The AED PSO Team
The AED PSO team, led by the PSO director, is staffed by New York City educators with deep and varied experience in middle-grades and high school reform, youth development, postsecondary access and success, evaluation and accountability, adolescent health, and educational equity. Staff and consultants from AED’s New York City team are organizing the AED PSO, and they are supported by a range of other AED associates. Below is a brief snapshot of the team.
Calvin Hastings, AED PSO Director
As an AED senior program officer with extensive experience in middle-grades education and school support, Mr. Hastings has recently taken over the role as PSO Director. An active part of the management team for AED Middle Start programs, he is responsible for integrating the work of AED programs into the PSO and disseminate the best-practice work being done with our network schools to other AED programs. He works closely with the AED PSO principals to regularly analyze school data and create focused plans for providing the support and services to help their schools accomplish articulated goals. Mr. Hastings also oversees the New School Development process and the new USDOE funded Middle Start Leadership Program. Mr. Hastings manages the multiple teams working in each of these areas to ensure that all projects benefit from a unified vision and support structure.
Maud Abeel, Program Officer
As a program officer for AED, Ms. Abeel supports the development and expansion of Middle Start to new areas and to new partner schools. Her prior work at New Visions for Public Schools and Carnegie Corporation of New York gave her the opportunity to work with a variety of school-wide improvement models. Maud is a contributing author, researcher, and editor to Turning Points 2000: Educating Adolescents in the 21st Century, a follow-up to Carnegie’s landmark Turning Points report. As a part of the AED PSO, she will help in the planning and implementation of programs in all network schools.
Risa Sackman, AED PSO Professional Development and Coach
Ms. Sackman is focused on unifying the PSO professional development under three agreed upon focus areas that help lead to successful middle grades schools: 1) Academic Rigor and Differentiated Instruction (focus on curriculum and instruction); 2) Young Adolescent Development (focus on climate and environment); 3) Effective Small Learning Communities (focus on collaborative instructional planning, assessment, and student management). Her years of experience as a Middle School teacher and administrator, curriculum developer, and national consultant in curriculum and instruction, assessment for learning, and teacher development informs and shapes this work. Ms. Sackman also provides direct coaching services to some of the schools in the PSO.
Susan Crossley, Business Director
As the director of business and administration at AED, Ms. Crossley oversees all contractual and business aspects of the AED PSO.
Barbara Ghyll, Senior Coach
Ms. Ghyll has dedicated her 40-year career to working with and in schools in Chicago and New York City as a teacher, reading specialist, principal, staff and curriculum developer, coach, consultant, and change agent. Additionally, Barbara taught and developed courses at New York University. Committed to leveling the playing field for disadvantaged youth and improving student achievement, she provides leadership development to new and veteran principals and teacher leaders. As lead coach, Barbara will have a new opportunity to share her expertise and enthusiasm.
Aurelia Enache, Program Associate
Aurelia Enache joined AED in 1988. Currently she provides program and administrative support to the AED PSO and supports the Middle Start National Center at AED in activities and services related to educational reform. Ms. Enache has been an asset to the development of the Middle Start, which started in 1998 in Michigan and expanded to other states, including Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Wisconsin, and New York. Prior to joining the Middle Start team, Ms. Enache worked on a number of projects related to school-community collaboration, literacy education, afterschool programming, self-assessment, youth employment preparation, and other services for economically disadvantaged youth. Some projects include: Alternative Schools Assistance Project, Youth Employment Program Assistance, Assessment in Youth-Serving Agencies, Expeditionary Learning Outward Schools Evaluation, and School Self Assessment Program.
Patrice Williams, Program Associate
As a research associate, Ms. Williams provides program support for the AED PSO, AED PSO schools and the early indicators pilot project, and she provides accountability tracking for the PSO schools to ensure we are constantly collecting and analyzing the data to determine the impact of our work. She supports the professional development initiatives through event planning, coordination of workshops, and analysis of program effectiveness. Patrice also provides editorial support for the new AED PSO website.
Middle Start Team — Supporting the PSO Work
AED’s Middle Start program team has transformed many middle-grades schools, particularly those located in high-poverty areas, into high-performing environments that are academically challenging, responsive to the unique characteristics of young adolescents, and able to demonstrate social equity. They now bring their experience to the AED PSO in New York City.
Sandy Weinbaum and Patrick Montesano, Vice-Presidents and Co-Directors
The AED vice presidents and directors of the AED New York City office will support the AED PSO program director and the entire team and help integrate the range of AED resources into PSO support services. Mr. Montesano is the director of Middle Start, where he oversees AED initiatives that promote the learning and healthy development of young adolescents and improve the schools and other organizations that serve them. Dr. Weinbaum directs a range of AED programs and research related to educational leadership and reform; gender equity; school-community partnerships; improving student learning; and postsecondary access and success.
Merle Froschl and Barbara Sprung, Co-Directors of the Education Equity Center (EEC) at AED
Merle and Barbara together bring a total of over 60 years of experience in education. They offer expertise in gender, diversity, and other real-world issues such as bullying. As a partner in the AED PSO, EEC will continue to create practical hands-on materials and programs for after-school settings; offer workshops and training institutes for educators and parents; design and implement research projects that foster a better understanding of the need for equal opportunity; and create resources for women and girls with disabilities.
Linda Simkin, Director of Adolescent Health Programs
Ms. Simkin is a senior program officer at AED with a focus on adolescent and community health, emergency contraception, HIV/AIDS/STD and pregnancy prevention for adolescents. She also brings an expertise in school-to-work programs. Ms. Simkin will support the AED PSO in these areas, particularly in the connection between health and learning.
Steven Hoelscher, Middle Start Regional Director
Steve Hoelscher, Regional Director, directs the training and activities of Middle Start coaches. He has been a teacher, counselor, assistant high school principal and a middle school principal. As middle school principal, Hoelscher successfully provided leadership in transitioning the school from a junior high to a true middle school that provided academic excellence, met the developmental needs of adolescents, and assured equity for all students. He is presently a member of the board of directors of the National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform and vice president of the school board of Battle Creek, Michigan.
Michelle Feist, Senior Program Officer
Michelle Feist is a Senior Program Officer at the Academy for Educational Development (AED)’s Center for School and Community Services. Ms. Feist currently serves as the director of AED’s DC Middle Start work where she leads a team that is helping to support the district’s transformation to high performing middle grades schools. Ms. Feist also serves as the Interim Director of the National High School Alliance, a partnership of over 50 organizations working toward excellence, equity and advancement for high school-age youth. As the Interim Director, Ms. Feist manages a large learning network that has met regularly over a period of 6 years to 1) identify and disseminate effective strategies to help all students graduate college and work ready and 2) help partners strengthen their own work on the school, district, state and federal levels.
Adria Gallup-Black, Senior Program Officer
Dr. Gallup-Black is a senior program officer for research, evaluation, and accountability programs at AED. For the PSO, she will manage the collection of school and student performance data, administration of surveys, and the development of school data notebooks. Dr. Gallup-Black will also work with the director to strengthen the work of the coaches as they guide schools in reviewing data in order to improve instruction and accelerate student learning and achievement. She will also provide schools with protocols for conducting their own ongoing analysis of student performance data.
Lea Williams Rose, Program Officer
An AED program officer, Ms. Williams-Rose is an education sociologist with extensive experience in the evaluation of school and community based programs. As a member of the AED’s research team, she designs and manages evaluations and provides evaluation and technical assistance. Williams-Rose authored two reports, School-to-Work for the College Bound and School-to-Work, College and Career, which were published by the National Center for Research in Vocational Education and collaborated on, Packaging of Undergraduate Student Financial Aid: 1989-90 and the PACE Model Tech Prep Education Project published by the U.S. Department of Education and the Academy of Educational Development respectively. Lea will contribute to research study designs.
