Ashlie Crosson is an English teacher at Mifflin County High School. She teaches Advanced Placement language and composition, English 10 and Survival Stories, an elective that approaches global humanitarian crises from a youth perspective. She also advises the journalism program, which publishes the school newspaper and district magazine.

As a first-generation college student, Crosson found that teachers and counselors were essential to her success. Their support inspired her to become an educator so she could give to another generation what had been given to her. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English education and a minor in journalism from Susquehanna University. In 2020, she returned to her hometown to pay it forward in the community that raised her.

Crosson received her master’s degree in educational leadership at Penn State University and gifted endorsement from Millersville University. In 2018, she became a Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms fellow. The fellowship transformed Crosson’s pedagogy, helping her to reframe curricula around competencies that empower students’ voices, emphasize “glocal” connections and foster their global citizenship. In class, her students can be found researching the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and building websites as often as they are reading novels and writing papers. As part of a statewide committee, Crosson helped add a global framework to Pennsylvania’s Standards Aligned System.

Crosson also serves as the communications chair for her union’s negotiation team, assists with the school’s Positive Behavior Interventions and Support programming, leads the district’s international student trips and cohosts The PL Playbook, a podcast dedicated to teachers’ professional learning.