 3 pillars is based on our core values: Empowerment, Growth, Equity, and Joy.
We welcome and seek to connect with educators from different races, generations, geographical locations, gender minorities, Black, Indigenous, and people of color, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and individuals with disabilities.
We give teachers the space to explore and experience different perspectives and points of view in a flexible setting with access to better tools, resources, and inspiration for supporting students from a variety of culture, races, belief systems, genders, sexual identities, and other backgrounds.
The future of the work must be inclusive. We look for voices unlike our own to help us carry the vision of this company forward. We believe in creating a work environment that breaks the mold and prioritizes the diverse needs of the team. We don’t have all the answers, but we will continue to ask the questions.
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