June 3, 2009

Chancellor Klein Congratulates Winners of the Second Annual NYC Teaching Fellows Award for Classroom Excellence 

Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein today will commend the classroom achievements of 12 top New York City Teaching Fellows. The fellows, who became teachers through the Department of Education’s NYC Teaching Fellows program, were selected from nearly 300 applications to receive the NYC Teaching Fellows Award for Classroom Excellence. The Chancellor will honor four NYC Teaching Fellows, including one first-year teacher, who won the award as well as eight other finalists. The award recognizes teachers who helped to raise student achievement and served in important leadership roles in their schools. The winners and finalists will be honored this evening at 6 p.m. during an award ceremony at 31 Chambers Street in Manhattan.

“I congratulate these teachers for their amazing and inspiring work with our students,” Chancellor Klein said. “Thanks to Teaching Fellows, more great teachers are working in public schools that for decades have been hard to staff. Increasingly, students from every neighborhood in our City have the opportunity to learn from the very best teachers, including the men and women we are recognizing today.”

Principals, assistant principals, teachers, and students nominated Teaching Fellows for the Classroom Excellence Award. A total of 290 nominated Fellows then submitted applications, including personal essays, letters of recommendation, and resumes. A selection committee comprised of NYC Teaching Fellows staff reviewed the applications and narrowed the pool to 12 finalists. Each finalist was interviewed and observed in the classroom, and the four winners were selected by senior staff from the Department of Education, The New Teacher Project, and The Fund for Public Schools, which provided support for the award. The selection committee assessed the candidates based on their educational accomplishments, impact on student achievement, teaching vision, and contribution to school communities. The winners receive $2,000, plus a $500 classroom grant. Finalists receive $250 each.

The NYC Teaching Fellows program was created in 2000 to recruit talented non-traditional teaching candidates to work in the City’s hardest-to-staff schools and in high-need subject areas such as math, science, and special education. Teaching Fellows now make up more than 11 percent of the total teaching force, including 17 percent of the teachers in the Bronx, as well as 26 percent of all math and 22 percent of all special education teachers in the City. Additionally, more than 100 Teaching Fellows have become school administrators, including 38 principals.

This year’s Teaching Fellow Award for Classroom Excellence winners include:

Eric Dalio – Music teacher at High School for Public Service (K 546); Fellow since 2001
Eric Dalio was a professional musician before becoming a NYC Teaching Fellow. During his time at the High School for Public Service, he established the school’s music program. He wrote the curriculum and acquired all the necessary materials. As part of the program, all students, regardless of prior musical experience, learn to play the piano. Dalio also established the school’s band, which does not require participants to have any prior experience with band instruments. Dalio teaches woodwinds, brass, and percussion to students of varying abilities and experience and has been involved in developing the school’s academic intervention services.

Malik Ketcham – Math teacher at William W. Niles (X118); Fellow since 2008
First-year recipient
Originally from the South Bronx, Malik Ketcham received an undergraduate degree from Yale University and a law degree from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. He left a career in law to teach math at William W. Niles Junior High School in the Bronx’s Tremont neighborhood. During his first year of teaching, Ketcham took on the extraordinary task of teaching classes to students in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades, the only math teacher in the school to do so. He has set high standards for himself and for his students. As a result, his students have made steady academic progress this year.

Jane Viau – Math teacher at The Frederick Douglass Academy (M499); Fellow since 2002
Before joining the Fellowship, Jane Viau was a vice president of investment banking at Merrill Lynch. She earned an undergraduate degree in finance from SUNY Binghamton and a Master of Business Administration from the Stern School of Business at New York University. She worked in finance for 16 years before joining the NYC Teaching Fellows and becoming a high school math teacher. Viau created an open enrollment Advanced Placement statistics program at Frederick Douglass. Last year, 70 percent of the students taking AP statistics earned college credit. She has also brought 80 percent of ninth graders who were below state standards in mathematics up to grade level.

Lisa Yim – Special education teacher at K141, a District 75 school; Fellow since 2007
Lisa Yim grew up in Canarsie, Brooklyn, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Hunter College in 2006. Now in the second year of her Fellowship, she is a classroom teacher for five- to seven-year-old autistic students with significant developmental and cognitive delays and behavior management needs. Students who entered her class with no verbal language are now reciting the alphabet, communicating needs and wants, and have acquired a growing number of sight words. She has written a generalized curriculum for teaching social studies and science in the 6:1:1 setting and is a strong advocate for special education students.

Below is a list of the Teaching Fellow Award for Classroom Excellence finalists:

Jason Leon – Math teacher at Lehman High School (X405); Fellow since 2003

Brooke Nixon-Friedheim – Math and physics teacher at Bronx High School for Law and Community Service (X439); Fellow since 2005

Jacqueline Pryce-Harvey – Special education teacher at Crotona Park West (X004); Fellow since 2003

Jason Raymond – English teacher at High School for Law and Public Service (M467); Fellow since 2002

Gina Sandu – First grade common branch teacher at Elementary School for Math, Science, & Technology (X382); Fellow since 2006

Kathryn Selkirk – Math and science teacher at Donald Hertz School (X083); Fellow since 2005

Haviva Halpert – Math teacher at Bushwick Community High School (K564); First-year Teaching Fellow

Barbara Hubert – Special education teacher at The Kosciusko School (K274); First-year Teaching Fellow


For information about last year's Award for Classroom Excellence, please click here.