CONTACT: Patricia Lamiell, lamiell@tc.columbia.edu, 973-449-7086

MEDIA ADVISORY – August 14, 2020

Teachers College, Columbia University has launched an ongoing series of stories – spotlighting TC faculty experts and alumni who serve nationwide as superintendents, principals, teachers and school support staff — detailing how schools expect to function during the ongoing COVID crisis this fall. In addition to providing a unique on-the-ground view of education amidst the pandemic, the series highlights strategies and best practices shaped in part by research or pre-service training at TC.

This week, in a “roundtable in print,” four TC faculty experts on school leadership discuss how superintendents and principals are grappling with what TC leadership consultant Ellie Drago-Severson calls “the ultimate adaptive challenge” of trying to resume instruction this fall.

• Drago-Severson, who is also Professor of Education Leadership and Adult Learning & Leadership and Director of the College’s Ph.D. Program in Education Leadership, is joined by
• Brian Perkins, Director of the Summer Principals Academy at Teachers College, Associate Professor of Practice in Education Leadership, Co-Director of TC’s Urban Education Leaders Program and Director of the College’s Summer Principals Academy program in New York City and New Orleans;
• Barbara McKeon, Director of TC’s Cahn Fellows Program for Distinguished Principals; and
• Jeffrey Young, Professor of Practice in Education Leadership, Director of TC’s Programs in Education Leadership, and Co-Director of the Urban Education Leaders Program, former superintendent of Cambridge and Newton, Massachusetts

We also offer “dispatches from the field” featuring the following TC alumni:

• Joshua Long, Principal at Southside Occupational Academy High School, Chicago’s lone “transition center” serving students with occupational needs
• Crystal Jones, Principal at Beecher Hills Elementary School in southwest Atlanta
• Brett Schneider, Principal at New York City’s Bronx Collaborative High School, which serves primarily Latinx and black students, and where 92 percent of students are eligible for free and reduced lunch
• Elizabeth Bonesteel, Superintendent of Vermont’s Montpelier-Roxbury public schools
• Lorna Lewis; Superintendent of Long Island’s Malverne Free Union District
• Thomas Rogers, Superintendent of Syosset, Long Island schools, and former Superintendent of the Nassau BOCES district

Next up in our series, in early September: How districts are dealing with the heightened need to meet children’s psychological and emotional needs.

To reach Teachers College faculty experts on the educational, psychology and health aspects of COVID-19, contact Patricia Lamiell, lamiell@tc.columbia.edu, 973-449-7086