BECOME A LEAD TEACHER!
We're looking for incredible Middle and High School Teachers throughout Massachusetts to join us as a Lead Teacher in Fall 2022! Lead Teachers open up their classrooms virtually to other teachers and their students to create greater access to their culturally responsive, project-based curriculum. In return, Lead Teachers will receive a $5,000 stipend and be part of a professional learning community committed to reimagining our education system.
WHAT'S IT LIKE?
MEET OUR CURRENT LEAD TEACHERS
Casey andrews
Casey Zella Andrews is a high school English teacher at TechBoston Academy. She holds a BA from Hampshire College, MAT from Simmons University, and MA in Critical and Creative Thinking from the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Ms. Andrews has taught at TechBoston for the past six years; before that, she worked at City on a Hill Charter School, Circuit Street, and Nava Elementary School in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Ms. Andrews enjoys writing poetry, taking walks, and playing with her toddler in her free time. Ms. Andrews has never lost a push-up competition to a student, including while she was pregnant.
CaTHERINE ARNOLD
Catherine Arnold graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1995 in her mid-30s with a degree in Philosophy and received her teaching certification right afterward from Harvard Divinity School. She has been teaching 8th grade for 20 years and loves it. Her interests include social justice, sustainability, history, politics, animals, and food. Cate is creative and loves to dance. She also enjoys travel and has been to Hiroshima, Auschwitz, and Antarctica. She hopes that she and her students will better understand themselves and the world they live in and continue on their paths as future change-makers.
stephen belyea
Stephen is a fine arts educator with over 30 years of experience in the classroom. He is currently the lead teacher for the art department at Cathedral High School in Boston. He believes that everyone can be creative and that art is an essential part of life. Art helps make us fully human, tells our story, and gives us all joy. As part of the curriculum he has developed at Cathedral, he brings students into the untold stories of artists from different backgrounds and cultures, showing their shared human connection. He has developed a project-based learning curriculum in the arts that helps students form a real-world application of the arts. Along with his teaching, Stephen is a member of Cathedral’s professional development team dealing with issues of anti-racism and equity.
Oris t. bryant
Oris T. Bryant has been an educator for a total of 18 years. Raised in Mattapan and after graduating from Brown University with a law and public policy degree, he began his teaching and coaching career in New Hampshire. After six years in education, he attended Rutgers Law School - Newark and practiced corporate law for several large Boston law firms. Returning to education in 2010, he has worked at the Noble & Greenough School for the last eleven years. His responsibilities include: social science and humanities teacher (grades 9-12), coaching varsity basketball, advising students and student groups, such as Mock Trial, and working with the school’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion department. He has been married for twenty years and has three children (19, 17, 14). In his spare time, Oris loves to shoot hoops, read science fiction, write and watch movies.
robert comeau
Robert Comeau is new to O’Bryant, after teaching senior English at Another Course to College (ACC) for 22 years. About 35 years ago, he dropped out of high school in senior year, earned a correspondence diploma, and joined the Marine Corps. After serving four years, he went from community college to Amherst College, graduating summa cum laude, and now holds a MEd from Harvard. He’s done many jobs, from factory work to aviation electronics, and seen many places, but he loves teaching and living in Boston best!
RAKSMEY DERIVAL
Ms. Derival (she/her) is a second-generation Cambodian woman, daughter of refugee immigrants, and mother of two Cambodian-Haitian sons. She graduated from Suffolk University with a degree in biochemistry and forensic science and worked in forensic toxicology and green chemistry labs before joining Innovation Academy Charter School. Ms. Derival teaches chemistry, green chemistry, forensic science, and science and social justice classes through anti-racist and culturally relevant lenses. She is also passionate about healing the world through kindness and science, creating positive energy in social justice movements, and empowering others to remember that they are always, and in all ways, more extraordinary than they think they are.
ZACH ENGLISH
Zach has taught ESL, Spanish, Social Studies, Sex Ed, and Health and Wellness in Spain and Boston. He now teaches Spanish and Health in Wellness at the Mario Umana Academy. He is a graduate of Umass Dartmouth, attended the University of Granada, Spain, and is a Lifeguard/Divemaster for the Red Cross. He has lived all around the world and loves to bring different perspectives into the classroom to motivate students and encourage them to explore new opportunities. He loves to spend his free time traveling, meeting new people, learning new languages, and hiking. He champions nerd culture and meaningful conversations.
BERNADINE LORMILUS
Bernadine Lormilus-Henry is a 7th Grade ELA teacher at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Inclusion School in Roxbury, MA. She has been an educator in both the public and private school sectors for over 15 years. Ms. Lormilus was the 2016 recipient of the Barbara J. Capron Award for Excellence in Teaching Social Studies. As an ELA teacher, Ms. Lormilus strives to teach from a critical race lens while infusing civics, social studies, and technology into her literacy lessons. Ms. Lormilus is on a journey to becoming an antiracist educator. She takes pride in promoting antiracist pedagogical practices in her classroom with her students while encouraging them to use their knowledge to become catalysts of change in their own communities.
Chris Madson
Chris is a high school English Language Arts teacher at the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science, a Boston Public school. Over the past decade he has implemented a school-wide positive behavior interventions and supports system, designed project-based curriculum that connects students with arts and public and private organizations around the city, and advocated for and implemented inclusion curriculum for students with IEPs.
brian mccray
Brian McCray is 9th teacher of math that is certified in high school and middle school mathematics. He currently teaches at Josiah Quincy Upper School as an 8th/9th grade educator. He has prior teaching experience at Brighton High School (4 years) and Newton Public Schools (4 years). He is a graduate from UMass-Lowell and has a master degree from Emmanuel College.
CHRISTOPHER MEE
Christopher Mee teaches ninth-graders at Another Course To College (ACC) and lives in Hyde Park. He has taught US History and other classes in the Boston Public Schools for 25 years. Chris strives to teach methods of learning and knowing that can be utilized in students’ high school academic courses and the wider world and community. While Chris is too old to beat his 16-year-old son in 1 on 1 basketball, he still dominates his 2-year old daughter if the hoop is 10 feet high.
nakia navarro
Nakia Navarro is the CEO/Founder of Building Audacity, a nonprofit organization resourcing youth led community change. She has 20 years of nonprofit leadership experience, including an
extensive background in nonprofit management, creating youth focused racial equity training and community organizing curriculum, as well as developing community investment strategies. Nakia holds a BA in Public Administration from Winthrop University, a MA from Tufts University in Education, a MA from Tufts University in Urban Environmental Public Policy, and a certificate in Global Communications from the University of Salamanca. Nakia is the author of The Messiness of Life, an Anthology, teaches Environmental Justice and Black Studies at Brooke Charter High School and facilitates anti-bias training via the Anti-Defamation League World of Difference Institute. Nakia hails from Hilton Head Island, SC and currently resides in Boston, MA. Fun Fact About Nakia: When living in Dorchester, she had a pet pig named Ms. Peppa Pigglesworth!
Shradha patel
Ms. Patel has had almost 20 years of education experience as a teacher, college placement counselor, and former Principal. She currently teaches English at Roxbury Prep High School. She is excited to welcome scholars to her AP Language course to get them ready for the SAT, for college, and to generally be stronger readers, writers, and thinkers the world needs right now! She graduated from Brown University and Tufts University. In her spare time, pre- and during COVID, she tries to not watch too much TV and be outside when she can!
shanae paulino
Shanae Paulino has been teaching high school students in BPS for five years. Prior to teaching in Boston, she also taught high school students in California. Shanae currently teaches 11th and 12th grade English, and enjoys helping students explore important topics related to race, identity, oppression and resistance. She gives credit to the members of the Ethnic Studies Now Curriculum Writing Group for putting together the curriculum that has become the framework and foundation of what she teaches in the classroom.
bruce pontbriand
Dr. Pontbriand (known to TechBoston Academy students as “Dr. P”) has been teaching Civics and Government at TBA since 2005. Dr. P’s classes have been involved in active civic and government engagement including working on “tiny” designing homes in Dorchester with seniors and elementary students at the Holmes Elementary School, Green Architecture Design with AutoDesk, and government advocacy with City Councilor Andrea’ Campbell’s office. Dr. P lives in Randolph, MA, and is very active in community affairs in his town.
TAYLOR ROBERTS
Taylor Roberts is a middle school humanities teacher at Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School. She is a writer and educator focused on southern Black culture and Black futures. She is a graduate of Spelman College and has an M.Ed. from Boston University.
Darren T. WELLS
Mr. Wells has over 30 years of teaching experience and is a proud graduate of Hampton University. He is a nationally awarded educator who provides mentoring and training to new and veteran teachers in the middle school science curriculum for Boston Public Schools and those outside of BPS-affiliated spaces. Mr. Wells has an extraordinary will for his students to achieve/succeed and strives every day to impact their lives positively. He has been involved with several community organizations, including Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated, Concerned Black Men of Massachusetts, Black Educators Alliance of Massachusetts, and Network of Educators in Science and Technology. Additionally, he is an avid bike rider and loves fashion!
Campus Without Walls is incubated by BUILD, EIN 94-3386695.