Ben Davis

Before discovering a calling in Education, I worked as a Design Engineer tasked with manufacturing new products. Over time I developed concerns regarding the environmental impact the plastic products I helped create could have. When a friend told me a local middle school was seeking an engineering and design teacher, I jumped at the opportunity. Teaching sounded like a way to apply my knowledge while ensuring my work directly helped others. Design thinking can be applied to any challenge, so how hard could teaching be?

It did not take long before I found fostering student personal and academic growth to be the most challenging and complex design problem I’d ever faced. Suddenly, the future life outcomes of our students became the products I was tasked with creating. The learning curve was sharp, but the longer I engaged in our system of education, the more I discovered my data-based design thinking to be uniquely effective in improving student outcomes.

This success inspired me to obtain a Master in School Administration, following which I have spent the last few years serving as an Assistant Principal in NC. As a School Administrator, I have found the key to equitable student outcomes to be rooted in data and shaped by empathy. Every student can achieve their personal and academic goals. My job is to provide students with an educational environment that will allow them to do so.

When I’m not at School, you can find me hiking with my wife and two dogs, bike touring, homesteading, or tinkering with some old car.