EDUCATIONAL DESIGN
Laura Jeffrey Academy provides a stimulating learning environment for scholars in grades 5-8. We set clear expectations and offer opportunities to celebrate student learning. Our school framework is based on a holistic approach to education, and it addresses teaching and learning, resiliency, school climate and organizational effectiveness. In addition, our Interdisciplinary Power Standards and assessment process ensure our scholars achieve personal, school, state and federal standards.
Educational Design Team
Tracey Pyscher - Curriculum and Instruction Lead Tracey Pyscher has been a curriculum and instruction specialist in K-12 urban settings and is now Assistant Coordinator of the English Education Program and an Instructor at the University of Minnesota Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Her doctoral research explores critical literacy in urban schools and she led the design of LJA’s curricular framework. Along with completing her doctoral work, Tracey serves as an educational consultant in English Education and the ELA Common Core State Standards.
Dr. Rose W. Chu currently serves as the interim dean for the School of Urban Education, Metropolitan State University. Previous to returning to academia, she was appointed from May 2011 to May 2013 as Assistant Commissioner of Education in the Minnesota Department of Education. She was a former associate professor and department chair of the Urban Teacher Program at Metropolitan State University. Her specialty is mathematics education: teaching, advising and supervising prospective math teachers to educate diverse learners in our urban core. Her teaching and research interests include reform efforts in math education, and community engagement in educational equity and access. Previous to her joining the university in August 2004, Rose worked at the Minneapolis Public Schools for 8 years as a classroom teacher, a district math specialist, and a district math/science equity coordinator. Rose holds a Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and was formerly a research scientist at Honeywell.
Uve Hamilton holds degrees in art and art history and has licensure as an elementary grades teacher. Her primary expertise is in the integration of the arts into non-arts subjects such as reading, math, science, and social studies. She has taught in a variety of settings: abroad in Indonesia and Singapore; an education outreach program at the Cleveland Museum of Art; and art history at Macalester College. For fifteen years she taught in the elementary grades in the Minneapolis Public Schools. Most recently, she served as Project Manager and then Director of Arts for Academic Achievement, a program of the Minneapolis Public Schools that brings community artists into classrooms to support student learning in and through the arts. She is currently on leave from the Minneapolis Public Schools.
Dr. Cynthia Lewis is Professor of English Education at the University of Minnesota. She is interested in classroom discourse, response to literature, and adolescents’ uses of digital media. Her current research focuses on critical engagement in English classrooms in urban schools. Cynthia’s books include Literary Practices as Social Acts: Power, Status, and Cultural Norms in the Classroom and Reframing Sociocultural Research: Identity, Agency, and Power (with Patricia Enciso and Elizabeth Moje). Both books were awarded the Edward Fry book Award from the National Reading Conference. She is currently Co-Chair of the Research Assembly of the national Council of Teachers of English and has served on the executive board of the National Conference on Research on Language and Literacy.
Shannon Dahmes comes to us with a back ground in secondary English education with a particular interest in composition and basic literacy. Her experience with board membership and senior administration in several charter schools has contributed to practical and regulatory considerations in curriculum design. In the future she hopes to do research to explore the efficacy of asset-based, whole-child, interdisciplinary curriculum and instruction to increase literacy for at-risk, and learning disabled students.
Dr. Nicole LaVoi Associate Director, Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport, University of Minnesota.
Erin Twamley was an education design team member providing support in the design of the curriculum, school day and a research intern at LJA. As an undergraduate, she completed an honors thesis, “The Role of Gender Identity on the Effects of Stereotype Threat: An Examination of Girls’ Math Performance in a Single-sex Classroom" by conducting a quasi-experimental study at LJA. She is currently an educator and non-fiction children's book author for her own organization ErinEDU. Through her work she engages the next generation of learners in protecting and creating a sustainable planet. She is an author of numerous publications on the topics of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM). This includes three books for kids:
Climate Change: Discover How it Impacts Spaceship Earth
Renewable Energy: Discover the Fuel of the Future
Everyday Superheroes: Women in STEM Careers (Coming Winter 2019)
Erin loves to travel the world and has lived on 3 continents. She has received recognition of her exemplary leadership in education and holds a Masters of Education (M.Ed.) and an alumni of Macalester College. For more information please visit www.erinedu.org.
Udgon Abdullahi College age youth consultant.
Marc Wanvig Teacher Emeritus of Science, Minneapolis Public Schools.
Dorothy Hoffman Former Executive Director of Curriculum & Instruction, Minneapolis Public Schools. Dorothy also served as the Education Director of LJA for the first two years of start-up.