who's who
Director
Dr. Dina Portnoy is the director of the GSE/TFA Urban Teacher Program and worked for the School District of Philadelphia for 29 years, primarily as a high school English teacher. An active member of teacher networks locally and nationally, she has been a member of the Philadelphia Writing Project and the National Writing Project since 1987.
During the 1990’s she spent three years working with the Philadelphia Schools Collaborative in an effort to restructure and reform the 22 comprehensive high schools in Philadelphia by creating small schools-within-schools and inviting teachers to work together to design programs, curricula, and assessments. This work prompted her dissertation: Learning community on a “tight ship:” Issues and dilemmas of control and change in a restructuring urban high school.
Click here to vist Dr. Portnoy's page on the PennGSE web site.
Contact:
(office) 215 746 4855
(cell) 215 518 2979
(e-mail) dportnoy@gse.upenn.edu
Room 478, 3440 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Associate Director
Ms. Margo Ackerman is the associate director of the GSE/TFA Urban Teacher Program. She taught in the School District of Philadelphia for 27 years, was “Teacher of the Year” in Philadelphia in 2003, and then served as the assistant principal in charge of instruction in a Philadelphia charter school. Margo has been a member of the Philadelphia Writing Project and served on its steering committee for twenty years.
Margo works directly with and supervises the Penn mentors, collaborates with TFA and PD’s, is responsible for some of the processing of certification. She is also an instructor of Secondary English Methods.
Contact:
(office) 215 898 2578
(cell) 215 760 1316
(e-mail) margoack@gse.upenn.edu
Room 476, 3440 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Coordinator
Ms. Lessie Boyd is the coordinator of the Program. She has been working at GSE for over 20 years in a variety of programs and in the Admissions Office. A native of Philadelphia, she attended Philadelphia public schools.
Contact:
(office) 215 746 4857
(e-mail) lessieb@gse.upenn.edu
Room 480, 3440 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
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