PRAXIS-GROUP TEACHER RECRUTING
MATCHING QUALITY TEACHERS WITH EXCELLENT SCHOOLS
Our Team
Each of our consultants has unique skills and areas of expertise originating in their experience working in schools and other educational programs. We are not gurus, but we are professionals who care about children and their education. We all have professional experience interacting with children, their caretakers and the professionals who work in programs like yours. Our professional development is collaborative. We work with your teachers to improve the services you provide. We are not prescriptive but rather cooperative.
Kathleen Murphy
Executive Director
After being frustrated for decades with the expert culture of "edugurus" who have no teaching experience and peddle untested and simplistic solutions to school districts with real and complex problems, Kathleen decided that teachers could train each other better than these self-proclaimed experts.
Understanding that the best advice comes from professionals who have actual experience working with children, she built a team that brings a depth of professional maturity and experience to every individual need, every problem and every project our clients face. A skilled mediator, Kathleen has helped labor and management resolve conflicts before they interfere with the operations of the programs that serve the children in their care. She has been the private go-to consultant for educators and school leaders for years.
Dr. John Brown
Managing Director & Senior Consultant
Aside from being our most sought after consultant for improving student/teacher relationships. Dr. Brown manages client relations, ASP professional development programs and recruitment & retainment services. He also advises ed-tech start-ups and educational publishing companies regarding employee training and educational products.
Dr. Brown is a Clinical Associate Professor of Education at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, holding nine active licenses from the Massachusetts Department of Education. He possesses significant secondary teaching experience with expertise in advising programs that need help with: intractable student behavior problems, curriculum alignment projects and faculty in need of instructional coaching.
Scarlett Tannetta
Consultant
Scarlett started her consulting work with the Cambridge Public Schools. Now, she specializes as a "turnaround specialist," whose team-building, instructional coaching and curriculum writing acumen have helped the 10th Grade Academy at Lawrence High School improve their student achievement numbers more significantly than any other school in the district, since the state took over there. Her school's growth scores are higher than every other turnaround school in the state.
Scarlett's experience as a classroom teacher, her intuitive approach to problem solving, her transformational leadership style and her dedication and commitment to program improvement helped her rise to the level of Dean at Lawrence High School.
Now, an instructional coach with WriteBoston, she provides in-depth training for educators to improve student writing throughout the Greater Boston Area. She also brings significant teacher evaluation and text selection experience to every client with whom she works.
Danielle Ricci
Consultant
Danielle Ricci has worked in both urban and suburban school districts as a teacher and administrator. As a doctoral student at The University of Massachusetts, she has presented at national conferences on various types of professional development.
She possesses the leadership, the temperament and the sophistication to understand how to help districts balance the myriad demands placed upon them by various stakeholders. Her primary area of expertise is about how to foster collaborative learning environments.
With many years as a classroom teacher, she has a deep understanding of curriculum & instruction. She holds a BA from Stonehill College in English and an M.Ed in Curriculum & Instruction from The University of Massachusetts Lowell. She is currently the Assistant Principal at Amesbury High School.
Dr. Roser Gine
Consultant
Dr. Gine is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at Lesley University. As an experienced K-12 math teacher, curriculum writer and department chair, she is a leader in the field of math education. Dr. Gine is a former research associate at Education Development Center and a published scholar who has presented at conferences like NCTM. Dr. Gine holds an Ed.D. in Leadership in Urban Schools & Math Education from the University of Massachusetts Boston, an M.Ed. in Math Education from Harvard University, an M.A. in Mathematics from Tufts University. Her B.A. in Mathematics is from Dartmouth University.
Dr. Gine previously taught at The University of Massachusetts Lowell's College of Education. She is licensed to teach math in the state of Massachusetts.
Jackie Novak
Consultant
With extensive experience in urban public schools as a teacher, instructional coach, administrator and curriculum writer, Jackie is a skilled team builder and turnaround consultant who can bring out the best that is already in schools by supporting those programs that work and by advancing those human resources that are underutilized. She has both public and private sector curriculum design experience, and she holds numerous licenses from the Massachusetts Department of Education. Currently, she is the Senior Director of K-12 Literacy for the Detroit Public Schools.
Previously, Jackie was Curriculum Director for the Lawrence Public Schools in Lawrence, Massachusetts. She holds a BA in English from McGill University and an M.Ed in Curriculum & Instruction from The University of Massachusetts Lowell.
Chris Murphy
Senior Consultant
Chris has been a consultant to many private and public schools, helping them develop curricular and programatic services for the students they serve who have language-based learning disabilities.
He was the Head of School at Landmark in Beverly, Massachusetts for 25 years. Prior to that, he held a variety of positions at Landmark School, including teacher, academic case manager and academic dean. Currently, he teaches part-time at Landmark and is developing their new online offerings.
He holds a BA in Education from Fitchburg State University, an MA in Rehabilitation Counseling from Assumption College and has taken several doctoral level courses in educational leadership at The University of Pennsylvania's College of Education.
Chris has taught courses at both Harvard University and Simmons Graduate Schools of Education. He is currently an adjunct professor at Endicott College of Eduction and a course developer for Southern New Hampshire University.
Nick LeClair
Consultant
Nick has extensive experience writing IEPs, developing behavior plans, differentiating curriculum, and designing transition plans for students with disabilities. Nick is developing a new literacy-based curriculum for Valley Collaborative, the program were he works, with the goal of raising the reading and writing levels of the middle and secondary students in his program. Nick received a Masters Degree in Curriculum & Instruction from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell and continues to study literacy at Endicott College.
Marie Smith
Consultant
Dr. Christine Shaw
Consultant
Dr. Shaw served as the executive director of various regional education initiatives focusing on educator professional development and cross sector partnerships for education (pre K-Higher Education). She served as national leadership fellow for career and technical education in 2011 and as a PARCC fellow from 2012-2014. Having held leadership roles in both urban and suburban school districts, in both public and private universities, Dr. Shaw has a wide variety of experiences and has forged numerous institutional partnerships over her career in education. She has worked in vocational technical education a well as in comprehensive public schools. She is currently on the faculty at Merrimack College as Professor of Practice, Program Director and the Director of Merrimack's School Counseling Program.
Tim Broadrick
Consultant
Tim specializes in helping schools and districts with authentic assessment, integration of hands-on learning in academic programs, and developing innovation pathways programs.
He has served has a district level school leader in both Massachusetts and New Hampshire. He holds a B.A. from UNH, an M.Ed. from Endicott College and is a Doctoral student at UNE.
Christine Gikis
Consultant
Chrissy has experience with both urban and suburban districts, grades 5-12. She is a classroom teacher, integration specialist, curriculum writer and a program innovator. With experience in traditional content area instruction an 21st century teaching methodologies, Christine straddles the innovation gap between the present and the future of education. Her ideas, her knowledge and her ability to effectively model the use of educational technology in the classroom will ad value to your program. She holds a Masters Degree in Curriculum & Instruction.
Marie's strategic implementation of targeted remediation for underperforming student populations has led directly to her school achieving the highest growth percentiles for MCAS in the state of Massachusetts.
Marie also designed her school's teacher induction/mentoring program, which is still a model for other schools in the area.
Originally trained as a special education teacher, now a proven organizational leader, her creative approach to program management will transform your organization in ways that will allow your staff to work as a team toward your common goals. Her 30+years as a teacher and leader brings depth and sophistication to any client she works with.
