As a non-profit committed to providing support for great student leaders, we are big supporters of innovative and effective education. Alexis Dabney is someone who’s been involved with Stelos since her senior year at Texas State, and now she’s working on revolutionizing K-12 education.

Alexis founded her company, EDVOLUTIONARY, in 2019 after nearly a decade in classrooms and teaching every elementary grade from 1st through 6th.

“While switching grades almost every year was obviously not ideal,” she says, “getting a front row seat to what the structure of school does to diminish students’ engagement in learning over time was eye opening and ultimately what led me to start EDVOLUTIONARY.”

Alexis pitched her idea and was awarded the Stelos Alliance Social Innovation Fellowship, launching her research into child development, learning, and motivation. Along the way, she received her early childhood certification from the Association Montessori Internationale and began weaving together alternative educational approaches to create more intrinsically motivating and developmentally-appropriate learning environments for young children.

Alexis was hired at an elementary school in Denver Public Schools to implement her approach to primary mathematics in a K/1 classroom alongside the 2018 National Expeditionary Learning Teacher of the Year, Annie Holyfield.

“We realized we were education philosophy soulmates,” Alexis says. “And that a more student-centered approach to education was not going to spread if people weren’t aware of the science behind why our traditional school isn’t working and what we can do instead.”

This prompted them to start the podcast “That’s SO EDVOLUTIONARY,” to highlight research from psychologists, anthropologists and education thought leaders and then share how they were trying to translate it in their classroom.

“When you hear the research, you know we should be educating children differently. But a clear roadmap to actually implement it in a classroom doesn’t seem to exist yet. That’s what we are trying to change,” she says.

Alexis met Stelos Alliance President, Bill Poston, her senior year at Texas State when she was a part of the student government. She helped with the transition when the Bobcat football team moved to a D1 sport and then became a Teach for America corps member in Chicago.

Teach for America is an alternative teacher licensure program that places new educators in underserved schools around the country.

In addition to the podcast and consulting on their approaches to early math and literacy, Alexis and her now co-founder Annie have big plans for EDVOLUTIONARY.

“There are many people doing amazing things in the education space,” she says. “But in order to create widespread change we can’t just be good in our silos, we need to be a movement.”

You can listen to Alexis’ podcast here and anywhere you get your podcasts https://www.edvolutionary.org/podcast

Alumni Profile: Alexis Dabney