Education doesn't start in kindergarten, and it doesn't stop at graduation

On learning and transitions

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One of the guiding principles of EdNC’s early childhood work has been that learning doesn’t start in kindergarten. During this graduation season (shout out to our pre-K grads!), I’m here with a reminder that learning doesn’t end at graduation.

When I graduated from Pasquotank County High School, I knew I wanted to be a high school teacher, but I didn’t know which subject — English or social studies. It was in a college course where I learned that teaching history is just storytelling, which sold me on being a social studies teacher.

When I graduated from NC State, I thought I knew how to be a good teacher. I didn’t. I learned to be a great teacher from my students and my colleagues at Cary High School and the Governor’s School of North Carolina.

When I graduated from Duke with a master of public policy degree, I thought I knew what I wanted — a career pivot completely away from the education field. After more than a decade of teaching, I was burnt out, and ready to explore other policy problems and solutions. But during a post-grad fellowship, I relearned that schools are where the kids are. And if I cared about policies that impacted the lives of children and families, that’s where I needed to be too. That led me to the work I’ve been doing for EdNC for the last five years, where I’ve continued learning every single day.

Now I’m “graduating” again: I’m leaving EdNC at the end of June for my spouse to pursue a career opportunity that will relocate our family from Raleigh to Gainesville, Florida.

I’m so grateful for the education I’ve received at EdNC: how to be in community with the people we write about and for; how to help educators and families tell their own stories; how to identify bright spots in the policy landscape and elevate them as examples of what works — across the state and across the country. 

And I couldn’t have learned any of that without you. 

Thank you for inviting me into not just your inboxes, but your classrooms, your homes, your schools, and your communities. You helped me fall in love with parts of North Carolina — a place I’ve called home for 30 years — that I might have never visited without your support.

This sense of community is what I want to build in my new home, and I’m excited to see what I learn in the process.

Until next time,

Katie Dukes

Email Katie Dukes

Katie Dukes is the director of early childhood policy at EdNC.