Dennis
Littky co-founded and co-directs The Big Picture Company with Elliot
Washor, and is the Director of The Met Center in Providence.
He is nationally known for his over 35 years in secondary education
in urban, suburban, and rural settings. His work as a principal
at Thayer Junior/Senior High School in Winchester, NH, was featured
in an NBC movie, "A Town Torn Apart," based on the
book, Doc: The Story of Dennis Littky and His Fight for
a Better School. Most recently he published a book on The
Big Picture’s philosophy (along with Samantha Grabelle)
entitled The Big Picture: Education is Everyone’s
Business (ASCD, September 2004). He holds a double Ph.D.
degree in psychology and in education from the University of
Michigan. You can e-mail Dennis at dlittky@bigpicture.org.
Elliot
Washor, Ed. D. is the co-founder
and co-director of The Big Picture Company in Providence, Rhode
Island. He is also the co-founder of The Met Center in Providence,
RI. Elliot
has been involved in school reform for more than 30 years as
a teacher, principal, administrator, video producer and writer.
He has taught and is interested in all levels of school from
kindergarten through college, in urban and rural settings, across
all disciplines. His work has spanned across school design,
pedagogy, learning environments, and education reform. He is
supporting others doing similar work throughout the world. Elliot’s
interests lie in the field of how schools can connect with communities
to understand tacit and disciplinary learning both in and outside
of school. At Thayer High School in Winchester, NH, his professional
development programs won an “Innovations in State and
Local Government Award” from the Ford Foundation and the
Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He has been
selected as the educator to watch in Rhode Island. His dissertation
on Innovative Pedagogy and New Facilities won the merit award
from DesignShare, the international forum for innovative schools.
Elliot lives in sunny San Diego with his wife and five dogs. You can e-mail him
at ewashor@gmail.com.
Lynda
Armstrong
joined Big Picture in October 2004 and is the scheduler for
co-founder and co-director, Elliot Washor. Her professional
experience includes 14 years at Texas Instruments where she
was a marketing communications manager for one of its semiconductor
business units. Prior to joining Big Picture she was an associate
producer at WJAR Channel 10. Lynda received her B.A. from Providence
College with a concentration in marketing. You can e-mail Lynda
at larmstrong@bigpicture.org.
Joe
Battaglia is the Director of Network Support
Services for our over 40 schools (and growing). This includes
managing the New Schools Consultants, overseeing and seeding
video-conferencing, producing the BP Sonic Podcast, coordinating
BP Print Materials, and coordinating Big Picture Online. For
Big Picture Online,
he works with web designers and programmers to manage the use,
content development, enhancements, and training for our school
network’s state-of-the-art online tool. Finally, Joe works
with the Big Picture staff to plan and coordinate our yearly
national conference (The Big Bang) and the yearly Principal
Retreat. Joe holds a Master's Degree in Education from Harvard
University. Prior to his work at Big Picture, Joe was a teacher
for 10 years, including four as an advisor at The Met in Providence.
You can e-mail him atjbattaglia@bigpicture.org.
David
Bromley was
an advisor and LTI coordinator at MetWest in Oakland, before
joining the Big Picture team in the summer of 2005. Now, he
coaches MetEast, one of Big Picture’s newest schools,
located in Camden, New Jersey. Before coming to Big Picture,
David co-founded the Association of National Scholastic Excellence
and Reform (ANSER) in Santa Monica, CA, a not-for-profit foundation
designed to foster a greater awareness of and commitment to
public schools. He holds a Masters Degree in education from
Pepperdine University in Los Angeles and is currently working
with the Bay Area Coalition of Equitable Schools (BAYCES) towards
earning a Masters Degree in Education Administration. You can
e-mail him at dbromley@bigpicture.org.
Mario De Anda is Director of the California College Transition Network with The Big Picture Company. His responsibilities include developing and implementing the college transition network across Big Picture schools in California. Mario received his BA from the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana. His experience of 15 years has been in the areas of secondary and higher education and the non profit sector. He is committed to working to expand access to higher education for low income and first-generation youth. Mario, the son of Mexican immigrants, was born and raised in El Paso, Texas. He currently resides in San Francisco, California. You can e-mail him at mdeanda@bigpicture.org.
Damian
Ewens is
Big Picture's Special Projects Manager in the Development Department.
He works in tandem with Dennis and Elliot on the
organization's overall strategic initiatives including board
development, communications and fundraising. Damian has 7 years
of teaching experience including his last four as an Advisor
at The Met School's Peace Street campus. Previously he taught
in California where he also received a Masters of Arts in Education
from Stanford University. A Providence native, he can be found
surfing the coastline of the Ocean State year-round. You can
email him at dewens@bigpicture.org.
Shezwae
Fleming is
Director for the National College Transition Network Team. Her
responsibilities include developing and implementing the college
transition network across Big Picture schools. Shezwae received
her BA and MA from the University of Iowa. Her experience has
been in both areas of higher education: student affairs (residence
life, multicultural programs, and Upward Bound) and academic
affairs (teaching rhetoric and academic advising). A Midwesterner
at heart, she spent most of her work-related experiences in
the Midwest (all the cold states: Michigan, Iowa and Minnesota)
before moving to Maine to work with the University of Maine
(Orono) as the Director for Multicultural Programs. She is an
avid reader (mostly fiction) and lover of Jazz music (generally
the oldies—Miles, Monk, Ella, etc.). When not reading
and listening to music, she is planning her next adventure.
She likes to travel—especially taking short impromptu
road trips. You can email her at sfleming@bigpicture.org.
Pamela
Genovesi Macdonald,
the Controller for The Big Picture Company, has been with BP
for over 11 years now. During those years, Pam has managed all
aspects of A/P, A/R, Payroll, and Human Resources. She is currently
handling all of the travel needs for the Big Picture staff as
well. Pam has an Associates Degree in Computer Support Specialist
and is a member of the Phi Theta Kappa Society. Pam has a daughter
that attends the University of San Diego, a son who is a Senior
in High School and two step-children ages 9 and 12. Pam is happily
married and in her spare time, she enjoys attending concerts,
the theater, and traveling with her husband. You can e-mail
Pam at pgenovesi@bigpicture.org.
David
Lemmelis
Director of Youth Development, a position through which he helps
facilitate the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Alternative
High School Initiative, a national collaboration of youth development
organizations to create diploma-granting high schools for disconnected
youth. David brings tremendous knowledge and practice to this
work. He is well-versed in the theory and practice central to
many of the ongoing national school reform efforts and has served
on several collaborations around education and extended-learning
policy. His academic work examines psychosocial factors related
to race and ethnicity and their impact on access to education
and opportunity, achievement attitudes and behaviors, adolescent
risk and resilience, and transition to adulthood trajectories.
In his spare time, David enjoys listening to jazz while caring
for his infant twins. He received his BA from Bard College and
both his MA and Ph.D. from UCLA in the Department of Sociology.
You can e-mail David
at dlemmel@bigpicture.org.
Briana
Masterson
joined The Met and Big Picture Company in June of 2005. She
wears many hats at Big Picture, bringing her energy, insight
and creativity to the numerous projects that she coordinates
for Joe Battaglia and the nationwide consulting team. She graduated
from Brown University in May of 2003 and spent two years studying
dance in New York before joining the Big Picture team. When
she’s not guzzling diet coke and playing grammar cop during
the day, you can find her choreographing and dancing until the
wee hours of the morning all over the city of Providence. You
can e-mail her at bmasterson@metcenter.org.
Charles
Mojkowski is a Senior Associate at Big Picture. He works with Elliot Washor
on new school development, helping districts and organizations
consider and adopt the Big Picture School design and create
Big Picture School agreements. Charlie has served as an independent
consultant to education and business since 1976. He works primarily
in the areas of school and curriculum improvement, leadership
and organizational development, program evaluation, and applications
of technology that support that work. Charlie designed, administered,
and taught in a doctoral program in educational leadership;
directed the Rhode Island Educational Leadership Academy; and
served as Executive Director of the Rhode Island Association
of School Principals. You can e-mail him at cmojkowski@cox.net.
Loran
Newsom is
the coordinator of new schools and development, as well as a
research assistant, with co-founder Elliot Washor. He is a consultant
for The Big Picture Company working closely with a network of
schools to balance growth and sustainability with the innovation
of our pedagogy. After graduating from DePaul University, he
received his M.Ed. in Curriculum and Teaching from the University
of San Diego while teaching for San Diego City Schools for 5
years. Loran is a Doctoral Candidate continuing with a PhD in
Educational Leadership and lives in San Diego, California.
You can e-mail him at
lnewsom@bigpicture.org.
Jill
Olson-Crowley
has been with the Met and The Big Picture Company since 1997.
She was a Learning Through Internship Coordinator for The Met
and is now Director of Site Visits, Special Events & Conferences
for all six Met Schools and The Big Picture Company. Since we
are a national educational model, we host several annual conferences
for outside educators as well as mini conference site visits.
Last year, over 1000 visitors came to The Met from all over
the US, Europe and Asia. Jill is a graduate of The University
of Rhode Island. You can e-mail her at jolson-crowley@metcenter.org.
Denzil
Paulcoordinates
Big Picture’s videoconferencing activities and helps manage
Big Picture’s intranet, Big Picture Online. Fresh from
his native Trinidad and Tobago—and exhilarated by its
historic trip to the World Cup—Denzil is passionate about
anything connected to soccer and cricket. Though not a huge
soccer player, this Trini loves playing from the sidelines,
and is still trying to understand the rudiments of American
baseball. As the first and only person in his family to go to
college, Denzil started off his career as an IT Administrator
in the petrochemical field where he was instrumental in developing
an information system that increased efficiency between the
process, laboratory and the production departments of a Trinidadian
methanol refinery. When he is not working, he spends most of
his time trying to increase some muscle mass in the gym or finding
creative ways to challenge his teenage son. You can e-mail Denzil
at dpaul@bigpicture.org.
Tim
Scheidt,
M.S. Ed joined The Big Picture Company in June 2006 as a Quantitative
Reasoning (QR) Consultant. For the past 26 years, Tim has worked
in San Diego County as a classroom teacher, administrator, curriculum
writer/staff developer and educational entrepreneur. Since 1986,
Tim has been deeply involved in helping to improve mathematics
education for all students. Throughout this tenure, he has maintained
that all students can achieve at a high level while enjoying
their learning along the way. In 1994, Tim combined his love
of baseball and mathematics to author Fantasy Baseball: An Integrated
Mathematics Unit. Fantasy Baseball motivates students to explore
and apply concepts in number, algebra, geometry and probability
and statistics to more fully understand the game of baseball.
Tim looks forward to working with schools across the Big Picture
network to help infuse high-quality QR into students’
daily learning. You can e-mail him at tscheidt@bigpicture.org.
Sam
Seidel began
working with The Big Picture Company in 1999. After a three
year hiatus, during which Sam was the director of the AS220
Broad Street Studio – a non-profit grassroots program
working with young people transitioning out of juvenile prison
– Sam rejoined the Big Picture staff in May of 2005 to
work on the Alternative High School Initiative. Sam has taught
in alternative and traditional settings for students in grade
levels ranging from first grade to post-secondary. He has a
degree in Education History and Policy, and as a student he
attended 13 years of alternative public schools. You can e-mail
him at sseidel@bigpicture.org.
Lauren
Smock-Randall
joined the Met and The Big Picture Company in August of 2005
as the Executive Assistant to the Director of Site Visits, Special
Events, & Conferences. Before joining us Lauren was an AmeriCorps
VISTA member with Southside Community Land Trust in Providence,
RI. There she served as the Farmers’ Market Coordinator,
conducting extensive evaluations of their local market’s
viability and developed a plan for the continued future success
of the market. Lauren graduated from Providence College with
a focus on Sociology and Public & Community Service Studies.
You can e-mail her at lsmock-randall@metcenter.org.
Kari
Thierer joined
Big Picture as part of the consulting team in the summer of
2006 and is currently working with schools in Washington and
Oregon. Kari has been involved in school reform efforts for
over 12 years and is passionate about finding ways for all students
to be successful. Kari has taught elementary and secondary students
in public and private schools in both traditional and alternative
settings. Kari truly enjoys working with principals and teachers
to create stronger learning communities, and excited about the
consulting work as an avenue towards greater school reform.
Kari completed her undergraduate work at the University of Washington
and is currently working towards a Master’s Degree in
Educational Administration. Kari loves reading and writing,
when she isn’t enjoying the beautiful Pacific Northwest
with her husband and daughter. You can email her at kthierer@bigpicture.org.
