Innovative Schools

Board Chairman, Fine Stationery Solutions, Inc.

 

Rodel Foundation of Delaware 
 

Community Volunteer
 

Welfare Foundation
 

Blue Skies Properties
 

Buccini/Pollin Group 

 

Talley Middle School 

 

New Leaders for New Schools 

 

Tennessee SCORE

 

The Mind Trust
 

Charter School Growth Fund
 

Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP
 

21 Century School Consultant 
 

Prior to joining the Rodel Foundation of Delaware in 2004, Paul was a senior manager at New American Schools, a national nonprofit, where he provided support to states, districts, and charter schools. He also conducted research for organizations such as the Brookings Institution, RAND, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, and The World Bank. 

Paul began his career in the 1980s as an educator working in various U.S. cities, South Africa, and Australia, serving students from kindergarten through high school. He co-founded a highly successful school-within-a-school based on an Outward Bound model in one of the largest high schools in New York City. His work served as a beta site for Expeditionary Learning, a comprehensive school reform model that is now in 140 schools across the United States.

In the 1990s, Paul served in the Secretary of Education’s office for two governors in Massachusetts, a state that is now the nation’s top performer, during the wholesale redesign of the state’s policies on standards, choice, and finance.

Paul received his bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Delaware and his master's degree and doctorate in education administration and planning from Harvard University. He lives in Wilmington, Delaware with his wife Dana and their three children.
 

Martha Manning founded the Delaware Charter Schools Network, which is a membership association of all of Delaware’s charter schools. She served as Executive Director until her retirement in 2006. Prior to that time, Martha’s career included teaching elementary school in the Red Clay Consolidated School district and running a small non-profit called Focus on the Kids. That organization focused on public education reform.

Before returning to work full-time in the non profit world, Martha volunteered in the schools her four children attended and helped the Cab Calloway School of the Arts become a reality.  She was a member of the CCSA Board for eleven years.  Martha is also a founding board member of the Red Clay Education Foundation and is the Secretary of the Foundation.  She also served on the board of the Wilmington Youth Rowing Association (WYRA).
 

Peter C. Morrow serves as the Executive Director of the Welfare Foundation, and formerly served as Executive Director of the Longwood Foundation from 1997 to 2009. The Welfare Foundation distributes over $6 million annually to various education, hospital, and social service agencies, mostly for capital projects. The Longwood Foundation is one of the nation’s largest private foundation, distributing over $35 million annually to various charities, primarily in Delaware and Chester County, Pennsylvania. Mr. Morrow joined Longwood after a 34-year career with the DuPont Company where he managed DuPont’s global charitable giving program and community affairs activities in Delaware. Prior to his career in the contributions field, Mr. Morrow held management positions in finance and employee relations. In 1973, Mr. Morrow was granted a leave of absence from DuPont to serve as Director of Commerce for the City of Wilmington.

Mr. Morrow has been active in local and national organizations including the Conference Board's Contributions Council, United Way of America, American Red Cross, National Alliance of Business, Jobs for America's Graduates, and the Council of Better Business Bureaus.  He recently served as Chairman of Wilmington's Riverfront Development Corporation.  Mr. Morrow is also active on many non profit boards and advisory committees, including the Wilmington Housing Partnership, the Delaware Housing Partnership, Delaware State Chamber of Commerce, and Christiana Care.  Mr. Morrow was born in Wilmington.  He graduated from Friends School and received a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina.
 

Craig Schroeder is the general manager of Blue Skies Properties, a residential real estate company.  Prior to starting this business, he worked for 16 years at MBNA (now part of Bank of America).  His early career included experience in the key areas of consumer banking, including lending, customer satisfaction, collection, and quality assurance.  He was promoted to senior executive vice president in 1996, and served the company in this role for nearly ten years.   As Senior EVP, he was responsible for managing various corporate operations, including education, administration, purchasing, communications, employment and personnel programs, and international expansion strategy.  He also served for several years as executive director of the MBNA Foundation, responsible for all of the company’s community donations, volunteer programs, employment programs for people with disabilities, scholarships, and school grants.

Mr. Schroeder is a member of Robin Hood Ventures, a Philadelphia-based early stage investment partnership.  He is a member of the board of directors of Innovative Schools, a non-profit organization that provides resources to enable outstanding student achievement in Delaware’s public schools, and a member of the Board of Trustees of Sanford School.  He has a bachelor's degree in psychology, and a master’s degree in computer and information technology, both from the University of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Swanson left the corporate world in 1995 to pursue entrepreneurial efforts in the film industry. After working at the companies of producers Ivan Reitman and Chuck Gordon, Swanson helped write and produce the educational film series BabySafe which sold over 350,000 copies and won American Medical Association film awards in 1996 and 2002.

After moving to Delaware, Mr. Swanson joined his wife in launching Fine Stationery Solutions, Inc. and its website FineStationery.com in 1999. As a pioneer in Internet strategy and technology innovation, FineStationery.com has revolutionized the consumer experience, communications and overall reach of the stationery industry. One of the fastest growing companies in the region, FineStationery.com has become the leading provider of fine stationery on the Internet and one of the largest custom printing retailers in the country. Mr. Swanson was honored as a finalist of the Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” Award in 2003.

Mr. Swanson currently serves on the board of Layton Preparatory School as a Foundation Director, and First State Innovation, a nonprofit economic development initiative led by the U.S. Department of Commerce and charter with improving the entrepreneurial landscape in Delaware.  

Richard S. Carter, Ed.D. has served as an educator, in a variety of capacities, for over 20 years. He completed his undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania. While there, he worked as an intern at the Netter Center for Community Partnerships, which has had a major impact on his work. A key component of the Center’s mission is to revitalize West Philadelphia through the creation of university-assisted community-focused schools, as reflected in the elements of John Dewey’s theory of democratic education and the Chicago Hull-House tradition as pioneered by Jane Addams.

Richard began his teaching career as a middle school Social Studies and English-Language Arts teacher at the JP Turner Middle School. Turner is located in the Southwest Philadelphia neighborhood where Richard grew up and where he spend some time as an intern at the Netter Center. Following his work at Turner, Richard returned to Penn to complete doctoral studies in educational leadership. His dissertation focused on the Center’s emergent collaboration with the Mayer Sulzberger Middle School. 

In addition to his teaching experience, Richard has served as an assistant professor of education at Rider University, program administrator [for a pre-college preparatory program, for low SES status students] for the Program in Teacher Preparation at Princeton University, as a vice principal, and as 1 of 4 assistant directors of school improvement at an interim elementary school in the Trenton Public School District.

Currently, Richard is proud to serve the students of the Brandywine School District as Principal of Talley Middle School. He began his work in the district in April of 2006. Talley achieved AYP status after the Spring 2009 Delaware State Testing Program (DSTP) administration. This accomplishment was a first for the school. Richard attributes Talley’s progress to a growing faculty commitment to distributive leadership, evidenced based decision making, and school practices responsive to the realities of adolescent development.

Richard and his talented and lovely wife Marla have been blessed with 2 dynamic children: a son, Jordan (11), and daughter, Hannah (6).
 

Stephanie Clark Fitzgerald is National Director of New Leaders Community Support for New Leaders for New Schools. She is the immediate past President and CEO of the Rodel Charitable Foundation of DE.  Stephanie began her career as a middle school social studies and language arts teacher in Chicago. As a small public school founder and independent school principal, she focused on creating learning communities in which children, families, faculty and staff, and the community all thrive. As an education consultant, Stephanie assisted in opening two schools in Washington, D.C. for the Edison Project; provided school-level accountability development for Perspectives Charter School in Chicago, Illinois; and with KPMG Consulting, conducted performance reviews for districts and states and assisted in developing and marketing an education data warehouse.  She received her BA from Harvard University, MA in Education Leadership and Administration from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and MA in Economic Education and Entrepreneurship from the University of Delaware.
 

In 2004, Sylvia Flowers decided to leave Corporate America to pursue her personal passion by joining the Broad Residency in Urban Education, a management training program for emerging executives seeking to ultimately become leaders in education reform. She began her work in education in the Christina School District in Wilmington, Delaware as the Director of Training and Development. In this role, she brought experience in quality management and process design to create and in some cases, restructure for professional development for all staff, leadership development for administrators, and induction and mentoring of new teachers.  She later assumed responsibility for Federal and State Grants, as well as competitive grants for the District. She served as Program Manager for Title I and Title V programs, with specific oversight of Supplemental Education Services for students at underperforming schools and services for non-public school students.

In January 2007, Ms. Flowers joined Chicago Public Schools as Project Manager of Chicago TAP, a pilot program designed to drive recruitment, development and retention of quality staff in 40 high-need schools through implementation of the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP). The Teacher Advancement Program accomplishes this by offering teachers and administrators sustained opportunities for career advancement, ongoing school-based professional development, instructionally focused accountability and performance incentives. The project was the first of its kind in Chicago Public Schools which links teacher compensation rewards to improving student achievement. The Chicago Public Schools is the nation’s third-largest school system with an annual operating budget of $4.7B.  It includes more than 600 schools and serves about 415,000 students.

Sylvia Flowers began her career as a Chemical Engineer with Monsanto Chemical Company in St. Louis, Missouri. She later worked as a Senior Buyer at Solutia Inc, a spin-off chemical company, in the Nylon Fibers Plant in Pensacola, Florida. She had responsibility for sourcing contracts and the purchase, inventory and warehouse management of all raw materials and additives used in the nylon manufacturing operations. Ms. Flowers left Solutia to obtain her Master of Business Administration in Management at the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia. Upon graduation in 2002, she returned to the corporate world, working for Duke Energy as a Commercial Associate in Duke’s management leadership program, where she evaluated key energy policy initiatives and provided analytical support for the acquisition and divestiture of assets. 

 

Ethan Gray serves as Vice President of The Mind Trust. Ethan oversees The Mind Trust’s efforts to support entrepreneurship nationwide, and advises the President and CEO on all issues of strategy and execution. He is an honors graduate of Harvard College and holds a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in education policy and management. Mr. Gray most recently served as the Policy Director at Be the Change, Inc. in Cambridge, MA where he led the policy agenda process for Be the Change, Inc.'s first campaign - ServiceNation - in an effort to expand national and community service opportunities. The resulting agenda, Strategies for Becoming a Nation of Service, strongly influenced the introduction of the Ted Kennedy/Orin Hatch "Serve America Act" (S.3487): a $5 billion bi-partisan bill, also co-sponsored by Senator McCain and President-Elect Obama. Prior to his work as Policy Director, Mr. Gray was the Director of Education Policy for Be the Change, Inc. In this role he built a working group of leading education entrepreneurs and reformers and drafted a long-term vision of systemic education reform based on leveraging the success of the education entrepreneurship movement. After college he worked as a research assistant at Education Sectorin Washington, DC. Mr. Gray is an accomplished cellist and currently serves as the Vice-President of the board of trustees for the Harvard Radcliffe Orchestra.

 

Charles S. McDowell, Esq.

Mr. McDowell is of counsel to Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP where his legal career specialized in tax exempt finance for governmental and 501(c)(3) entities, including educational organizations. He is currently Chairman of the Board of East Side Charter School in Wilmington, Delaware which serves 400 + pre K – 8th grade inner-city students. He also serves as a Trustee of Delaware State University. He was a former a Teaching Fellow at International College in Beirut, Lebanon and as an Assistant Director of Admissions at Princeton University. Mr. McDowell’s other current activities include serving as a director and President of Delaware State Bar Insurance Services, Inc. (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Delaware State Bar Association), as a director of the Delaware Bar Foundation and as a member of the American College of Bond Counsel. He is a former President of the Delaware State Bar Association.

Mr. McDowell graduated with honors in history from Princeton University and he received his JD from the University of Virginia, School of Law.

 

Bob Pearlman is an author, speaker, and strategy consultant for 21^st Century School and District Development in Tucson, AZ. He is former director of strategic planning for the New Technology Foundation in Napa, CA, a school development organization which supports the replication of the New Technology 21st Century High School model in more than 50 communities across the United States. Pearlman consults and speaks widely in the U.S. and United Kingdom on 21st Century Learning.

In California, Bob served as director of education and workforce development at Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network and as president of the Autodesk Foundation. He previously served as coordinator of educational reform initiatives for the Boston Teachers Union, national consultant on educational technology for the American Federation of Teachers, and as a co-founder of the Co-NECT School New American School Design Team, and as a classroom teacher for 20 years. Bob has been a pioneer in designing new 21st Century schools; integrating project-based learning, work-based learning, and technology into the schools; and training teachers, administrators, and parents in the application of new technologies and their role in restructuring schools.

Bob is the author of many articles on 21st Century Learning, including “Making 21st Century Schools: Creating Learner-Centered Schoolplaces/Workplaces for a New Culture of Students at Work” (Educational Technology, September-October 2009), “New Skills For A New Century: Project-based learning teaches kids the collaborative and critical thinking abilities they'll need to compete” (Edutopia, June 2006), and “21^st Century Learning in Schools – A Case Study of New Technology High School in Napa, CA”, (published in New Directions for Youth Development, Summer 2006 Special Issue: The Case for Twenty-First Century Learning). He is a contributing author to the new Leading Edge anthology, 21^st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn (Solution Tree, 2010).