Abigail McCann

Abigail McCann

RIDES Fellow
Abigail McCann
Abigail McCann's experiences learning, teaching, and consulting in rural and urban communities across the country inspire her passion for curriculum and teacher development. She comes to the RIDES Leadership Fellowship for the opportunity to explore and develop strategies that will make space within schools for meaningful dialogue about diversity and inclusion. She believes that learning is a deeply personal experience that students should be able to find themselves within, not one they feel compelled to define themselves against. Abby's beliefs are inspired by her years teaching in underserved communities as a Teach For America corps member in South Louisiana and later as a teacher in metro Atlanta. Most recently, Abby worked with Purpose Built Schools, an Atlantabased start-up founded to support public school districts across the nation in innovating their lowest-performing schools within historically underserved communities. As Coordinator of Teaching and Learning at Purpose Built Schools, Abby designed and facilitated professional development for the next generation of highly-successful urban school teachers and leaders. She continues this work in the Learning and Teaching Master's Program at Harvard Graduate School of Education. After completing her degree and the RIDES fellowship, Abby intends to return to the teacher and curriculum development space at either a school district or education non-profit to explore curriculum design as a strategy for building equitable learning experiences for students. Abby graduated cum laude from Dartmouth College in 2011.