Appointment of Principals to Positions Posted and Screened March and April 2003

TO:    Chairperson and Members, Boston School Committee

FROM:    Thomas W. Payzant, Superintendent

I have appointed the principals listed below to positions that were posted and screened during March and April 2003. The appointments are effective July 1, 2003. There are other vacancies which have occurred since the posting of positions several months ago. I will announce appointments for those positions later this month. The new assignments of the principals of the schools being closed will be included with that list.

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS

1. Beethoven Elementary School
      Eileen Nash, Principal
   Eileen Nash has been serving as Acting Principal at the Beethovan Elementary School since Jim Kirk retired in December 2002. Ms. Nash joined Boston Public Schools in 1988 as an Elementary Evaluation Team Leader. In 1996 she became an Elementary Compliance Evaluation Team Leader. Two years later she was selected to be an Assistant Program Director in Cluster 1. For the 2000-2001 school year she was Cluster 1 Coordinator. Before becoming Acting Principal this year, she worked with John Poto as a Program Director at East Boston High School during the first semester.



2. James Michael Curley Elementary School
      Mirna Vega-Wilson, Principal
   Ms. Vega-Wilson came to Boston Public Schools as a Bilingual Learning Disabilities Specialist in 1977. In 1988 she became a Personnel Specialist in our Department of Personnel. She served as the Special Education Department Head at English High School from 1987 to 1990 when she became a Student Support Coordinator. Her next assignment was as a Special Education Program Advisor. In 1993 she was selected as an Assistant Principal at the McKay School. Since 1995 she has been the Principal of the Ellis Mendell Elementary School.



3. Paul A. Dever Elementary School
      Guadalupe Guerrero, Principal
   Mr. Guerrero has been the Acting Principal at the Dever Elementary School since last September. The previous year he was a Principal Intern at the Charles Sumner Elementary School. He began his teaching career in Oakland, California as a 7th grade Bilingual Math/Science Teacher in 1994. He moved to the San Francisco Unified School District where he taught bilingual students in grades 4 and 5 for three years. He began his career in Boston at the Lyndon Pilot School teaching bilingual fourth graders for a year before moving to the Ohrenberger School in 1998 where he taught until 2001. He is a graduate of UCLA and has a master's degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.



4. Oliver Wendell Holmes Elementary School
      Antoinette Newsom, Principal
   Ms. Newsom has been Acting Principal at the Holmes this school year. She is a graduate of Duke Univesity and has a Master's degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In 1991 she was selected by the Teach for America Program to teach at a Houston elementary school. After two years in Houston, she taught for a year in Bethesda, MD and then moved to Boston for graduate school. From 1995-2000 Ms. Newsom was a Lead Teacher and Literacy Coordinator at the Samuel W. Mason Elementary School in Boston. She became a literacy and change coach the next year and left Boston Public Schools for 2001-2002 to serve as Dean of the Neighborhood House Charter Lower School.



5. John F. Kennedy Elementary School
      Eileen Morales, Principal
   Ms. Morales studied at the University of Puerto Rico and earned her B.A. at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her master's degree is from Boston University. She began her career in Boston as a Bilingual Teacher at the Gardner Elementary School in 1979. From 1983-1985 she taught grades one and four at the Sarah Greenwood. In 1985 she moved to the Agassiz Elementary School where she taught a bilingual fourth grade class for two years. She then taught Bilingual History and Earth Science at English High School for two years before becoming a Title VI-Resource Specialist for nine years. In 1998 she became an Assistant Principal at the James Hennigan Elementary School where she served until being appointed Acting Principal at the J.F. Kennedy Elementary School this year.



6. Patrick J. Kennedy Elementary School
      Bonnie MacCallum, Principal
   Dr. MacCallum earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Arizona in 1973 and her Ed.D. in Educational Leadership at the University of New Mexico in 2000. She has been an elementary and middle school teacher in Illinois and New Mexico. From 1993-1999 Dr. MacCallum was Principal of the Conchiti Elementary/Middle School in the Bernalillo Public Schools, New Mexico and from 2000-2002 at the Wheeler Elementary School in the Tucson School District. Last August she was selected as Acting Principal for the Patrick J. Kennedy Elementary School.



7. Mattahunt Elementary School
      Gloria Woods, Principal
   Ms. Woods completed her undergraduate education at Boston State College and earned a Master's degree at Suffolk University. She began her career as a kindergarten teacher in Boston in 1974 and moved to the Rogers Middle School as a Special Education Teacher from 1975-1986. She was Project Promise Coordinator at the James P. Timilty School in 1986 and became Assistant Principal there in 1987. In 1989 she became Principal of the Ohrenberger Elementary School where she served until 1999. From 1999-2002, Ms. Woods served as Director of School Reform for the Boston Plan for Excellence-Boston Annenbeg Challenge. Last summer she began her work as Acting Principal at the Mattahunt Elementary School.



8. Hugh R. O'Donnell Elementary School
      Dr. Robert Martin, Principal
   Dr. Martin completed his undergraduate work at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1973, earned a Master's degree from Antioch University in 1979 and returned to the University of Massachusetts to complete his doctorate in 1996. He began his teaching career at the Dearborn Middle School in 1973 and was appointed principal of the school in 1978 at age 28. In 1981 he was appointed Principal of the John W. McCormack Middle School where he served until 1999. He then moved to the Seven Hills Charter School as Superintendent/Principal where he served for three years. He returned to the Boston Public Schools as Acting Principal earlier this school year.



9. John D. Philbrick Elementary School
      Dr. Johanna Even-Ascenscio, Principal
   Dr. Even-Ascenscio completed her undergraduate at Harvard/Radcliffe College in 1992 and earned her Master's degree in 1997 and Ed.D. in 2002 from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She was a Teach for America-Bilingual Kindergarten and First Grade Teacher in Los Angeles from 1992-1994. In the fall of 1994 she taught second grade in the Spanish Bilingual Program at the Donald McKay School in Boston. She was a Reading Specialist at the Neighborhood Charter School in Dorchester for the 1994-1995 school year. While working on her doctorate she served as a Research Assistant for the Consortium for Policy Research in Education and a Curriculum Consultant at the Boston Harvard Leadership Development Initiative. She returned to Boston Public Schools as a Literacy and Whole School Change Coach in 1999 and was appointed Acting Principal at the Philbrick Elementary School last summer.