On his time at Beaver…
I have fond memories of my high school years at Beaver. I remember when I was there, it was really highly regarded in the community. I always felt very fortunate to be there and receive such a strong education. I remember the quality of the teachers being so strong and the availability that they had outside of the classroom to talk. Some of my most memorable experiences in the building were during advisory time. I remember forming a really nice bond with my advisor and with our small group of students. I remember that being a really positive experience.
I remember the out-of-school-time experiences at Beaver being some of the more influential, the community service that I did after school at a local elementary school in their after school programs. I played basketball at Beaver and we would do clinics with students from other neighborhoods. Some of that stuff really stuck with me. I didn’t know necessarily that I wanted to be in the field of education after I graduated, but in terms of being able to give back to the community, and with all the resources that Beaver had, to be able to give back to those less fortunate has been a common thread in my career now.
On his path to education…
I went to UW-Madison after Beaver. I knew that I wanted to pursue a liberal arts education and so I ended up studying sociology and I got more and more interested in the cultural and socioeconomic divides in our country. That was kind of my area of focus in undergrad. My first year out of school I was introduced into the workforce through a service corps program. I’m of Jewish faith so there’s a program called Avodah Jewish Service Corps. You work for a nonprofit for a year helping that organization build capacity and then you also live communally with a group of other young adults working at other various anti-poverty organizations in the city. You’re also undergoing leadership training and a bunch of other training throughout the course of that year. I did that in Washington, DC, working for the largest nonprofit after-school program serving DC public school students, all low-income students. That was kind of my introduction into the world of education in terms of my career, and it kind of put me on a path to continuing to work primarily in the nonprofit fields in education.
On his role at Science & Arts Academy…
Science & Arts Academy is a private junior-kindergarten through 8th grade school in the greater Chicago area. We serve gifted students and this is my fifth year with the school as the Director of Auxiliary Programs. It’s a fairly new role in the independent school landscape over the past 10 years or so. It combines a lot of functions of the business office, the marketing office, and operations. My role is to oversee all of the programs and services provided to current students and families. It also works with the community outside of the school-day curriculum, which includes the summer program, co-curricular and extracurricular programs, and services to families like our lunch services and transportation services. I also oversee programs other than fundraising that generate additional revenue for the school, primarily through facility rentals and other partnerships like that. That’s what I’ve been doing for the past four plus years now.
On private and public schools…
I’m fortunate to have the perspective of going to a couple different Boston public schools, transitioning to a super small Jewish day school, then having my Beaver experience, and then going to a gigantic state university. In my career, it’s mostly been in inner-city public schools, so being part of a private day school again has really opened my eyes to the possibilities of what an education can be. Our goal at Science & Arts Academy is to make sure that students feel safe, students feel like they can be themselves, and students feel that they can relate to their peers both intellectually and social-emotionally so we can really set them up to be not only successful students in the future, but successful people and contributors to society. Unfortunately in my earlier professional experience being around and working in partnerships with a lot of public schools in the DC area and in Chicago, the system just isn’t really set up for students to be successful. There’s obviously a ton of variables that go into that, but at Science & Arts Academy, we’re providing another form of special education because gifted students are very underserved in our society. We’ve been able to create the unique learning environment for them to excel at their own pace, to be understood, and to have their needs met wherever they are. At the end of the day, I just realized how fortunate we are to have private institutions in our country educating students because most of our students are coming from public schools that have failed them and haven’t been able to meet their needs. We’ve been able to provide that safe space for them to feel comfortable and really make a second home. It’s been eye-opening for me to be in a professional capacity at a private school, and I know there’s a bunch of other private schools doing great work as well. At the same time it makes me kind of put everything in perspective.
On the role of technology in education…
The ed tech industry here in Chicago is pretty huge which is why I was interested in getting my feet in there. We have tons of discussions about technology in our school, but you always want to frame it as, how is technology enhancing student learning? Oftentimes, I think it can get in the way. Recently, the big discussions for us have been about how we are integrating technology within a shift as a school that we’re trying to make, and being more inclusive and accessible for low-income families. When you have different technology requirements at the school and technology requirements for students and families outside of school time, obviously that can be a barrier to entry for students for whom we are trying to open up our school who may not be able to afford that. So that’s been top of the mind for us in terms of the intersection of technology in education as more and more components of the school day become technologically-focused.
On Beaver as a window to the greater community…
I imagine that it’s a pretty big part of Beaver’s mission to prepare students to be contributing members of society and to give back and to lend their skill-set to making the world a better place. I think Beaver definitely did that to me through some of their opportunities. That has been turned into a common thread in my career. I’ve tried to work alongside and on behalf of populations that have been historically marginalized and I think Beaver does a great job of preparing students and showing them the opportunities where they can make that impact down the road.
