Creating Small Schools

Dan French, executive director of the Center for Collaborative Education, is the former director of instruction and curriculum for the Massachusetts Department of Education and special educator. He holds an EdD from University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He has published many articles, including the 1998 Phi Delta Kappan article, "The State's Role in Shaping a Progressive Vision of Public Education," and a commentary in Education Week, "Boston's Pilot Schools:Progress and Promise in Urban School Reform" (April 19, 2006). Mary Atkinson has over twenty-five years of experience in education as a teacher, curriculum consultant, and writer. She has worked both as an elementary Spanish bilingual teacher and a Spanish language teacher for grades K-12. She cowrote the Massachusetts World Languages Curriculum Framework and wrote the Texas Framework for Languages Other Than English. As a consultant to Center for Collaborative Education, Ms. Atkinson was lead author of several Turning Points Guides as well as the Small Schools Planning Guide. Her poetry and fiction for children has appeared in several books and magazines. Ms. Atkinson holds a MEd from Lesley University. Leah Rugen, publications director, has worked at the Center for Collaborative Education since 1997 as writer, change coach, and program director of the national Turning Points network. Prior to working at CCE she worked for Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound, and the New York City Outward Bound Center. She began her education career teaching English and writing in public school in New York. She received her MAT in English from Brown University. Her CCE publications include Turning Points guides Creating Partnerships, Bridging Worlds: Family and Community Engagement (with Jordan Naidoo, 2003) and Understanding Learning: Assessment in the Turning Points School (2005).