Congratulations all around!

June 3, 2010

Dear LREI Families,

As we sprint towards the end of the school year—two weeks filled with all sorts of special events and celebrations to go—it seems like a good time to congratulate members of the faculty on some of their successes this year. I asked the faculty in all three divisions to volunteer specific honors earned this school year. The responses were:

• Ana Chaney, middle school math teacher and math department chair, completed Bank Street College of Education’s Leadership in Mathematics Education program and earned a Masters’ of Science in Education.

• Micah Dov Gottlieb, high school Assistant Principal, was chosen to represent Brooklyn College’s Educational Leadership program at their NCATE (National Council of Accreditation of Teacher Education) accreditation. In addition, he will be working with PBS on an episode of a new program called “Do The Math.” His record label “The Brooklyn Label” will be showing children how math is used in the recording studio. The group that will be featured is DobleFlo (a hip-hop duo), which features LREI alum Luis Lopez, ‘03.

• Matthew Rosen, seventh grade core teacher, was awarded an National Endowment for the Humanities grant to attend a summer institute at Yale, The Lost World of Early America, in which he will explore themes in colonial American history, such as race relations, politics, economics, family and community life, and rites of passage.. In addition, he was selected to be a recipient of the Richard Koppenaal Scholarship for superior academic achievement at NYU where he will continue with his graduate studies in English Literature and Writing in the fall.

• Deborah Damast, lower school movement teacher/middle school dance teacher, was the recipient of the Outstanding Postsecondary Educator award from the National Dance Education Organization for outstanding contributions to dance education nationally and in the community. This award is given once every two years and nominations come from colleges and universities across the nation.

• High school English teacher Ileana Jiménez has recently been awarded the Distinguished Fulbright in Teaching Award (which is different from the Fulbright Teacher Exchange). The Fulbright will allow Ileana to spend six months in Mexico conducting research at a major university, providing professional development to local teachers, and completing a capstone project on gender and education. Her Fulbright will extend from January through June 2011. She hopes to bring her research on gender and education back to both our English program and the high school’s program re-design focusing on global education and diversity.

• Vin Scialla, high school music teacher/jazz band director was recently offered an album and distribution deal with Random Chance records for Snehasish Mozumder & Som, whom he performed with at Lincoln Center Out of Doors.

• Elizabeth Simmons, seventh grade Core teacher, will attend the Klingenstein Summer Institute for Early Teachers. The Institute brings together approximately 75 teachers from across the country and around the world, and is especially designed to make teachers more effective leaders in the classroom and throughout the school.

• Early childhood librarian Jesse Karp’s first novel, Those That Wake, will be published by Houghton Mifflin in Spring 2011. The young adult novel centers on two teenagers who stumble upon a dark force that secretly manipulates society, and their struggle against it. In addition, Jesse’s Graphic Novels in Your School Library, a non-fiction book about using comics and graphic novels in education, will be published by ALA Editions in Spring 2011. Finally, he is currently serving his second year on the American Library Association’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens Committee, a body devoted to selecting the best graphic novels for ages 12-18.

• Stacy Dillon, Lower School Librarian, has been selected to be a member of the Newberry 2012 committee. What an honor! As you may know, the “Newbery Medal was named for eighteenth-century British bookseller John Newbery. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.”

• MS Librarian and Library Department Chair Jennifer Hubert Swan has been accepted into the Cullman Center Institute for Teachers Summer Seminar taught by author Karen Russell this July, and will be chairing the 2012 YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) Award for Excellence in Nonfiction committee starting in September. She is also a Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute in the School of Information and Library Science where she teaches evening courses in young adult and tween literature.

• Karyn Silverman, high school librarian, is currently Chair of the Frances Henne YALSA/VOYA Research Grant Jury, which awards an annual fund to research supporting the Strategic Goals and Mission of YALSA, and am currently a member of the YALSA Nominating Committee, which is charged with finding qualified candidates for all award committees and governance positions. In addition, I will be teaching a graduate class on Young Adult Literature at Queens College this summer.

Each summer, for many years, LREI awards summer grants to support program development. Two years ago we began to award a series travel grants to support travel by LREI employees that may be, but does not have to be, related to the curriculum. For a complete list, visit my next post.

We also had a very successful year for some of our academic teams. I have posted these on this blog, as well.