After volunteering as a teacher in a prison throughout my freshman year of college, I realized that the field of education was where I felt most passionate and of use. This experience also raised my awareness of the tremendous social consequences that can result from a flawed educational system. Upon my completion of a Bachelor of Arts degree in Education from Boston College's Lynch School of Education, I moved to Costa Rica where I taught English at a public elementary school in the central mountains. I then taught social studies at a chancellor-designated School Under Registration Review middle school in the Bronx, NY. For the past seven years, I have had the privilege of teaching social studies and language arts at the Hoboken Charter School, an urban charter school in New Jersey that serves children in grades K-12. At this school, I have had opportunities to serve as the Middle School Facilitator coordinating schedules and state testing. I have also served as a mentor to staff who are new to the profession, contributed to the writing of the annual reports and charter renewal, and participated on the Curriculum Advisory Council. Recently, I was selected to take the role of Co-Director/Principal of grades K-8 which will be an exciting new endeavor for me.

While teaching, I earned a Master of Arts degree in Arts and Humanities from Columbia University's Teachers College. At present, I am completing a Master of Arts degree in Urban Educational Leadership at New Jersey City University. An advocate of service-learning and character education, I have had the good fortune to lead presentations on these topics at numerous national conferences and had an article published in Educational Leadership this year. Currently I write a monthly column for the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development's (ASCD) newsletter, Education Update. In 2008, I was honored with ASCD's Outstanding Young Educator Award. Additional honors have included the 2008 Eva's Village Service Award, a Promising Practices Award through the Character Education Partnership, and the Pennsylvania Governor's Award for Excellence in Community Outreach.

As a teacher and educational leader, it is my goal for students to view the world with critical minds and be inspired and prepared to be agents of positive change in their communities and in the world at large.

I am particularly excited about working with the Middle School Professional Learning Community, a school founded in the spring of last year. The middle school team has been meeting voluntarily over the last few months to propose changes, sometimes dramatic ones, to the middle school program to best meet our students' needs. The changes have been highly effective. As Co-Director/Principal, I will expand these learning communities to the lower grades and integrate the meetings for all grades into the school day so all can participate. I also plan to focus on the professional development program. Data-driven action research projects, book groups, and teacher and administrator-led seminars will be included.