Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

February 12, 2024

Abigail Arnold | Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

When Genevra Valvo, AGS ‘17, applied to Brandeis’s Teacher Leadership program, she was looking to address immediate challenges in her role as an ESL teacher at Waltham’s Kennedy Middle School. “We had similar questions and challenges every year,” said Valvo, who was then in her third year in the school, “and I thought I would be interested in talking with mentors and teacher leaders to develop skills to think about how to try new things and new approaches.” At the time, she wanted to see what else was possible–and through her time in the program and after, she learned many new approaches that she continues to apply to a range of challenges today, as she continues to work in the Waltham Public Schools.

Valvo especially appreciated the network and connections that she was able to build in the Teacher Leadership program. She has built relationships with faculty, with other members of her cohort, and with other alums of the program who also work in Waltham. “Through that network and the program’s ongoing social outreach, I’ve gotten to know others in the district and learn what happens at other schools and other levels…At least once a year, we’ve gotten together locally ever since,” said Valvo. She also had the chance to build skills that helped her when she was reassigned to McDevitt Middle School (also in Waltham), allowing her to begin new projects more easily than she might otherwise have done. She especially appreciated the support of Professor Marya Levenson, the director of the program at the time and a fellow Walthamite. The two have kept in touch since 2017; Valvo said, “It’s been great to hear from her decades of experience in different school leadership roles and also her involvement as a local Waltham resident who’s familiar with its history, culture, and politics. She’s a great sounding board to talk things through with.”

In addition to the interpersonal connections, the Teacher Leadership program taught Valvo valuable skills and practices that she has used in her work ever since. “For me,” she said, “what has been the most empowering and productive has been learning how to field conversations, plan for goals, deal with challenges, and recruit allies and support.” She found an activity in which each student filmed themselves teaching and then watched it alongside a colleague from the program to practice giving each other feedback particularly impactful, as it helped build the practice of engaging in critical conversations and getting someone else’s perspective. She has done this activity with others at her school since being introduced to it in the program. Valvo also benefited from the program’s use of structured protocols in conversations about different practice dilemmas, which helped participants engage in active listening, collect more equitable and thoughtful input, and push their thinking to get better end results.

When asked what advice she would give others who were considering the program, Valvo emphasized the ways in which all she learned during her time at Brandeis has stayed with her and continued to be applicable in new ways. She said, “The year I was in the program, I applied a lot of skills we were using…At the time, I felt I was testing a lot of things, so I’m not sure how transformative it was then. But since then I’ve applied a lot to new projects on my own.” During the pandemic, for example, she noticed chronic absenteeism among her students; when she talked to them about it, she learned about housing and food insecurity issues and unemployment in their families. Partnering with others at the school and the organization Waltham Partnership for Youth, she started the Waltham Welcome Center, a referral hub where new families can go to get information about community resources. “I’m very proud of it,” she said. “Welcome Center staff have since taken the original concept and improved and expanded it to the extent that today I no longer need to be involved in day to day operations. Even though it came years after my time in the program, many of the skills I learned at Brandeis came in handy and helped with the proposal, the design, and the foundation of what the Welcome Center came to be. Even if you don’t see instant results within your time in the program, keep an open mind and think about future applications down the line.”

Since completing the program, Valvo has continued to work in the Waltham Public Schools. She was a part of many projects and initiatives at McDevitt, where she taught during the height of the pandemic and used leadership skills she had learned in the Brandeis program to confront those challenges. In the past two years, she has transitioned to a ESL instructional coach role, working to develop program staff in both Waltham middle schools.