The Perrone-Sizer Institute for Creative Leadership (PSi) was founded by Linda Nathan and Carmen Torres in 2015 as the Creative Educators Leadership Institute (CELI) at Boston University. PSi has added a cohort per year since, and in 2021, left the Center for Artistry and Scholarship to become one of Hale’s professional development programs. We invite you to meet our participants.

COHORT 8 (2023–2024)

Meet our current cohort.

COHORT 7 (2022–2023)

COHORT 6 (2021–2022)

COHORT 5 (2020–2021)

COHORT 4 (2019–2020)

COHORT 3 (2018–2019)

COHORT 2 (2017–2018)

COHORT 1 (2016–2017)

CELI (2015–2016)

Core Faculty and Staff

Will “Will. C.” Chalmus, Core Faculty

Will Chalmus (aka Will C.) is a highly skilled facilitator of personal, communal, and leadership development. Will C. is currently an adjunct professor at Brandeis University with an Ed.M. from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and a B.A. in Theater Arts from Brandeis. He is most known for his work with the Centre for Playback Theatre, an organization that runs the international school of this community-building form of improvisation theater based on personal narratives. In addition to serving on the board of directors and as faculty for the Centre for Playback, Will C. has also founded various Playback Theatre companies in New England and has led programs and provided consultations for many non-profit organizations in the US, Canada, Germany, Brazil and Australia. Will C. is also a highly respected poet, playwright, hip-hop artist, and M.C. that performs solo acts and with numerous groups nationally. He is also a teaching fellow at Harvard Graduate School of Education as well as a teaching assistant for multiple courses in the Education Department of Brandeis University. Will C. is currently building a Playback Theatre company in Cambridge Port as a Flow Grant recipient from the Cambridge Arts Council.

Sung-Joon “Sunny” Pai, Core Faculty

Sunny is an experienced public school educator and leader. Previously he held several roles at Charlestown High School, including Director of Systems and Innovation and Director of the Diploma Plus (DP) Programs. Sunny and his team created DP’s performance-based model for students who have not yet been successful in high school. DP is committed to establishing a culture of growth, where all students—especially students who have struggled in traditional academic models—can achieve at the highest levels. Sunny has also served as Chief of Staff at Charlestown High, facilitated teams such as the Leadership Team, Guidance Team, and Math Team, and consulted with the Office of High School Support for Boston Public Schools. Sunny began working in BPS as a student teacher in 1998 at Fenway High School. The following year, he became a founding faculty member at Boston Arts Academy (BAA). He was also on the founding faculty of Rainier Scholars, an enrichment program for BIPOC students in the Seattle Public Schools. Sunny completed both the Principal Residency Network principal-training program and the Boston Principal Fellowship. In 2005, Sunny was also founding principal at the Media Communications Technology High School (West Roxbury Educational Complex) and served there for four years. Sunny was recognized in 2016 by the Boston Globe as a Bostonian of the Year for his leadership with the DP program, and he is a winner of the Lawrence W. O’Toole Award.

Esta Montano, Coach

Esta spent 26 years in public education, first as a teacher, and later as district and school leader. She is currently a professor for Boston University’s Prison Education Program, where she teaches writing and literature courses at MCI Framingham. The teaching of incarcerated women has provided her with an additional lens on teaching and learning as well as the pipeline to prison. Esta also consults with school districts and government entities, providing professional development on the topics of race, culture, language, and identity. Esta holds an M.A. in Applied Linguistics, and an Ed.D. in Leadership in Urban Schools, both from University of Massachusetts Boston.

Lisa Sankowski, Program Manager

Lisa is an experienced program manager and nonprofit administrator who has dedicated her career to supporting organizations that serve adults and children in creative learning environments, including the Center for Artistry and Scholarship, Open Circle Social Competency Program at the Wellesley Centers for Women, Courage & Renewal Northeast, and the Boston Children’s Museum.

Guest Faculty

Lydia Cochrane

Lydia is currently an elementary school principal in northern Vermont. She relocated to Vermont after seven years working with the nonprofit Citizen Schools, when she was based in Boston Public Schools and Chelsea Public Schools. She is a licensed teacher and administrator with 10 years of experience in leading teaching teams, data-driven instruction and intervention, and highlighting the joy of learning for students. She lives with her partner, three dogs, two cats, and occasional foster kids. Lydia earned a B.A. in Psychology from Smith College, an M.Ed. in Leadership/Policy from Boston University, and is currently a doctoral candidate at Antioch University in Critical Pedagogy.

Angie UyHam

Angie UyHam is the founder of the Cambridge Educators Design Lab which uses community driven-design to address pressing challenges in education and beyond. The Design Lab strives to change the historically top-down approach in education, to create opportunities for students and educators to invent novel solutions, and to leverage community partnerships in a powerful new way. Angie received her M.B.A. from Babson College, M.Ed. from Boston University, and B.A. from the University of Michigan. For two decades, she worked as a classroom teacher as well as literacy coach and reading specialist. Currently, she is the District Design and Innovation Coach for the Cambridge Public Schools. Angie is passionate about the intersection of education, innovation and social change and is working on how school districts can change the way problems are identified and addressed. She believes that all students and educators are innovators when given the time, space, and opportunity to do so. In addition to her work with the Cambridge Public Schools, Angie leads a Community Design Lab supporting the opportunity for multiple stakeholders to be shared visionaries and decision makers in their communities.

1. Almi Abeyta, Superintendent, Chelsea Public Schools
   Mirko Chardin, Novak Education Consulting
   Steven Cohen, Senior Lecturer in Education and the Peace and Justice and American Studies Programs, and Adjunct in the History Department, Tufts University
   Sue Crumbaker, Director of Teambuilding & Experiential Learning, Hale Education
   Kiame Mahaniah, MD, Chief Executive Officer, Lynn Community Health Center
   Seth Racine, CEO, Open Architects
   David Rosenberg, Partner, ERS
   Damon Smith, Principal, Cambridge Rindge and Latin School
   Gene Thompson-Grove, Professional Learning Facilitator
   Patrick Tutwiler, Former Superintendent, Lynn Public Schools; Secretary of Education, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
   Robert Vinci, MD, Chairman, Department of Pediatrics, and The Joel and Barbara Alpert Professor of Pediatrics, Boston University School of Medicine
   Sarah Westbrook, Director of Professional Learning, Right Question Institute

PSi’s curriculum develops leaders from the perspective of three lenses:

• Artist – accessing inspiration and utilizing creativity, design, risk taking, and experimentation to solve complex problems; artists persist and consider, refine, and illuminate many different approaches.
• Educator – committed to racial justice and equity, and informed and driven by research and data; drawing upon a deep knowledge of child and adolescent development; and applying a profound understanding of theories of learning to prepare students for academic and personal success.
• Community-Based Leader – employing a culturally competent understanding of the assets and needs of youth and families in a given community to engage effectively in a dynamic collaborative process of community growth, development, and networking.

We ensure participants develop and grow as creative leaders, head teachers, community organizers, visionary resource managers, chief talent developers, and skilled politicians across seven leadership practices:

• Anti-racism—continually confronting racism, in self and in others, policies, systems; a contender in the fight for racial justice; centering BIPOC voices; learning from individuals as well as scholarship; embracing intersectionality
• Community mobilization—advocating and organizing for systemic change; convening the community around common values, a common mission, and a dynamic strategy
• Continuous reflection—seeking the community’s expertise and growing in self-knowledge by consciously considering our own experiences, actions, feelings, and responses and our impact on the individuals, groups, and systems in which we engage and lead; broadening this reflection to accurately and continually diagnose the dynamic needs of those individuals, groups, and systems
• Creativity—engaging, risking, experimenting, and persisting; using a design thinking approach to address complex challenges
• Effective communication—listening and communicating regularly, proactively, clearly, inspirationally to engage hearts and minds for action
• Ethics—exhibiting moral courage; practicing sound management and transparency; embracing human imperfection and uncertainty in the service of justice
• Informed instruction—demonstrating data-driven and performance-based instructional leadership and deep commitment to the academic/intellectual/social/emotional/civic/ professional development of youth and adults

PSi partners with Cambridge College, which has developed and offers the Perrone-Sizer Institute for Creative Leadership Certificate and awards graduate credit for interested PSi participants. Learn more.

For participants seeking to qualify for Massachusetts principal licensure, PSi provides significant coaching support to complete PAL tasks through the apprenticeship track at no additional cost. Participants seeking to qualify for Massachusetts principal licensure are also required to arrange their own placement in a 500 hour apprenticeship under the supervision of a licensed principal in a Massachusetts public or charter school. Learn more at the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education‘s website.

August and April Intensives and Monthly Cohort Sessions

PSi requires participant attendance at, and active participation in, all PSi classroom sessions, field experiences, and events, including multi-day August and April Intensives and one or two full-day class sessions each month from September through June. In addition, participants will attend a 1- to 2-hour online Section Group meeting each month, to be scheduled. District Fellows will also have an additional 1- to 2-hour online meeting each month for district-specific conversations.

Monthly Assignments in Preparation for Sessions and Projects

On time completion of monthly reading and homework assignments in preparation for each session is required. Participants are notified of assignments at least one month in advance.

PSi Capstone Leadership Project

The PSi Capstone Leadership Project, which PSi builds toward throughout the year, is participant-driven and independently designed to suit the professional goals and interests of each individual in the cohort. The Capstone Leadership Project must: (1) address an opportunity for growth in the participant’s learning community AND (2) leverage a partnership between a community-based organization and their home organization. Participants are expected to develop a project that improves outcomes for youth and families using the resources of their home organization as well as a community-based organization.

Cost

Tuition for the Perrone-Sizer Institute for Creative Leadership is $5,000 per individual—this represents only 45% of the actual cost of the program, which is subsidized by supporters of PSi.

We know programs like PSi require significant investment both in time and funds. Past participants have pursued financial support from many sources. Please do not let cost be a barrier to applying. Contact Lisa Sankowski if you would like to discuss cost.

PSi partners directly with school districts that provide PSi district fellowships tailored to meet each district’s leadership development goals. If you are an employee of our current partner districts (Chelsea, Framingham, or Somerville), or if you are a district leader interested in establishing a partnership with PSi, please contact Lisa Sankowski for more information.

Vito Perrone

Vito Perrone was a professor of education at the University of North Dakota and Harvard University. He was a leading advocate for humanistic and regimentation – free public education. Upon receiving an award from the Cambridge Peace Commission, he spoke of his apprehension about public school systems that encourage teachers to “accept the message of test scores rather than go beyond them.” He always used questions to further his students’ thinking and in this instance asked, “What if our children and young people learn to read and write but don’t like to and don’t? What if they don’t read the newspapers and magazines, or can’t find beauty in a poem or love story? What if they don’t go as adults to artistic events, don’t listen to a broad range of music, aren’t optimistic about the world and their place in it, don’t notice the trees and the sunset, are indifferent to older citizens, don’t participate in politics or community life?” With a teacher’s rhetorical urgency, he added, “Should any of this worry us?” Vito mentored countless generations of emerging teachers and leaders. He is also the author of the book “Letters for Teachers.”

Ted Sizer

Ted Sizer founded The Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) in 1984 when he was the chair of the education department at Brown University. At its height, CES had over 1,000 member schools in the US and around the world that subscribed to a set of 10 common principles such as: “Student as work; teacher as coach;” “Learn to use one’s mind well;” “Less is more: depth over coverage;” “Personalization.” These were revolutionary ideas in the early 1980s and many still consider CES’ focus on democracy and equity as essential to the healthy development of schools and communities. In 1994, with his wife, Nancy, they founded Francis W. Parker Charter School in Devens, Massachusetts. Sizer is best known for his trilogy of books: Horace’s Compromise, Horace’s School, and Horace’s Hope—that deeply influenced generations of progressive educators, school reformers and school leaders.