Author Archives: Woody

Desi Nesmith Shares Leadership Principles at National Forum

As principal of Metacomet School in Bloomfield, Desi Nesmith led a dramatic turnaround in academic performance. Within two years, third-grade students advanced from below average to well above the statewide average in reading, writing and mathematics.

Now, as chief school turnaround officer at the Connecticut Department of Education, he is sharing his strategies with struggling schools across the state.

And recently, he stepped onto a national stage to explain his leadership principles to educators from across the country. He was one of the speakers at a conference in New Orleans sponsored by the Milken Family Foundation, which is dedicated to advancing educator effectiveness.

Lowell Milken of the Milken Family Foundation, left, with Desi Nesmith at the Milken Education Awards conference.

Mr. Nesmith received the prestigious Milken Educator Award in 2014 in recognition of his accomplishments at Metacomet School.

Upon being named principal in 2011, he took over a school where students lagged behind state averages for performance in reading, writing and mathematics. He immediately established high expectations for academic performance.

By 2013, 65 percent of third graders met the state reading goal, compared to 57 percent statewide. Seventy-one percent met the goal for writing, outpacing the state average of 60 percent. And 71 percent met the goal for mathematics, above the state average of 62 percent.

As Mr. Nesmith explained in his presentation in New Orleans, he was among the school leaders in Bloomfield who made a commitment to academic excellence. They focused on strengthening academics, promoting discipline and good behavior, and forging ties with parents and the community. They involved parents as well as community organizations such as the local historical society, the Rotary Club, a local bank, and a local weekly newspaper. The district also started new after-school programs and provided additional training for teachers.

This recognition was another milestone in a remarkable career in education. We honored him as the 2000 Alma Exley Scholar while at the University of Connecticut. After earning his master’s degree in 2002, he joined the faculty of Mayberry School in East Hartford, where he was named school Teacher of the Year. Next he advanced to leadership positions in Hartford and in his hometown of Bloomfield. Since 2015, he has served as chief school turnaround officer at the State Department of Education, taking on some of the most demanding educational challenges in schools across the state.

Congratulations to Desi for this most recent honor.

Meriden Has Sharp Focus On Diversity

The Meriden Public Schools have adopted a multi-tiered approach to recruiting and retaining more teachers of color.

The district’s strategy is featured in the November-January issue of Perspective, a magazine published by the American Association of School Personnel Administrators. Co-authors were three leaders of the Meriden Schools, Mark Benigni, Ed.D., superintendent; Louis Bronk, director of talent development; and Miguel Cardona, Ed.D., assistant superintendent for teaching and learning, and recipient of the Alma Exley Memorial Scholarship in 1998.

Meriden’s comprehensive approach encompasses external partnerships, in-district initiatives, teacher support programs and creative recruiting efforts.

Mark Benigni

Partnerships

Meriden partners with its local Regional Education Service Center (RESC) to organize minority teacher job fairs and arrange priority interviews for candidates who are most qualified and deemed best fits for the district. In another partnership with the RESC, participates in an annual  Future Educator Symposium. The event provides information on careers in education to male students in the 11th grade.

The district also partners with the local branch of the NAACP to combine efforts towards recruitment of minority hires. This has included attending Historically Black and College and University (HBCU) forums to learn about trends and strategies in minority recruiting. Plans are in the works to attend HBCU job fairs outside of Connecticut along with NAACP members.

In partnerships with local universities, interns are placed within Meriden’s schools. The district also houses student-teacher cohorts and undergraduate teacher-certification programs on the school campuses.

Louis Bronk

In-District Initiative

Meriden has developed a “Grow Your Own” initiative to increase the number of minority applicants. This program helps employees in the school system such as para-professionals to obtain teacher certification.

Teacher Support

A Teacher Support Program targets potential minority teaching candidates while they are still working towards their bachelor’s degree. This enables the district to hire college students as substitute teachers with a one-year substitute certificate granted by the state. This enables the substitutes to forge ties with staff and students.

Creative Recruiting

Administrators have the freedom to be proactive in recruiting minority candidates. Recently, a candidate from Puerto Rico was hired after a phone interview, and a candidate from New York City was hired after a Skype interview. This approach is based on the recognition that traditional hiring practices won’t achieve the results the students deserve.

Miguel Cardona

The Need for More Teachers of Color

These efforts are based on the general acknowledgment of the benefits of diversifying the teaching profession in Connecticut.  Although some 35 percent of Connecticut’s students are Black and Latino, the state’s teaching force is only seven percent Black and Latino.

Meriden’s educational leaders cite studies that have shown that academic achievement  improves when students of color are taught by teachers of similar backgrounds. They refer to one study that demonstrated that students of color achieve higher graduation rates, score better on standardized tests, and matriculate at colleges more often when they are taught by teachers of color.

Read the entire article from Perspective magazine.

Master Teacher Wins Scholarship to Study Abroad

Angie Gibbs, who was named a Master Teacher earlier this year, has received another honor.

She has been chosen for a COINED Scholarship from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.

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The award pays for two weeks of study in Santiago, Chile, this summer in Spanish language and literature and Latin American culture. She also expects to get out of the classroom and trek the Andes while in Chile.

Ms. Gibbs, whom we honored in 2005, is a Spanish teacher at Green Valley Ranch High School, part of the  Denver Schools of Science and Technology (DSST)  school system in Colorado.

A graduate of James Hillhouse High School in New Haven, Conn., she received a bachelor’s degree with a major in Spanish from Connecticut College in 2005. She earned a master’s degree from Lesley University while teaching Spanish at Media Arts & Technology Charter (MATCH) High School in Boston.

Congratulations to Angie on this award, which will enable her to enrich her Spanish courses for her students in Denver.

– Woody Exley