After joining the Mind Trust in July 2018, Patrick Jones spent the first two years of his tenure supporting and coaching Fellows through the school development process. But just a few months into the pandemic, he was presented with a new opportunity and a new challenge with his promotion to Senior Vice President of Leadership and Equity in July 2020.

With four kids under the age of ten, two of them engaged in eLearning, and Lauren Rush and her husband both working from home, two problems Lauren says she has not experienced during the pandemic are boredom and loneliness. “The pandemic has required me to be more flexible in supporting on the kid front, helping them maintain their sanity alongside getting my work done, often at different times.”

Geoff Fenelus first heard about Surge Institute while attending an Education Leaders of Color convening in 2019 during his first year of his Innovation School Fellowship with The Mind Trust. A panel talked about Surge Institute and participants shared the impact it had on their leadership development. Later at that convening, Geoff ran across Surge Institute’s founder Carmita Semaan. He recalls, “When I met Carmita I thought, wow, she is a dynamic leader. But at that point in time, Surge was nowhere near Indianapolis.”

The Mind Trust, an Indianapolis-based education nonprofit, is now accepting applications for the fifth cohort of Indianapolis school leaders to participate in Relay Graduate School of Education’s National Principals Academy Fellowship (NPAF), a nationally-recognized fellowship that provides school and school systems leaders with powerful instructional and cultural professional development.

New year, new job. For Chelsea Reed, 2020 started off full of possibility and excitement. Following nearly two decades of work in marketing and public relations for organizations like Zion Hope Church, Indiana Black Expo, and the Indiana Repertory Theater, Chelsea was eager to bring her talents to bear on education in her new role at The Mind Trust. Yet barely three weeks into the job, the pandemic turned the world, and what she thought her new role might entail, upside down.