2010 Recipients of the NewAlliance Bank Teacher Excellence Award
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
Dr. Reginald Mayo:
Superintendent, New Haven Public Schools
Denise Coles-Cross:
Principal, Mauro-Sheridan Magnet School
|
NEW HAVEN, CT (March 18, 2010) – The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven is pleased to announce the 2010 recipients of the NewAlliance Bank Teacher Excellence Award: Susan Baldino, Justin Boucher, Deirdre Prisco, William Slusky and Dr. Derk-Michel Strauch.
Nominations to receive the award are made by colleagues, students and parents; the award is made possible through the NewAlliance Bank Education Fund and given to teachers who demonstrate excellence and creativity in their classrooms in the New Haven public school system. Each of this year’s recipients has gone above and beyond to create a classroom environment that is both comfortable and conducive to learning and achieving success. The NewAlliance Bank Education Fund was established at The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven in 1999 by the New Haven Savings Bank. In addition to distributing awards for teacher excellence, it awards scholarships to students residing in New Haven.
About the recipients:
Susan Baldino (Kindergarten,
Davis Street Arts and Academies Magnet School)
Baldino has been inspiring a love of learning in her young students’ minds throughout her eight years of teaching. She is a firm believer that by involving parents in their children’s education, parents and children will partner together for a more successful learning experience. To enact this, Baldino sends school-to-home and home-to-school logs to her students’ homes on a weekly basis and produces DVD’s of class activities for the parents to use at home as an extension of the classroom. She also coordinates and plans Family Science Nights at Davis School for parents to get involved in the science curriculum, to support the school curriculum and to reflect on Davis Street Arts’ school theme.
“Mrs. Baldino brings a myriad of talents to the teaching profession which qualifies her as a special teacher,” said one of her nominators. “She has an indomitable passion and enthusiasm for a teacher, a feature which is contagious as she deals with the young people in her classroom. The zeal translates into high expectations for her students, stretching them to reach greater heights.”
Baldino’s techniques show positive results. For the past five years, her students have shown exceptional success with 95 percent of her students being prepared to leave kindergarten with mastery in all areas of the curriculum.
Justin Boucher (History,
Hill Regional Career Magnet High School)
Justin Boucher has been teaching for six years and is currently teaching history to grades 11 and 12.
He maintains a wonderful relationship with his students, advising many clubs and acting as an advisor to the Senior Class. When he discovered a need for a more comprehensive program for government education, Boucher designed and offered an AP Government Course for high level juniors. His students are known to react passionately to his assignments as in the case of a class that created a school-wide campaign to vote on which of two philosophers, Thomas Hobbes or John Locke, was the better. Boucher’s original research assignment about the two philosophers culminated in the creation of a Philosophy Club.
On top of teaching, he has mentored six new history teachers, served as a cooperating teacher with five pre-service teachers, co-wrote the City of New Haven’s World Civilizations 9th grade curriculum and has published nine separate units for various social studies courses through his connection with the Yale New Haven Teacher’s Institute.
Deirdre Prisco (Special Education Inclusion,
Edgewood Magnet School)
Deirdre Prisco has been teaching for an impressive 25 years. Currently, she is a Special Education Inclusion teacher for grades 5 through 8.
Prisco came to Edgewood in 1999 with the purpose to create the Special Inclusion program. Her idea was for students to remain in the regular classroom to receive instruction and for the special education teacher and regular education teacher, who co-teach, to provide an educational program for all students so that both could share responsibility for student progress.
“Deirdre is a teacher for all,” commented one of her nominators. “The special quality that [she] brings to the classroom is her enthusiasm. Deirdre teaches a specific concept to the students as if she herself is learning it for the first time.”
Prisco helps her students succeed by encouraging them to take responsibility for their own learning through setting personal goals. She creates individual student data binders to help students track their performance in class and on assessments. This strategy has proved both motivating and successful and the program now serves as a model for other schools in the district and is visited by other teachers who want to replicate Edgewood’s special education inclusion program.
William Slusky (Video Production and Literacy through Media,
Mauro-Sheriden Interdistrict Magnet School for Science, Technology and Communications)
William Slusky left a corporate job to enrich the lives of students. Since then, he has been teaching for four years and currently teaches Video Production and Literacy through Media for 6th, 7th and 8th graders.
To walk into Slusky’s classroom is to see the MASH (Mauro-Sheriden) Newscast Crew vigorously in action. Rather than the usual pencil and paper, his students’ main tools are cameras, headsets, control panels and teleprompters. They use these tools to learn to express themselves through electronic mediums and provide a daily news broadcast to the entire school. Slusky was instrumental in forming this curriculum.
“Mr. Slusky fosters relationships with students in many ways, but especially by embracing students of various grade levels in a non-traditional sense (multi-age, multi-leveled) and looking at students holistically, instead of in the customary, expected student roles,” said one nominator. “At a time that is socially challenging for youth, Mr. Slusky creates a strong camaraderie and family atmosphere with his news crew that is not commonly seen during middle school years.”
Dr. Derk-Michel Strauch (Latin,
Hill Regional Career Magnet High School)
Dr. Strauch has been a teacher for 12 years and currently teaches Latin to 9th graders. Dr. Strauch is a native French speaker who learned English when he was a student himself. He is multi-lingual and uses his experience learning multiple languages to the advantage of his students. He works to connect the experiences of his students using many languages in the classroom to be useful to them in future employment. He often tells his students he is teaching them not for this year, but for where they need to be in twenty or thirty years.
According to his nomination form, “Being multi-lingual, Dr. Strauch is appreciative of the many cultures from which his students come, and finds ways to incorporate the students’ cultures and traditions in the classroom. He works to build a classroom that is tolerant and appreciative of difference, curious of life, and a reflection of the communities in which students will work one day.”
Dr. Strauch has presented his research on multiple-choice tests to the district wide World Language department, resulting in the re-writing of multiple choice exams to comply with better practices.
Since 1928, donors to The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven have built the community's endowment currently valued at nearly $280 million. In 2009, The Community Foundation’s Board of Directors distributed nearly $14 million in grants from approximately 700 different named charitable funds supporting a wide range of programs and projects. For more information about The Community Foundation visit www.cfgnh.org.
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