The New York City Leadership Academy is adding two former big-city superintendents as the organization’s inaugural “superintendents in residence.”
Ann Clark, the former Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., superintendent, and Valeria Silva, who led St. Paul, Minn., Public Schools, will join the school leader training program for the 2017-18 school year.
“Ann and Valeria have been longtime leaders in the critical and difficult work of ensuring schools are offering an equitable and excellent education to students, regardless of race or culture, economic background or learning needs,” Irma Zardoya, the organization’s president and CEO, said in the announcement on Tuesday.
“We and the districts we work with have so much to learn from them, and we are honored to have them on our team,” she added.
As superintendents in residence, Clark and Silva will help with the organization’s focus on educational equity. Both focused heavily on equity in their respective districts. As superintendents in residence, they’ll also be involved in improving and expanding the organization’s leadership development work, NYCLA said.
Silva served as superintendent in St. Paul from December 2009 through July 2016, when she was fired by the school board amid disagreements over school discipline, budgets, and shrinking enrollment, according to the Twin Cities Pioneer Press. Clark spent 34 years with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg system, starting in 1983 and retiring this year after serving two and a half years as superintendent.
Boston school district’s former chief of schools, Michele Shannon, will also join the New York City Leadership staff. Shannon was part of the organization’s second Aspiring Principals cohort. Her duties will include designing curriculum for participants in the program.