Who are you and what are your practitioner sites?
I am a lifelong learner, teacher, Bostonian, and mom. I have always loved school, and spent 8 years as a High School Social Studies teacher after earning a B.S. from Boston University and M.Ed from UMass Boston. After many people encouraged me to explore administration, and thinking about expanding my impact on learning beyond my own classroom, I earned a second M.Ed from Endicott College and I shifted my role. Having taught in urban and suburban settings, and finding the former challenging and rewarding, I began working as an administrator at Southbridge Middle School, one of the few schools in the state that were put under the state control of Receivership. During my time there, we have experienced great growth and positive progress with a team of extremely committed and hard working teachers and administrators. In addition to my work in Southbridge, I am an Instructor for the Family and Community Engagement module within the MA School Administrators Association’s Leadership Licensure Program, and I consult across multiple organizations on PALs and how to support aspiring administrators. Concurrent to these responsibilities, I am a mom to my daughter Emalie, my boys Trevor and Tucker, and an eternally grateful wife to Eric, who is my biggest supporter. Without them, I would not be able to do the good, hard work I do outside of our home.
What inspired you to join the Doctoral Program in Transformative Education?
One thing I have grappled with in my years of turnaround work is the change formula. The formula reads: FxDxV>R and each part of it is equally important.
Change has to start with a “Dissatisfaction” with the status quo, develop a “Vision” that outlines where you want to journey towards, then identify what concrete “First steps” you will take to get there. It seems simple, however no change is possible unless the dissatisfaction, vision, and first steps are collectively stronger than the “Resistance”. Importantly, the resistance is not always actively working against the change being implemented. It’s not a person or group saying they don’t want to make it happen (although it is sometimes!). Often, the resistance is feelings of challenge and discomfort that come with being pushed to do something new, or the inability or unwillingness to acknowledge a change is needed at all. New things require a mind shift, a shift of practice, and a shift of focus, and it feels unnatural and unproductive when you’ve been doing something the same way for so long. Acknowledging the need for a change also indicates that something has been wrong for a while, leading to feelings of inadequacy or guilt.
In joining this program, I hope to learn more how to lean into the front half of that inequality so I can overcome the resistance that inevitably comes with any progressive change in order to lead effective and sustainable turnaround work.
What do you hope to accomplish in the future?
I have had the tremendous privilege of using trial and error to learn on a blank slate in one of the highest needs environments in the Commonwealth as an administrator at Southbridge Middle School, and my team has created some significantly measurable wins that are building something good for our students. We are starting to get some public recognition for our growth, and our most recent DESE Report Card reflects our progress. But we are so far from the finish line! In an effort to hone my skills to continue leading this work both in Southbridge and beyond, as my future may take me, I want to dive deeply into other successful turnaround journeys across the Commonwealth and beyond to develop a blueprint for sustainable, equitable, and lasting change so struggling schools can truly become High Performing, High Poverty educational institutions that put their often underserved students on equal footing with the peers across the state and country.