Work history

          Prior to beginning my career in the field of education, I worked as a counselor within a locked unit of a psychiatric hospital.  The main function was to intervene in a crisis situation.  The demand for intense interpersonal exchange sharpened skills of observing and recording critical human behavior, needs assessment, limit setting, communication, and implementation of treatment plans.  Such experience remains invaluable for the performance of duties whether those duties be the management of students, faculty or employees in general.

           After two years of psychiatric experience, I began my teaching career as a middle school teacher at Queen of Peace.  My primary duties were to teach all subject areas.  I taught 6th, 7th, and 8th graders.  After becoming Coordinator of the Life Studies Program, responsibilities were expanded to include curriculum development, directing teachers in the implementation of the Life Studies Program, as well as selecting and maintaining inventory of appropriate educational materials.

      Having been a successful teacher and program coordinator, I next gained the position of elementary school principal.  As Principal of Ascension School responsibilities included the total operation of a kindergarten to grade 8 school which had a student enrollment of 235.  General responsibilities were developing and maintaining the budget; hiring, evaluating, and developing staff (9 full time teachers and 5 support staff); collecting tuition; developing and maintaining good public relations and open communication between the faculty, parents, students, the school, and the community.

          Due to a substantial increase in salary, I left the Archdiocese of Baltimore for employment within the public school system.  Within the Baltimore County Public School System, I taught English on a 7th and 8th grade level for Woodlawn Middle School.  My first year I was responsible for 149 students ranging from below average to above average ability.  During my second year at Woodlawn Middle I participated in TESA (Teacher Expectations and Student Achievement), a special year long inservice program offered by the Maryland State Department of Education.  During the summer, after successfully completing my second year with Baltimore County, I was approached and recruited by Taylor Manor Hospital (TMH) to become their Director of School Services.

     Directing the school services for TMH not only substantially increased my salary and administrative responsibilities, it also provided the opportunity to merge my earlier clinical psychiatric experience with my teaching experience.  The School Services department for TMH consisted of three TMH staff members who interfaced with the local education agencies for each of the adolescents hospitalized in the long term adolescent program as well as those adolescents residing on the short term unit and were in need of home/hospital tutoring.  A major focus of my responsibilities was to interface with the Howard County Level V Public School housed in Taylor Manor’s long term adolescent building.  Various services offered by the department were: establishing and maintaining lines of communication between the educational staff of Howard County and the clinical staff of Taylor Manor; ARD advocacy upon discharge; assisting parents regarding student rights within respective local educational systems; monitoring student behavior within the school setting and assisting school personnel regarding student’s acting out behavior; providing LEAs with needed documentation regarding special education services; etc.  Being the Director of School Services for Taylor Manor Hospital rounded out my wide range of experience as an educator such that I have worked substantially within a special education environment, worked as both teacher and administrator, and have worked in the private educational sector as well as the public.

          In August of 1988 my former wife was recruited by and accepted a position with Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, Maine.  It was necessary to move the family and seek appropriate employment in Maine.  I secured a position as a resource room teacher for Crosby Jr. High School (now the Troy Howard Middle School) where I worked until June of 2005.  As a resource room teacher I developed and implemented Individual Educational Programs for special needs students.  I constantly looked for ways to integrate computer technology to enhance their learning potential and product output.  I facilitated a student newspaper produced by my special needs students; then interfaced that experience with a selected regular educational classroom and produced a school wide newspaper through a team teaching effort with our 7th grade History teacher.  Later, I established a modem station and joined the AT&T Learning Network where my special needs students interfaced with regular education and gifted classes across the globe to produce a world wide newspaper via AT&T’s e-mail system. 

          After being a resource room teacher for four years, I accepted a Title I teaching  position to learn and develop  the HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills) program.  The HOTS program combines a Socratic method of discussion with computerized simulations involving critical thinking challenges to be resolved. After 10 years of teaching HOTS, I developed an alternative education program (Eco-House) for the middle school under the supervision of my principal. Eco-House combined the educational methods and concepts of HOTS with those of the Critical Skills Institute and added the goal of integrating the traditional core subjects (English, Mathematics, Science and History)  into a project oriented, learning  environment. The requirement for each student to ‘make visible’ and ‘pass on’ all that was learned established communication skills as critical to the educational environment. All communications within Eco-House were understood as either receptive or expressive and H. A. Gleason’s five language keys structured the development of communication skills around the social contexts in which the messages were delivered. During the spring of the year before Eco-House, I developed and implemented an exploratory class (My Place in the World) which continued to fuel the habit of facilitating the student to personalize his or her education. During this time I wrote and subsequently received two grants totaling about $30,000.00 for improving school wide reading skills. The thrust of these grants was two fold: 1) to increase student reading practice time by promoting a social situation in which the reading was shared and 2) to empower the student to take ownership of his or her learning. The second grant was awarded to generalize the successes in reading behavior to include students’ mathematical behavior. Eco-House was an application of all that was learned in my 30 years as a professional educator while integrating all that was learned as a mental health employee. I worked on the Eco-House project for three years before my parents’ severe medical problems forced a hiatus from teaching.