Meet Tyfany Bouie, District and Customer Success Manager at Goalbook
Education is Tyfany’s life work. The value of education was embedded in Tyfany at a young age. Her mom moved to the United States from Nicaragua and was passionate about education being the way to achieve anything. Her mom emphasized getting good grades and learning how to read and write so that Tyfany would have a life of choice.
In 6th grade, Tyfany joined Breakthrough Miami, an organization that uses “the signature students-teaching-students model to support traditionally under-represented students to achieve post-secondary success and inspire emerging leaders to become educators and advocates.”
Tyfany grew up participating in the Breakthrough Miami program and eventually became a first-generation college graduate. She taught through Teach for America, with the beginning of her teaching experience going full circle to her childhood as she taught for two years at the public school she attended 6th grade.
In addition to teaching 6th–8th grade math for seven years, including bilingual math, Tyfany was the Associate Director of Operations and then Assistant Principal for an elementary school in Indianapolis before joining Goalbook. In this Q&A, Tyfany shares about her role as a District and Customer Success Manager and how she still practices the idea of empathy that she gained from teaching.
“I learned the value of having people with a heart for students and was inspired to enter education.”
1. What inspired you to go into education?
When I was in 6th grade, I joined a summer program called Breakthrough. The concept of it is that they bridge the summer by having high school students pre-teach what middle school students will learn in their upcoming grades. I stuck with the program, and it helped me get into a private school later.
I became heavily involved with Breakthrough as a teacher in the program, instructional coach, and then became an Associate Site Director.
Through this program, I learned the value of having people with a heart for students and was inspired to enter education.
2. How did you learn about Goalbook, and what attracted you to Goalbook’s mission?
When I was an assistant principal after the COVID-19 pandemic, our school had teacher shortages, and people were feeling overwhelmed. We had a need for a program like Goalbook, so my team and I explored what resources were available, and that is how I found Goalbook.
I saw there was a “We’re hiring” banner on the website, and I investigated what that meant and what positions were available. The more I read about Goalbook and its mission, the more I saw that it was aligned with everything I had done throughout my career to ensure students and educators have the support they need.
In my research on Goalbook, I learned about Daniel (Goalbook’s co-founder), and I liked his philosophies and mission. I also liked that the company has many former educators, so the idea of like-mindedness, even when joining a new team, was attractive.
3. In your eyes, how does your work support Goalbook’s mission?
I see my work supporting the mission in a couple ways. I get to meet with district leadership teams, and I have the privilege of supporting implementation of Goalbook Toolkit in different schools.
The district leaders make decisions to ensure that the implementation of Goalbook Toolkit is thoughtful. They want to make sure it’s supporting their educators, and not just adding another thing on their plate, and I appreciate that. The implementation also helps with the idea of transforming education for students because part of that transformation is putting educators on that path of transforming instruction. This part is really exciting and is an element of my work that aligns with our mission.
Also, when I am leading trainings and working with educators, I see moments when educators say, “This is going to help me do x for this student,” or “I never thought of that strategy, and I thought I had tried everything.” The empowerment for educators and how that empowerment again translates to the work that they’ll do and the instruction they’ll give their students also align to our mission and drives the work I do.
4. Was there a specific moment where you first considered transitioning to the private sector? How did you determine what role in the private sector would be best for you? Why did you think you would like that role and think you’d be good at it?
Three months after I had my son, I went back to work at the school where I was an assistant principal. I lived far away from the school; I would travel 45 minutes in one direction. I would leave before the sun came up to be at work by 7:00 am. I’d finish up at about 5:30 pm to then make it back home by 6:30 pm when my son was going to bed at 7:00 pm. Honestly, it became this battle of do I support my own kid or other people’s kids? It was a long and tough decision to make, but with an infant son, I needed to find a balance.
One of the main things I thought about was the transferability of skills. I didn’t want to go to another job where the last 10+ years of my life were irrelevant. I knew I wanted to somehow still be in touch with schools and districts, and I also knew I wanted to carry out my life’s work of transforming education, so I made sure I stayed in the realm of EdTech.
When I saw District and Customer Success on Goalbook’s website, I actually googled Customer Success because I didn’t know that role existed. At first I thought it was like customer support where you help people with logging in or other problem-solving that may need to come up. I never really thought about the people leading the training.
After researching and understanding the role more, I thought Customer Success was great because it would allow me to connect with both decision-makers and educators.
“The idea of empathy is one that I practiced a lot as an educator, both for other teachers and for kids.”
5. What experience from your teaching days has helped you in your role at Goalbook?
The idea of empathy is one that I practiced a lot as an educator, both for other teachers and for kids.
In my current role, I go into buildings on a consistent basis where teachers innately feel like, “Here we go again, another thing on my plate.” I empathize with them where they are, but then I also reassure them that Goalbook Toolkit is actually going to help them.
When it’s a busy season and administrators are slammed and I’m trying to schedule meetings with them, I have a lot of empathy for them. I totally understand and have flexibility with them because I know what it’s like from my experience as a teacher and an administrator.
In general, when I lead a professional development, I remember what it was like being in a classroom. I bring in real-world or real-time examples, and connect with educators by bringing that element of how I may actually make this feasible for them, knowing that they have hundreds of things to do.
“I love the culture of Goalbook. We all practice growth mindsets; we all value relationships.”
6. What are one or two things you love here?
I love the culture of Goalbook. We all practice growth mindsets; we all value relationships.
A lot of us come from an education background, or at least know a lot about it, so we have alignment on shared experience and how it’s going to impact our product and how we operate with the product.
I also really love our Team Weeks. As someone shifting from being a classroom educator to a District and Customer Success Manager, I thought about how I was going to be on a computer screen for a good chunk of my day or my week. Having the Team Weeks is really one of the things I love because they give me, an extrovert, a great opportunity to make meaningful connections with different people on our team. They fill my cup until the next one comes around and reminds me that the people on my computer screen aren’t robots, they’re people.
Having the team-building opportunity is also really great to then be reminded of having similar mindsets that come from shared experiences.
7. What are you watching/reading right now?
I am on a mission this year to read more because I have some TV guilty pleasures. One of my guilty pleasures is The Kardashians. Since they are currently on pause while they finish filming, I’m doing a lot more reading.
I just read two books at one time. One was Viola Davis’s autobiography called Finding Me. Her book was very humbling.
The other book was The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose. It’s a murder mystery of a wife and husband. The husband is cheating on his wife, but his mistress ends up dead and the wife has to defend him in court because she’s a lawyer. So it’s a “whodunit?” kind of book that kept me intrigued.
8. Early bird or night owl?
I’m definitely an early bird for sure. I was up at 5:00 am today. That is probably a result of being a mom. If I wake up at 5:00 am, I can get one to two hours by myself to wash my face, watch The Kardashians, or whatever it is I want to do before the rest of the house gets up.
But really, I’ve always been this way. As hard as I try, I cannot wake up past 8:00 am, even if I go to sleep at four in the morning. It’s crazy.
9. Any last thoughts?
I’m super grateful for the opportunity to work at Goalbook. I highly recommend that if teachers are exploring the idea of leaving teaching, they really try to investigate and see that there’s such a big landscape of life outside of the classroom that is still impactful for kids. Shoot for the moon; you never know.
Explore Goalbook’s open jobs on our Careers Page.
Follow us on LinkedIn to stay up to date on job opportunities.
Read more stories about the Culture at Goalbook here.
