When Rich Ashburn discovered a gifted and talented magnet school during his search for a student teaching position, the West Virginia University alumnus had no idea it would affect the path of his future career.
Ashburn graduated as a first-generation college student from WVU in 1993, completing a Master of Public Health with an emphasis in social and behavioral sciences. He later earned a Master of Education degree from Regis University.
“As I was observing the class, I wasn't thinking about how advanced the lessons were or how outside the box the answers students gave were,” Ashburn said. “All I noticed was the high level of stress and competitiveness there was in the class. Several students had bald spots from pulling out hair - and this was third grade!”
For Ashburn’s Master of Education capstone project, he decided to focus on this very class. By selecting the group of gifted learners, he was able to incorporate knowledge he gained during his public health studies and support the students with the integration of a mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program.
“I had never heard of MBSR before WVU, but it became the foundation of my work.”
After years of applying public health principles in his career, Ashburn’s advice to current public health students is to have a well-rounded understanding of the field and to remain open-minded as he did on his journey to find his purpose.
“For the last four years, I have worked in developing and delivering initiatives to address inequality in gifted services in public schools,” he said. “So, public health means ‘equity’ to me. That everyone – no matter what the demographic or socioeconomic status – should have equal access to opportunities to live a life to the fullest.”
Ashburn currently works for Henrico County Public Schools in Richmond, Virginia, as the impact coordinator for family community and engagement. He uses models that aim to help the well-being of communities in order to effectively support team members and their work. Through data collection, he demonstrates the positive influence family advocates and community school resource coordinators have in the schools.
“Family and community engagement increases involvement in our schools by building relationships with families and school staff, bridging partnerships and boosting transformative family engagement,” he said. “I view our team as the front line of public health in Henrico County Public Schools. We support families who are struggling with food needs, housing issues, employment and health concerns.”
Although his work mainly resides in elementary schools, Ashburn said he still applies his public health skills in order to foster a healthy environment for young students to learn.
“The public health program gave me a base knowledge of solid community health principles. Since I was interested in working with different populations and different health initiatives, I learned a framework that I have used throughout my career.”
Prior to his role in family and community engagement, Ashburn worked as a gifted resource instructor and coordinator for elementary talent development.
During his time in the school system, Ashburn has improved the gifted program by identifying students of color in gifted programs and developing a talent development model that helps increase the number of students identified as gifted.
“One of our advanced enrichment programs, Kids of Promise, won state and national recognition. We entered students in district level enrichment competitions, in which they regularly placed,” Ashburn said. “In two years, the two schools I worked at rose from 2% to 9% identified as gifted. All of this came about because we took a community health approach to developing and identifying gifted students.”
Ashburn recently received the Elementary Gifted Teacher of the Year for Henrico County Public Schools and the Virginia Gifted Association's Outstanding Teacher of The Year for Region 1 for the 2023-24 school year.
-WVU-
pno/10/1/24