About This Lesson
DisruptED TV has partnered with NJPSA FEA to bring a series focused on education topics.
The New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association (NJPSA), a membership services organization, is dedicated to the promotion of educational excellence through the ongoing support of New Jersey’s school leaders via government advocacy, legal assistance, leadership programs, professional development and retirement counseling. NJPSA provides numerous professional services to nearly 6,700 premier active members, composed of principals, assistant principals, supervisors, directors and other school district leaders, as well as more than 2,100 aspiring, retired and organizational members. Through its professional development division, the Foundation for Educational Administration (FEA), the association offers its members the most dynamic, informative, and necessary training opportunities on a multitude of timely and relevant topics.
Patricia Wright, Executive Director of NJPSA: A lifelong educator, Patricia Wright is currently the Executive Director of the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association. She has held the positions of teacher, reading specialist, assistant principal, principal, and superintendent. Mrs. Wright serves as a member of the New Jersey Professional Development Advisory Committee. She also served as the chair of the New Jersey Anti-Bullying Task Force and co-authored the New Jersey Bar Foundation's Anti-Bullying Curriculum. She is the developer of the Connected Action Roadmap (CAR), a comprehensive and coherent model of school improvement, which has been endorsed by the Partnership on Collaborative Professional Learning. Most recently, she spearheaded the development of the New Jersey Leadership Academy with the NJASA, in which cohorts of superintendents, assistant superintendents, principals, assistant principals, supervisors, and directors collaborate for a yearlong experience of quality, sustained professional learning.
Donna McInerney is the Chief Executive Officer of FEA, having previously served for nearly six years as FEA's Director of Program Development and Design. A former high school Social Studies teacher and supervisor, she earned her doctorate from the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University, specializing in curriculum theory and development. Over the last 15 years she has been an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Graduate Education, Leadership and Counseling at Rider University and in the Educational Administration and Secondary Education Program at The College of New Jersey. She currently teaches in the NJ EXCEL program. Throughout the course of her career, Dr. McInerney has provided professional learning experiences on a wide variety of topics including tools for professional learning communities, the Connected Action Roadmap (CAR), research-based instructional strategies, classroom management techniques, project-based learning, differentiated instruction, curriculum integration, and cooperative learning strategies. Her most recent work has focused on the instructional leadership skills and coherent frameworks needed to improve teacher practice, drive student achievement and ensure systemic, sustained, school improvement.
