Meet Our Project Director
If you have made it this far, it’s probably because you are on the hunt for a good school for your child. As a mother to a three year old, I understand what an important decision you are about to make and how truly scary it can be.
To that end, I thought I’d use my first blog post to introduce myself. My goal here is not to regale you with my accomplishments but to let you know that I mean business. Taking on the role of project director for this school is not just a job for me, it is a culmination of my life’s work and something I’ve dreamed of doing for many years. I am dedicated to making New York City public schools better and have been for 20 years. I’m honored that you are even here, scrolling through, and learning more about the community we will create.
I am a born and raised Brooklynite who attended public school from K-12, before attending NYU for college. Immediately after graduating high school, I began working as a paraprofessional in a District 75 Special Education school in Coney Island and this experience cracked my world open. I had attended my own elementary school less than a mile away and was shocked at the stark differences in the quality of schooling and facilities available to students in a neighboring school.
In college, while I continued to work as a paraprofessional, I also had the chance to work with the NYC Center for Charter School Excellence, supporting new charter schools and with NYU’s Urban Education and Policy Center, doing research on effective literacy practices in pre-schools. During all these experiences, I observed leaders and policy makers making important decisions about children without having the necessary “boots-on-the-ground” sort of experiences to fully understand the impact of their choices. I knew school leadership would be the route for me, but I valued the experience and perspective I gained through these jobs, and wanted to continue my knowledge seeking journey until I was sure I was equipped to take on the role effectively.
It has been 20 years since I began this work and since then, I have worked as a Kindergarten teacher, a 4th grade teacher, an instructional coach and an assistant principal. I was a NYC Teaching Fellow and then I coached incoming Teaching Fellows. I was a founding member of a Charter School in Bedford-Stuyvesant. And now, I am experiencing public school in NYC through a new perspective, as a parent. My 3 year old daughter, Leila, is in 3k and we are navigating the Pre-K process, just like many of you.
Before the pandemic, I had the pleasure of participating in the Imagine NYC initiative, which was a call for innovative new school ideas. Alongside an amazing team, we designed a fully inclusive school that would leverage all of the programs and resources that we’d learned through our work in special education to ensure success for all students. Once March 2020 came around, we thought we would not have the chance to materialize this dream. But, here we are! It is amazing that 2 years later I have found a community who shares this vision for what a good public school can be. It is an incredible honor and joy to work with the rich community of Sunset Park to make our vision come to life. I’m excited to meet all of you and can’t wait for the real work to begin in September!
