Xavier Adams, a high school history teacher at Orange High School in Hillsborough, N.C., has always wanted to work with young people and provide high-quality learning experiences.
At Baylor University, where he majored in religious studies, Adams volunteered all four years with a youth ministry organization that worked with and mentored low-income young people of color. He met with those students every Thursday. He eventually went from being a volunteer to preparing volunteers and preparing lessons for the Thursday meetings with students.
“Those were some of my earliest teaching chops,” Adams said.
After graduating, he worked at an arts nonprofit in Waco, Texas, and then moved to Durham and earned a Master of Theological Studies from Duke University. During his time at Duke, he interned with a summer camp organization and realized he wanted to work with K-12 students more consistently. He wanted to make a daily impact in their lives so earned a Master of Arts in Teaching degree and student taught at Durham Early College and Charles B. Jordan High School.
Even with years of supporting and teaching young people in formal and informal settings, Adams officially launched his teaching career in 2020 during the height of a global pandemic when remote learning was the norm, a necessity. He taught his first class on Zoom.
“There is nothing that can prepare you for that experience,” Adams said.
Even so, Adams notes that he is fortunate to have had supportive colleagues and leaders around him – and a district that intentionally leverages North Carolina’s New Teacher Support Program (NTSP) to equip its beginning teachers with a coach.
During the 2020-21 school year, Adams worked with NTSP instructional coach Sarah Petty (’13 M.S.A.), who spent nearly a decade teaching in a high school social studies classroom, to implement his vision for his classroom.
“I had a lot of lofty ideas about student engagement, including different kinds of homework assignments and what testing could look like. I like class discussions,” Adams said. “I came to teaching wanting to do things differently. I had great ideas but didn’t quite know how to package them, and structure is so important for students to thrive.”
“Sarah was someone outside of the school building who I could talk to about what I was doing in the classroom,” Adams continued. “She was able to walk me through how I could translate my ideas in ways that were tangible and accessible to all my students.”
After his first year in the classroom Adams was named the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching 2022 Prudential North Carolina Beginning Teacher of the Year.
A longstanding commitment
NTSP launched nearly 15 years ago as part of North Carolina’s Race to the Top proposal to improve the performance and retention of beginning teachers in the state’s lowest-performing schools. It continues to be a collaboration between the UNC System and the Council of Education Deans.
The NTSP has grown to become a leading university-based induction support through the belief in and practice of transformative, intentional coaching to increase student achievement by improving beginning teacher effectiveness and retention. The program supports the state’s beginning teachers through consistent, individualized, in-the-moment coaching aligned to individualized growth and personalized professional development.
While the NTSP is a program of the UNC System, it is fiscally and administratively coordinated by East Carolina University. NTSP services are administered through the state’s public universities in collaboration with public schools and school districts. Teachers are served by experienced instructional coaches who understand their local community, the needs of beginning teachers, and quality instructional practice.
Petty is one of seven experienced instructional coaches based out of the UNC School of Education. Working closely with nearby districts, the School administers the NTSP in and near the Research Triangle. During the 2024-25 North Carolina public school year, the UNC School of Education has NTSP instructional coaches in Orange County, Chatham County, Franklin County, Oxford Preparatory Academy, and a variety of other locations serving North Carolina Teaching Fellows.
“Schools and districts have long lists of requirements to support their beginning teachers. Districts leveraging the power of an external NTSP coach with purposeful district collaboration see increased retention rates, better shouldering of responsibilities for support, and regular feedback between stakeholders about implementation and impact,” said Amy Richardson, the School’s director of Carolina Community Academy and PK-12 partnerships. As part of her work, Richardson leads the School’s NTSP efforts.
“Our district has focused support from the North Carolina New Teacher Support Program on our first-year teachers who have not yet completed an educator preparation program,” said Freda Clifton, executive director of personnel and equity in Franklin County Schools. “This partnership has had a tremendous impact on our teachers and their students. Participating in the NTSP provides additional support for our new teachers beyond our mentors and instructional coaches, allowing new teachers to receive valuable feedback from multiple pedagogical experts and, ultimately, enabling them to thrive during their first years of teaching, contributing to student success.”
“Our partnership is about more than just providing our teachers with resources — it’s about fostering confidence and creating a collaborative system in which teachers feel supported and valued as they learn and grow professionally. Its positive impact on both our teachers and students is evident,” Clifton continued. “Working with the NCNTSP has benefited our teachers and helped strengthen our school community.”
Currently, the NTSP provides North Carolina districts with instructional coaches through the following universities: Appalachian State University, East Carolina University, Fayetteville State University, North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, UNC Charlotte, UNC Greensboro, UNC Pembroke, UNC Wilmington, and Western Carolina University.
A trusted “thought partner”
For Adams, he has high expectations of his students and of himself as a teacher. He says he knows that history is and can be a powerful subject.
During the 2023-24 school year, Adams was one of about 700 teachers across the U.S. who piloted an Advanced Placement African American Studies class in collaboration with the College Board. He also teaches honors African American Studies, honors Latin American Studies, and world history.
“A big approach in my classroom is helping my students understand our individual stories as humans is a compilation of what’s happened in our past,” he said. “I want history to feel purposeful for my students. I want history to be a thought partner for them so they can analyze their social context.”
Petty was essential for him in creating the high school history classroom he wanted. Adams called her a “thought partner” whose experience helped his ideas “actually land with students,” leading to what Adams said were great learning experiences for his students.
Petty observed Adams’s classrooms and afterward asked tough, self-reflective questions: How did you think today’s lesson went? What did you notice about your students’ participation? What did you notice about yourself? Were you clear in the instructions you communicated?
From those questions and conversation, Adams said he began to implement practical changes that included clearer instruction and formatting assignments in ways that were more tangible and practical.
“Xavier is an expert in his content and knew the type of culture around learning he wanted to foster in his classroom,” Petty said. “As his coach, my role was to help him identify the gaps between his vision and his reality as a beginning teacher. After some reflection and discussion, Xavier was able to make small changes in his planning that made his lessons more impactful and effective.”
Petty affirmed when she needed to and likewise provided constructive feedback. She also provided useful resources to help Adams achieve his vision as a teacher.
“Every big idea, in order to be effective, has to have concrete steps that are tangible for students if that idea is successful in the classroom,” Adams said. “My partnership with Sarah was super beneficial in that way.”
Learn more about the North Carolina New Teacher Support Program at ncntsp.org.