2021 Vision Coalition Virtual Conference Series: “New Perspectives in a New Year”

Patrick Callihan is the executive director for Tech Impact, a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to empower communities and nonprofits to use technology to better serve our world.

Tech Impact’s offerings include technology-based education, services and support designed specifically for nonprofit organizations and workforce development programs named ITWorks, CXWorks and Punchcode.

ITWorks serves opportunity youth and veterans (18-26-year-old youth without a college degree) with training and credentials to begin a career in information technology, CXWorks trains in customer service skills for careers in the call center industry, and Punchcode is an immersive application development (coding) bootcamp program. Collectively, over Tech Impact has graduated over 800 young adults from their workforce development programs.

Tech Impact’s offices and training centers in Southern Nevada are at the Historic Westside School and the 5th Street School, in Las Vegas. Additionally, Tech Impact maintains offices in Philadelphia, PA, Wilmington, DE., and Washington D.C.

 As chief health equity officer, Bettina Tweardy Riveros, Esq., is responsible for leading health policy and engaging community stakeholders in partnerships to advance ChristianaCare’s strategy, mission and commitment to achieve health equity and advance population health. Riveros leads work to improve the health of every person in every community ChristianaCare serves by advancing an integrated social care framework, ensuring culturally and linguistically appropriate care, addressing disparities and advocating for policies to achieve health equity.

As senior vice president for government affairs and community engagement, Riveros is responsible for identifying and addressing legal, regulatory, policy and relationship issues to advance ChristianaCare’s strategic objectives, with particular focus on legislative policy development, innovative population health and information technology solutions, health care reform and business development efforts.

Riveros joined ChristianaCare in January 2016.  She serves as co-chair on the ChristianaCare Community Engagement and Advisory Council, on the Board of REACH Riverside, and as co-chair of the REACH Health, Wellness and Safety Committee.

Additionally, Riveros serves as vice chair on the Board of Directors for Serviam Girls Academy; on the Delaware Business Roundtable Education Committee Steering Committee; and on the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce Board of Governors and Annual Dinner Committee.

Prior to joining ChristianaCare, Riveros served as senior adviser for health policy in the office of Delaware Gov. Jack Markell and as chair of the Delaware Health Care Commission. Among her many accomplishments, she was responsible for developing the strategy to implement the Affordable Care Act in Delaware, including the Health Insurance Exchange partnership model and Medicaid expansion that expanded access to health care for thousands of Delawareans; and for leading the development of the State Innovation Model to support Delaware’s transition to new health care delivery and payment models and an increased focus on population health. Riveros was a founding member of the Delaware Center for Health Innovation and served on the DHIN Board and Delaware Health Resource Board.

Riveros received her law degree from Villanova University in 1988 and her undergraduate degree from Juniata College in 1985.

 Dr. Shelley S. Rouser is Chairperson and Associate Professor for the Education Department at Delaware State University.  She oversees the Council for Professional Education at DSU which is comprised of eight undergraduate education programs and three graduate programs.

Prior to joining Delaware State University, Dr. Rouser has 25 years of experience in K-12 education, as a teacher and instructional coach the first half of her career, and as an administrator at the district and state levels the second half. As the Director of K-12 Initiatives and Educator Engagement at the Delaware Department of Education she led the Equity Council for the State Department as well as directed the work of the Curriculum, Instruction, and Professional Development workgroup overseeing nine content areas and leading the State’s college and career ready standards implementation efforts through statewide initiatives such as Common Ground for the Common Core, the NextGen Teacher Leader Project, and Reimagining Professional Learning Grants, to name a few.

Prior to working with the Department of Education she led the Instruction Services division in New Castle County Vocational Technical School district. As a former middle and high school teacher, teacher leader, content area specialist, and central office administrator, Dr. Rouser is experienced with the challenges of managing a major change effort as well as the systems work it takes to build capacity to navigate such adaptive changes.

Her current work at Delaware State University is grounded in establishing more equitable systems and diverse educators in K12 schools through initiatives aimed to increase the number of male educators, establishing innovative undergraduate and graduate programs that prepare culturally responsive teachers and administrators, ensuring early childhood education programs for under-resourced communities meet the highest quality standards, and providing professional development supports to local school districts around equity, access, and culturally responsive pedagogy. In following with her educational equity-focused efforts, Dr. Rouser led the state’s P20 Council’s Educator Supports for Early Literacy through Institutions of Higher Education Committee and currently serves on the Redding Consortium focused on educational equity in Delaware’s urban and rural communities and the Wilmington Center for Educational Equity Steering Committee (WCEEP).

Katrina Daniels began her educational career as a kindergarten teacher in 2002. She has worked as a teacher in the Lake Forest and Christina school districts. After eight years of teaching, Ms. Daniels became an assistant principal at the Widener Partnership Charter School in Chester, Pennsylvania. In 2014, she became an assistant principal in the Colonial School District, and is currently the principal at the Early Childhood Education Program.

Ms. Daniels received her undergraduate degree in Early Childhood Education as well as a dual master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction and Special Education from Delaware State University.

Ms. Daniels believes the success of students and teachers is influenced by the leader’s commitment to building strong relationships with all, including families and key stakeholders in the community. It truly “takes a village” to educate and prepare children for a successful future.

During her free time, Ms. Daniels enjoys reading, watching basketball and spending time with her family.

As an owner operator of several child care programs for over 26 years and chairman of Delaware’s Money Committees, Quinn has a unique perspective of the current state of the Early Education Industry and the funding the State of Delaware provides.

• Served District 8 from 2008-2020
• Chair of the Capital Infrastructure Committee 2012-2018
• Chair of the Joint Finance Committee 2019-2020
• Served on Board of Directors of the Riverfront Development Corporation and the Port of Wilmington
• Member of DEFAC
• Served on several committees under the Markel administration that reviewed the States Revenue Portfolio and devised the budget stabilization recommendations.
• Owned and operated Tender Loving Kare Child Care and Learning Centers from 1994 – 2019.

Yvette Sanchez Fuentes has been influential in driving effective policy and practice change at the local, state and national levels. Her extensive work in the field includes former positions as: director of the federal Office of Head Start for the Obama Administration; policy advisor for Aspen Institute; deputy chief for policy and research at Child Care Aware of America; division director for Children, Youth and Families Community Action Partnership of San Luis Obispo County in California; and senior advisor at Teachstone Learning.

The Early Childhood Support Team includes the Office of Early Learning and the Office of Childcare Licensing.

 Teri Lawler is passionate about making equity of opportunity available to all students regardless of zip code. Delaware’s 2010 School Psychologist of the Year, Teri has spent her career translating research to practice in some of our state’s most vulnerable school communities.  Current projects include social and emotional competence, universal screening for behavior and academics, strengthening multi-tiered systems of support with neurosequential strategies for healing the brain and body, and the creation of trauma-informed systems of care for schools communities, out-of-school providers, and other youth-serving organizations.  Teri is a founding member of Delaware’s Compassionate Schools Learning Collaborative and the City of Wilmington’s Advisory Council for Youth Gun Violence Prevention, and co-creator of the Compassionate Schools Test Lab.  In November 2018, Teri joined the Office of Innovation and Improvement at the Delaware Department of Education as the Education Associate for Trauma-Informed Practices and Social and Emotional Learning. Under Teri’s leadership the Department has achieved 100% trauma sensitive status, institutionalizing self-care, incorporating trauma awareness training into new employee onboarding, installing calming resource stations on every floor of the Department of Education and differentiating professional learning on whole child development for educators from preschool through grade 12. This infrastructure provided the foundation for Delaware to be named 1 of 5 recipients multi-year funding for the US DOE’s Trauma Recovery Demonstration Project.

 

This past January Desere Ndikum competed in the first virtual MLK VOICE 4 YOUTH, a statewide, spoken word competition that provides high school students a platform to creatively share how Dr. King’s legacy guides their response to today’s challenges. Her insightful piece titled, “Helpless Categories,” earned her a place in the finals.

Currently Desere is a senior at Newark Charter School where she is on the honor roll and works hard to maintain her 4.2 GPA. While at Newark Charter she has competed and placed in the Business Professionals of America (BPA) Delaware State Leadership Conference and for the past two years has served as BPA State Treasurer.

In addition to academics, Desere loves sewing, music of all genres, and when it is safe, looks forward to exploring other cultures. She enjoys soccer, track, and has served as captain of her cheerleading team. In her community, Desere is an active member of her church and volunteers at their annual festival. Looking ahead, she hopes her future leads her to the Big Apple to pursue studies in finance at either New York University or Pace University.

Desere thanks the organizers of this year’s Vision Coalition Leadership Team for the opportunity to share her views on education with Delaware policy makers and educators.

Elise Sampson is a junior at Smyrna High School. She has served as class president, student ambassador and a Student Government Association member, and founded the Black Student Union at her school. She was selected for the Governor’s School of Excellence for 2020. She also is active in musical groups and nonprofit organizations that give her opportunities to volunteer in her community. She also recently co-founded an organization called the Delaware Black Student Coalition. Looking toward her future, Elise has her sights set on a law degree and a job as a civil rights attorney.

  Kimberly Hee Stock is a published author and an English language arts and English-learner (EL) teacher at McKean High School in Wilmington, Delaware. She teaches Advanced Placement literature and 11th-grade English language arts, and her team manages language-acquisition plans for more than 160 EL students in grades 9 through 12. Stock led and executed programs and curricula serving more students with rigorous, grade-level material – resulting in 100 percent of McKean High’s EL seniors graduating in 2020. She has presented her teaching strategies at the PENN Teachers of Speakers of Other Languages conference at Temple University. In addition to her career as a teacher, Stock was the administrator of an education non-profit, the Claymont Community Center, where she secured partnerships with school districts, other non-profits, and local agencies to create a new, adult basic education and GED program. During her tenure there, the center’s adult English as a Second Language program more than doubled the number of immigrant students served. Stock earned her Bachelor of Science degree in education from the University of Nebraska and her first Master of Science degree in education from the University of Pennsylvania, where she researched the recruitment and retention of teachers and administrators of color. She holds a second Master of Arts degree in teaching English as a second language from the University of Delaware, where her work resulted in a proposed curriculum for a Methods of Teaching ELs course for all new Delaware teachers. As an advocate for students, Stock is also a district Diversity Champion; she has spoken on panels and social justice committees, has led professional learning programs on diversity, and empowers student leadership through her school’s Student Voices and Cultural Celebrations advisories.

As one of the founders of Las Américas ASPIRA Academy, Margie López Waite was instrumental in opening the first dual-language charter school in Delaware. She has been involved with ASPIRA of Delaware as a volunteer and board member since 2004. Margie later transitioned into the head of school role shortly after the school charter was approved in April 2009. Prior to becoming a teacher, Margie worked at MBNA/Bank of America for 16 years. After the merger with Bank of America, Margie decided to pursue her life-long goals and passion in education. She earned her master’s degree in secondary education and school leadership certification from Wilmington University in May 2008. Margie earned her undergraduate degree in marketing from Delaware State University in May 1990. She taught in the Appoquinimink School District as a Spanish teacher.