It all started when…
Sherry began her education career after spending six years in Corporate America. She started out servicing at-risk students as a School-to-Work Transition teacher. Soon after, she became a Business Education teacher and after completing her Master’s Degree in Community Counseling, she became a high school Counselor. Years later, she was named Assistant Principal at Glasgow High School in Delaware, charged with leading the school through implementation of the Small Learning Communities Federal Initiative Grant. Two and half-years later, Sherry was asked to serve as Interim Principal for the School and to remain on as principal at the end of the school year. However, she accepted a Turnaround Principalship in her childhood school district, at her rival high school, McKean High School. Under her leadership, within three years McKean High became the only comprehensive high school in the state of Delaware to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress after restructuring.
Two of McKean’s model programs implemented under Sherry’s leadership also received the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce’s “SuperStars in Education Award” for its Freshman Advisory Program and its Attendance Recovery Program. Both programs were instrumental in improving student achievement. Sherry also earned recognition for Administrator of the Year by the Delaware School Counselors Association.Upon completion of her Doctorate degree in Educational Leadership and Policy, Sherry accepted a position as an Assistant Regional Superintendent of High Schools in the School District of Philadelphia. There, Sherry implemented a dashboard monitoring tool to monitor progress of her assigned schools relative to their School Improvement Plans and make projections for Adequate Yearly Progress. Additionally, she led walkthrough teams through a systematized monthly walkthrough process designed to improve teaching and learning in schools. The high school region had the highest gains in the history of the School District at the end of the 2009-2010 school year.
Sherry’s experience at Mastery Charter Schools as a Deputy Chief Academic Officer of Specialized Programs allowed her to develop alternative programs for students in violation of serious infractions per the code of conduct and special needs programs and services. Sherry developed a vision and mission for the newly created specialized services unit to include psychological and social work services. Sherry led her team in developing monitoring tools to ensure programs and services delivered to students were appropriate.In the summer of 2011, Sherry was asked to return to Delaware to turnaround the failing high school where she started her administrative career. Glasgow High School was labeled as a Partnership Zone School through Delaware’s Race to the Top Initiative and was leaderless in August 2011. Sherry accepted the challenge and in under her leadership, in one year, had the greatest growth of any high school in the State of Delaware. Glasgow High School achieved Adequate Yearly Progress for the first time in its history. Sherry was able to bring in an Innovative Program Grant from the State in access of $300,000 to implement a Culinary Arts, Pharmacy Tech and CAD program to the school as well as a $130,000 Dual Enrollment Grant. Sherry delivered on the plan’s promise of implementing a School-within-a-School model while delivering Project Based Learning as an instructional delivery method with dramatic results in one school year.
Sherry has been providing educational services via consulting since 2012. She is co-principal of Educate4Hope and garners partnerships to do principal and capacity building to provide support to districts and schools in the areas of: Coaching and assisting systems with innovative and pragmatic ways to increase the capacity for learning and leading through human capital management and leadership development.
Additionally, Sherry has worked with the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) to conduct professional development and coaching services on assessment and data analysis for schools and school systems as well as an Account Executive, serving as a strategic partner with schools and school systems with which she worked with the purpose and intent of building capacity and improving practice. Sherry also has experience as a Director of Partnerships in an ed-tech start-up organization, BetterLesson promising to dramatically improve the desired instructional shifts needed to support teacher and student outcomes via a 1:1 virtual coaching model.