2026 North Carolina Education Innovation Lab Agenda
March 23, 2026
10:00 am Welcome & Opening Remarks
Chris William | Board Member, BEST NC
10:05 am From Conversation to Action: Why Tailored Learning, Why Now?
Brenda Berg | President & CEO, BEST NC
10:25 am National Perspectives Panel: The Promise — and Practical Reality — of Tailored Learning
This panel provides a national, research-based foundation for the day, clarifying what tailored learning is — and what it is not. Drawing on decades of work in competency-based education, participants will define the distinctions and overlaps among CBE, mastery-based learning, and personalized learning, emphasizing that tailored learning is a system of redesign, not a curriculum or instructional add-on.
The keynote will examine why traditional, summative assessment models provide only static snapshots of learning and fail to diagnose specific gaps or readiness for acceleration. In contrast, the session will highlight how formative, performance-based, and adaptive assessments enable real-time instructional decision-making. This session will also examine common implementation pitfalls — such as starting with report cards instead of competencies — and outline the conditions required for scale and equity.
Virgel Hammonds | Co-CEO, FullScale
Lisa McIntyre-Hite, Ph.D | Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Competency-Based Education Network
Moderator: Brenda Berg | BEST NC
11:00 am Building the Foundation for Tailored Learning: Structures, Culture, and Policy Alignment
This panel explores the foundational shifts required to move from time-based schooling to mastery-based progression. Panelists will describe how tailored learning reshapes grading practices, pacing, instructional roles, and school structures — and why these changes are often most viable in high-need contexts willing to rethink traditional models.
This conversation will address cultural and technical barriers, including community understanding of grading, teacher collaboration time, and calibration of mastery expectations. Panelists will also clarify where policy flexibility exists today in North Carolina and what statutory or regulatory changes may be needed to support broader adoption. The session is designed to help participants understand that successful tailored learning depends on aligned systems, not isolated innovation.
Kayla Siler | CBE Partnership, RTI International
Angela Whitford-Narine | CEO, Second Mile Education Schools
Rachel Wright Junio | Golden LEAF Project Lead, North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NC DPI)
Moderator: Rupen Fofaria | Director, North Carolina State Board of Education
11:50 am Remarks by the Honorable Josh Stein, Governor of North Carolina
12:05 pm Networking Lunch
12:50 pm Breakout Sessions: Round 1
EBC 7: Classroom Practice and Instructional Design
This breakout makes tailored learning concrete by focusing on instructional practice inside real classrooms. Facilitators will highlight how many educators already use formative assessment, flexible grouping, and differentiated pathways — often without labeling them as competency-based practices. Participants will examine how clearer learning targets, better assessment design, and emerging AI-enabled tools can help teachers understand precisely what students know and do not know. The session emphasizes how tailored learning can support both remediation and acceleration without stigma, while reducing — not increasing — teacher workload when implemented thoughtfully.
Facilitators:
Jessica Avery | AVID District Director, Pitt County Schools
Rachel Candaso | 2025 North Carolina Teacher of the Year, Pitt County Schools
Matt Daniels | Assistant Principal at Pactolous Global School, Pitt County Schools
EBC 8: Leadership, Systems, and Policy Conditions
This session synthesizes the day’s learning to identify what must change outside the classroom to support tailored learning at scale. Participants will consider implications for state guidance, accountability systems, reporting structures, and cross-sector alignment with higher education and workforce pathways.
The focus is on translating insight into action, clarifying near-term priorities, roles, and decision points for state agencies, districts, philanthropy, and intermediaries.
Facilitator:
Maureen Stover | Vice President of Research & Engagement, BEST NC
EBC 9: Scaling Tailored Learning Across North Carolina
This breakout focuses on how tailored learning could scale responsibly across North Carolina. Participants will examine policy tools such as pilot grants, phased implementation models, and networked learning communities, drawing lessons from SB 580, the Golden LEAF PCBE cohort, and SparkNC.
Groups will discuss how to balance innovation with coherence, identify capacity-building needs, and design pilots that inform long-term policy rather than remain isolated experiments.
Facilitators:
Dr. Lynn Moody | President, SparkNC
Rachel Wright Junio | NC DPI
1:20 pm Breakout Sessions: Round 2
EBC 7: Classroom Practice and Instructional Design
This breakout makes tailored learning concrete by focusing on instructional practice inside real classrooms. Facilitators will highlight how many educators already use formative assessment, flexible grouping, and differentiated pathways — often without labeling them as competency-based practices. Participants will examine how clearer learning targets, better assessment design, and emerging AI-enabled tools can help teachers understand precisely what students know and do not know. The session emphasizes how tailored learning can support both remediation and acceleration without stigma, while reducing — not increasing — teacher workload when implemented thoughtfully.
Facilitators:
Jessica Avery | AVID District Director, Pitt County Schools
Rachel Candaso | 2025 North Carolina Teacher of the Year, Pitt County Schools
Matt Daniels | Assistant Principal at Pactolous Global School, Pitt County Schools
EBC 8: Enabling Conditions and Next Steps
This session synthesizes the day’s learning to identify what must change outside the classroom to support tailored learning at scale. Participants will consider implications for state guidance, accountability systems, reporting structures, and cross-sector alignment with higher education and workforce pathways.
The focus is on translating insight into action, clarifying near-term priorities, roles, and decision points for state agencies, districts, philanthropy, and intermediaries.
Facilitator:
Maureen Stover | Vice President of Research & Engagement, BEST NC
EBC 9: Scaling Tailored Learning Across North Carolina
This breakout focuses on how tailored learning could scale responsibly across North Carolina. Participants will examine policy tools such as pilot grants, phased implementation models, and networked learning communities, drawing lessons from SB 580, the Golden LEAF PCBE cohort, and SparkNC.
Groups will discuss how to balance innovation with coherence, identify capacity-building needs, and design pilots that inform long-term policy rather than remain isolated experiments.
Facilitators:
Dr. Lynn Moody | President, SparkNC
Rachel Wright Junio | NC DPI
2:15 pm Measuring What Matters: Assessment & Accountability
This panel addresses one of the most persistent challenges in tailored learning: how to measure mastery, growth, and readiness fairly and transparently. Panelists will examine the limitations of traditional summative assessments and the promise of formative, adoptive, and competency-aligned approaches.
The discussion will include North Carolina’s current assessment landscape — particularly NC Check-Ins 2.0, and how it could evolve to support real-time instructional insight without abandoning accountability. Equity considerations will be central, with attention to calibration, grading consistency, and avoiding new forms of gatekeeping. The session reinforces that assessment is not a technical detail, but a core design choice that shapes instructional culture.
Leah Carper | Director of Stakeholder Engagement, Guilford County Schools
Nicholas Munyan-Penney | Assistant Director of P-12 Policy, Ed Trust
Moderator: Brenda Berg | BEST NC
2:55 pm Closing Remarks
Brenda Berg | BEST NC