Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Met School principal wins award from RIC

BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Nancy Diaz, assistant director of the Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center, has received the Outstanding Educator Award for Promising Practices in Multicultural Education from her alma mater, Rhode Island College.
Diaz is one of six principals at the Met School, an alternative high school built around school-to-career internships. She received the award at the eighth annual Multicultural Promising Practices Conference at RIC on Nov. 5.

Diaz, who is 31, was born and raised on the South Side of Providence, where she was one of six children. She graduated from Classical High School, the city's only exam school, and attended Rhode Island College, where she majored in secondary education and the social sciences.

After graduating in 1998, she went to work for the Met School, where as a college student she had volunteered. At 27, she became a principal of one of four small high schools on the Met's Public Street campus. There are two additional schools elsewhere in the city.
"When I first started at the Met," Diaz said, "I got very excited listening to students who wanted to go to school every day. I saw that the kids were excited, the staff was excited and everyone was in it for the students."

Diaz said she was drawn to the Met's unique structure, one that encourages students to pursue their passion in the real world, through internships in local businesses and industry.
"I grew up in Providence," she said. "My family wanted to give me a lot but they couldn't do so financially. The Met opens doors to a lot of students."

Diaz works with Met School Director Dennis Littky to oversee the Met's six high schools in Providence and to help principals collaborate with one another. Diaz also works as a mentor to principals who are starting similar schools across the country.

"As a young, successful Latina, many of our students look to her as a very important role model," Littky said.

Diaz said the award allows her to take several thousand dollars' worth of courses at Rhode Island College.

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