Vicki Cabra

Senior Specialist, Louisiana

vcabra@niet.org

Vicki Cabra joins NIET after serving 21 years in Louisiana's DeSoto Parish School system. She served in the master teacher position in two middle schools in DeSoto Parish for a total of 10 years. In this role, she helped lead these schools to achieve substantial growth, which included moving from a "C" to an "A" school. As master teacher at North DeSoto Middle, the school was awarded the TAP School of Promise Award and later, the TAP Founder's Award (now known as the NIET Founder's Award).

Before becoming a TAP master teacher, Vicki taught English language arts and social studies at the middle school level for eight years. She served as department head of social studies and over the years has served on many committees for the Louisiana Department of Education. She has also facilitated trainings for the Louisiana Department of Education to model the process of teaching students how to use sources and support ideas in social studies. Vicki earned a Bachelor of Science from Louisiana Tech University and a Master of Education from Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana.

 

Vicki Cabra

Why are you passionate about working at NIET?

NIET not only transformed my own teaching, but also my entire school, the school community, and the district as a whole. The NIET rubric changed everything about the way instruction was done in our district. Growth began to occur almost immediately as we dug into our data and began to make informed decisions that would impact student achievement. The collaboration among teachers in weekly cluster meetings brought about new and exciting ideas and created a feeling of family and teamwork. It wasn't long before our small, rural school began to grow as people heard about the exciting things going on. Growth continues, and I am just so honored that I got to be a part of it. Working with NIET is so exciting because now I have an opportunity to help others with what I have learned in my 13 years of serving on a TAP leadership team.

What do you do in your free time?

I love my family and spend as much time as I can with them. I have been married for 28 years and have two sons, a beautiful daughter-in-law and two grandchildren. I love to travel and my favorite place to go is the beach. I also enjoy camping with my husband and taking the boat out on the lake.