Author Archives: Woody

Connecticut’s High School Educator of the Year

Since we honored Dr. Sibani Sengupta in 2009, she has received a number of honors for excellence, dedication and leadership in education.

The Connecticut Association of Schools has selected her as the High School Level Exemplary Educator of the Year for 2014-2015. She also has received the 2014 Local Hero Award from the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Connecticut and Western Massachusetts. In 2010, the National Association of Biology Teachers presented her with the Outstanding Biology Teacher Award for Connecticut.

Sibani Sengupta_photo (2).tiff — Sibani Sengupta, Ph.D.

Dr. Sengupta is a science teacher and dean of academic affairs at Sacred Heart Academy, Hamden, Conn.

The CAS award recognizes outstanding educators who have had a positive impact on their schools through excellence in education, involvement with students, staff and parents in and out of the classroom, and leadership in their profession.

The Local Hero Award honors 10 outstanding teachers from Connecticut and Western Massachusetts for their hard work, dedication and commitment to area students.

Dr. Sengupta is the third Alma Exley Scholar to be honored by CAS. In 2010 Desi Nesmith was named the Best First-Year Principal in Connecticut, and in 2012 Dr. Miguel Cardona was chosen as Connecticut’s National Distinguished Principal.

Dr. Sengupta has a Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut and did post-doctoral research at the UConn Health Center. Then she earned her Connecticut teaching credentials through the Alternate Route to Certification.

She left a career as a research scientist to teach science at Sacred Heart Academy in 2003. After serving as chair of the science department for six years, she was named dean of academic affairs in 2014. She continues to teach advanced-placement biology, human gene discovery and microbiology.

In nominating Dr. Sengupta for the CAS award, Sr. Mary Jane Paolella said she is known for creative, imaginative lessons that are extremely successful and engaging.

Sr. Paolella said that freshmen appreciate her biology classes so much that 75 percent of them sign up for a science elective (genetics, microbiology or gene discovery) in addition to chemistry, hoping that she will be teaching one of those courses the following year.

As an example of Dr. Sengupta’s excellence in teaching, Sacred Heart Dean of Students David Alexandro noted that her students have designed and standardized a high school adaptation of a procedure called RNAi. Her article, “Bringing RNA Interference (RNAi) into the High School Classroom,” was published in the “How To Do It” section of the November/December 2013 issue of The American Biology Teacher magazine.

“Excellent teaching requires more than just teaching the subject,” Dr. Sengupta said. “It is essential to constantly motivate students, encouraging them to develop a zest and passion for the subject, along with their unique, analytical approach towards learning.”

Dr. Sengupta sets an example for her students by her love for life-long learning. “Over the past couple of years,” she said, “I have come to fully appreciate the true meaning of Tyron Edwards’s famous quote, ‘If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others.’”

Hearty congratulations from all of us at the Alma Exley Scholarship Program to Dr. Sengupta for this well-deserved recognition.

The Connecticut Association of Schools (CAS) is a private, non‐profit organization whose purpose is to improve the learning of every student in Connecticut by contributing to the improvement of elementary and secondary education. CAS works to serve the collective interests and needs of Connecticut schools by providing leadership and professional development services to promote excellence in the education of all students.

Desi Nesmith Honored With $25,000 Milken Award

Our selection committee really knows how to pick ’em!

When we selected Desi Nesmith as the Alma Exley Scholar for 2000, we recognized his potential to become an outstanding educator.

Our confidence was reinforced a few years later when he was honored as Teacher of the Year at Mayberry Elementary School in East Hartford.

We weren’t surprised when he received the Promising Young Professional Award from his alma mater, the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut, in 2009.

That was the year he became principal of SAND Elementary School in Hartford. In his first year, he transformed the school from one of the state’s lowest performing schools to one of the most improved. And he was recognized as Best First-Year Principal by the Connecticut Association of Schools.

Since 2011 Desi has been principal of Metacomet School in Bloomfield. Under his leadership, student academic performance has improved dramatically and the achievement gap has been narrowed significantly.

In recognition of his outstanding leadership, the Milken Family Foundation has honored Desi with the prestigious Milken Educator Award, the only one in Connecticut this year. The honor includes an unrestricted $25,000 prize.

The award was presented at an assembly which Principal Nesmith thought had been scheduled to honor the children for their academic achievements. He introduced State Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor, who congratulated the students for reducing the third-grade achievement gap in reading by 19 percent, with reading scores exceeding the state average by 8 percent.

Then Dr. Jane Foley of the Milken Family Foundation caught Desi completely by surprise by announcing that he had been chosen for the prestigious award. (Dr. Foley and Commissioner Prior are with Desi in the photo above.)

After composing himself from the surprise of his life, Desi told the students that not too many years ago, he had been sitting right where they were, and that they, too, could fulfill their dreams and aspirations. (He grew up in Bloomfield and attended Metacomet School for first and second grades.)

It was such a pleasure for me to see Desi receive this much-deserved honor. I have followed his career since he received our scholarship as an undergraduate at UConn. It is abundantly clear that Desi cares deeply about his students and wants every one of them to succeed. Moreover, his inspired leadership is enabling them to succeed.

Seeing scholarship recipients like Desi grow, mature and have an impact in their careers is what makes being involved with the Alma Exley Scholarship Program so rewarding. Everyone who has supported the program over the years can take some satisfaction in knowing they have played a small part in helping to launch the careers of a wonderful group of outstanding educators.

– Woody Exley

Scholarship recipients have their say

Alma Exley Scholars have been making a difference in classrooms since the late 1990s. They are teaching — and working in leadership positions — in schools across Connecticut and from Boston to Los Angeles.

Now that most of them have been in the classroom for a number of years, they are in a position to share their experience with others who are embarking on their careers.

From time to time, we will post entries that will help future teachers make choices relating to their own education and careers. Scroll down to learn about their experiences in their own words