Phoenix (June 2, 2026) - The National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET) is excited to welcome 13 outstanding educators from across the country to the 2027 Teacher Leader Fellows cohort. These educators will learn alongside NIET in a one-year program to deepen their knowledge of instructional best practices to more effectively support the work taking place within and beyond their school and district.

"I am proud to welcome these 13 exceptional educators into our 2027 NIET Teacher Leader Fellows cohort,” said NIET Chief Executive Officer Dr. Joshua Barnett. “This fellowship is rooted in NIET’s strong commitment to empowering educators, creating impactful teacher leadership roles, and generating excellence in schools nationwide. We look forward to working with these outstanding teacher leaders throughout this year as they expand their impact by strengthening instruction and accelerating student achievement in their schools, districts, and states.”

The NIET Teacher Leader Fellows Program consists of dynamic teacher leaders from schools who demonstrate educator excellence with a proven ability to advance student success and model this ability to other educators. This year’s selected fellows are listed below:

1. Chase Fowler, Trumann School District, AR
2. Amanda Perring, Riverview School District, AR
3. Valeria Orozco, Somerton School District #11, AZ
4. Amanda Merrill, Osborn School District #8, AZ
5. Andrea McCoy, Metropolitan School District of Washington Township, IN
6. Andrew Jaynes, Indianapolis Public Schools, IN
7. Jessica Thompson, DeSoto Parish Schools, LA
8. Kiera Deloch, East Baton Rouge Parish School System, LA
9. Kimberly Gray, Bossier Parish Schools, LA
10. Joshua Knight, Richland County School District One, SC
11. Ashley Billingsley, Oneida Special School District, TN
12. Olivia Grubbs, Grapeland Independent School District, TX
13. Nadia Perusquia, Cotulla Independent School District, TX

As part of the fellowship, each will receive a $7,500 stipend, participate in professional development activities designed to enhance their leadership capabilities, and contribute to the development of content for NIET. Each fellow will also shadow NIET’s team locally to advance their coaching skills to more effectively support educators in their own schools and districts.

To be eligible for the NIET Teacher Leader Fellows Program, applicants must be school-based teacher leaders, have at least three years of experience as a full-time teacher leader, and expect to remain in a teacher leader position for the upcoming school year. The program will run from July 2026 through June 2027. The fellows this year were selected from a competitive application pool from across the nation.

For more information about the NIET Teacher Leader Fellows Program, please visit NIET.

About NIET

For more than 25 years, NIET has worked in developing teacher leaders, supporting successful instructional strategies, and building educator capacity to address student needs. NIET partners with schools, districts, states, and universities to ensure all students have effective educators. Through these partnerships, NIET has served more than 11,000 schools and has impacted more than 350,000 educators and 3.5 million students.