Level 1 Educational Consultants is a team of Administrators from the Stoughton Public Schools in Massachusetts who have led a successful team of building leaders and teachers in the attainment of 4 Level 1 Schools out of 7 this year in State’s accountability system. This accomplishment is all the more notable because Stoughton is not one of the affluent towns most often associated with a majority of Level 1 schools. Stoughton has been able to reach this elite group even though it is working class town whose poverty has doubled to more than 30% in the last 4 years and whose ELL population has doubled. While both poverty and lack of proficiency in English tend to put students on the wrong side of the achievement gap, Stoughton has been able to steadily improve achievement, using a formula that can be duplicated in other districts.
Level 1 Educational Consultants can come into a district and use one or more of several models to help that district gain the results that Stoughton has realized.
1.) We can come into the district and conduct a review of an entire operation from Central Office to building level including curriculum, instruction, district operations, and leadership team functioning; and provide a confidential report including recommendations for all aspects of the system and how to implement them in the short and long term.
2.) We can conduct workshops for your team in leadership team building, curriculum, systems and procedures such as hiring, building extended day modules, evaluations techniques, security preparations, trauma response and more.
3.) We can help with the design of one, three and five year plans, including the strategic budgeting that makes them work.
4.) We can team with our counterparts using a peer supervision model and help them strengthen their work in their individual areas of expertise.
5.) Generous assistance has been offered to us by other districts when we sought it. In the interest of professional sharing we are offering this consultation at no charge.
As everyone who has attempted it knows, educational improvement is a complex business that encompasses many facets of a district’s operation and organization. No two districts are exactly the same, and each district’s improvements must be individually tailored to its needs, resources, structure and culture. We can help you identify these factors and work with them. Our successful experts can impart our experience quickly and effectively to district teams, sharing the elements that have been proven to work. Scroll down to read the biographies of our team.
Marguerite C. Rizzi, Ed.D has been the Superintendent of the Stoughton Public Schools since 2009, having assumed that job after serving as Assistant Superintendent. This year 4 of 7 Stoughton schools achieved the status of Level 1 in the state accountability system after 5 years of planning, budgeting, and implementing improvement interventions. This accomplishment brings Stoughton into an elite group of districts most often populated by affluent communities. Only 20% of Massachusetts schools have achieved Level 1 status this year. Dr. Rizzi’s focus has always been on building, and sustaining a highly effective Leadership Team in which members share and support each other to constantly improve and thrive.
Before coming to Stoughton, Dr. Rizzi served the Hull Public Schools as Director of Student Services, during which time she was in charge of Special Education, Guidance, Nursing, Homeless students, and for a time, Title 1 and English Language Learners. She started several district programs to keep students with Special Needs in their community as an alternative to out-of- district programs.
Dr. Rizzi taught at Beacon High School for 12 years, helping students with Social, Emotional, Behavioral and Learning Disabilities succeed and thrive while teaching music, photography, English and Historical Research. She taught for 7 years at Boston University and her duties included group guitar, Jazz History, and the supervision of student teachers of music.
Her Bachelor’s degree from Clark University is in Philosophy, her Masters from New England Conservatory is in Jazz Performance, and her Doctorate from BU is in Education and Human Development. Her dissertation research was about the elements of effective teaching.
Jonathan D. Ford has been the Deputy Superintendent of the Stoughton Public Schools since 2009. He has the responsibility for the implementation of curriculum and improvement of instruction throughout the Stoughton School system. In addition he manages most of the district’s grants, plans and organizes the Professional Development workshops, courses, peer observations and new teacher mentoring. He drafts most policy statements, and has developed the districts hiring procedures which have been noticed as outstanding by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education District Review Team. He also functions as civil rights officer and homeless student liaison.
Previous to this job, he was the principal of Hull High School, putting in place all of the improvements that resulted in that institution becoming a Blue Ribbon School in 2011. Mr. Ford started his administrative career as an assistant principal at Valley Central High School in New York State, after a successful tenure as a chemistry teacher. All of his students, without exception, passed the Regents exam.
Mr. Ford has Masters Degrees in Chemistry and in Education from the University of South Carolina, an institution he attended after a distinguished four year tour of duty as an U.S. Army Ranger. His Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry is from SUNY Fredonia.
Mr. Ford has focused successfully on raising the achievement of students often left behind in the traditional educational system, particularly students disadvantaged by poverty.
Janet Sullivan has been an educator for over 30 years with experience as both a classroom teacher and administrator. She has taught physical science at the middle school level and chemistry and physics at the high school level. Janet served 12 years as a high school Science Department Head before transitioning to the role of K-12 STEM Curriculum Coordinator. In this role, Janet has supervised the alignment of curriculum to the Common Core State Standards in math, science, computer technology, and engineering and she has designed and delivered professional development workshops on the Next Generation Science Standards. Janet’s primary focus has been the implementation of the Massachusetts State Educator Evaluation System and presenting workshops on data teams, formative assessments, district-determined measures, and the transition to PARCC. Janet has experience working with district administrators to improve inter-rater reliability on classroom observations and evaluations to provide effective and actionable feedback to educators.
Mark Galligan, Ed.D. has been an educator for 15 years in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. He is experienced in teaching grades 4-12 and specializing in English-Language Arts (ELA), History/Social Studies, and he has taught German language and literature as well. Mark has served as the NEASC co-chair for two school districts and served on countless accreditation visits throughout New England for NEASC. Mark currently serves as the K-12 Humanities Curriculum Director for the Stoughton, MA Public Schools. As the director of curriculum, Mark has overseen the district’s curricular alignment to the Common Core State Standards in ELA and History/Social Studies as well as preparing the district’s educators to deliver the PARCC exam. With his fellow Director in STEM, Mark has helped to oversee faculty training in data teams and other forms of professional learning communities. He has also co-led the training necessary for the implementation of the Massachusetts State Educator Evaluation System and conducts ongoing training in common formative/summative assessments as well as the development of district-determined measures. Mark also serves as an advisor to the UMASS-Boston Graduate School of Education in its Teaching Historical Perspective and Education Policy Programs. Mark’s research interests involve the intersection of public policy with curriculum standards. His other research interests include building and sustaining communication between researchers in education and practitioners as a way of promoting research-based instructional practices and the development of practical-action based initiatives to support teaching and learning.
David Guglia began his career as an educator in 2000 as a classroom math and science teacher at the middle school level. For the past seven years Mr. Guglia has served as Assistant Principal of the Dr. Robert G. O’Donnell Middle School in Stoughton, MA. During his tenure, Mr. Guglia has focused on school safety, threat assessment and the development of comprehensive school emergency plans. He initiated the first district Mental Health Task Force in 2008, bringing together a team of administrators and counselors to build resources and procedures for identifying and supporting students with significant mental health issues. By working closely with local and regional law enforcement agencies, Mr. Guglia has gained extensive experience with the most innovative ways to keep schools safe. Mr. Guglia has a deep understanding of what classroom teachers can do to prepare for a school crisis and how the school leadership team can set the tone for safety. Additionally, Mr. Guglia is a certified A.L.I.C.E. instructor and regularly works with law enforcement to conduct drills with students, teachers, secretaries and other school staff that depict probable scenarios schools may face.