Her story

ABOUT BRITTANY ANN CUFAUDE

Founder of Joyful Classrooms, Brittany Cufaude is also known as a teacher, coach, and author. Brittany created Joyful Classrooms to bring joy and equity to all children through a devotion to continuous learning and a compassionate community. To learn more about Brittany Cufaude and her journey on how she found joy and enabled many other teaching professionals to find joy in their practice, read on.

Brittany has been a teacher for over fifteen years. During this time, she’s taught adult women and their children in a women’s shelter, high-school-aged mothers who had a place to nurse and play with their babies while they attended classes on their main high school campus. She has also taught kinder friends, high schoolers, and generally children of all ages. She’s taught in English and in Spanish. She spent the most consecutive years teaching as an intensive reading interventionist at a middle school. And, in some of her greatest acts of courage, she has spent years teaching other teachers effective teaching strategies. She can’t imagine a place she loves more than the classroom (other than anywhere with her son and dog).

According to her family and dearest friends, Brittany is built of compassion, kindness, and courage. They describe her as a lover without limit, a candle in the soul of those she loves. They say she is steadfast and reliable in showing up again and again for those she loves. They agree resilience and dedication are her superpowers. She is also known for her stubborn will to see the beauty in all people and to find hope in the world.

73 Questions with Brittany!

While being interviewed by her sister Tara, Brittany opens her heart and tells all!

WHAT EDUCATION EXPERTS ARE SAYING ABOUT BRITTANY CUFAUDE:

"Brittany gives you strategies & time management that will actually apply in your classroom.

She never disappoints!"

More about Brittany Cufaude...

Brittany focuses her teaching and coaching practice on working with underserved populations and effectuating social justice in whatever ways she can. She adores children (big and small) and teachers and has devoted her life to improving outcomes for all humans who are connected to schools in any form. Click here to see some of the recent media coverage on Brittany and how she continues to apply what she’s learned in life to help heal the professional needs of fellow teachers

Professionally, Brittany Cufaude specializes in school improvement and literacy consulting. The defining characteristic of Brittany’s work in education has been a steadfast commitment to achieving equity in education and closing the achievement gap. Brittany taught and worked in district leadership in the Folsom Cordova Unified School District (FCUSD). She devoted her teaching experience to Title 1 schools where she developed and coordinated reading and ELD interventions, focusing on K-12 programs and collaborations, the CCSS and ELA/ELD Framework roll-outs, and building healthy school cultures through the PLC process. Her experience includes designing a district-wide literacy reform, establishing the district MTSS plan for ELA, and directing the 2014-2015 ELA program pilots and adoptions. Brittany also spearheaded an ELD and reading intervention initiative aimed at closing the profound reading and language gaps across the district, including in special education.

In 2016, Ms. Cufaude left FCUSD to work with Benchmark Education as a national literacy consultant. In this capacity, she supported teachers and leaders in their effort to gain insight into their new ELA program and how it dovetails with the nation’s mission to foster both highly rigorous and also equity-based classrooms. Through this work, she recognized a need for connections between broader educational initiatives and the new programs, so she founded Joyful Classrooms to meet that objective. As founder of Joyful Classrooms, Ms. Cufaude devotes her time to bringing joy and equity to all children through a devotion to continuous learning & compassionate community. Joyful Classrooms members trust and employ the methods Brittany has set forth in order to foster and protect joyful and highly effective learning environments.

In 2019, Brittany joined CALI Reads as a Northern California Regional Coach. In this capacity, she has supported districts with implementing high-impact literacy strategies with middle school students, with a focus on students with special needs.

In order to better understand how Brittany has evolved as a teacher, mentor, and entrepreneur visit our membership page. We offer several options, for several budgets, to guide you on your journey towards a more rewarding teaching profession.

What Teachers Are Saying About Brittany Cufaude:

Pay attention, because you will get more out of it than you'll realize.

Brittany gives you strategies/time management that will actually help you to apply this in your classroom. She never disappoints!

This presentation sparked an urgency to collaborate with my team and get the ball rolling to support all our teachers. Thank you for being so inspirational and providing the tools for our next steps.

My teacher's really enjoyed the visuals, but especially the video of it in action! I LOVE that she differentiates to her audience – just like we do in our classrooms!

Brittany is very engaging and real. She has our struggle as teaching professionals and is truly trying to help make a difference in our teaching practice and daily schedules/routines.

I came with skepticism, how does this effectively teach writing? But, I walked away wit a new outlook and strategies to try. Showing us how the writing is suppose to look in the program and what things mean was great. Something I wish we would have seen in year one of the program.