The Vermont Superintendents Association and the Vermont Council of Special Education Administrators collaborate on an annual conference. For this year’s Spring Conference, Success for Every Student, they were looking for a speaker whose message would resonate with conference participants and speak about the importance of considering and responding to children’s holistic development as a focus of their education. “The Special Education directors were instrumental in promoting this concept, because they fully recognize that education policy and practice in this country too often focuses on singular measurements or determinations of ‘success,’” said Jeff Francis, the executive director of the Vermont Superintendents Association.
Francis said that their research brought them to the Comer School Development Program website. After reading about Dr. Fay E. Brown’s expertise and watching a couple of her video presentations on the SDP’s YouTube page, they decided that she would be a good presenter for their 2012 conference that was held on May 17 and 18 at the Lake Morey Resort and Conference Center in Fairlee, Vermont.
Dr. Brown, the SDP’s director of Child and Adolescent Development and an Associate Research Scientist at the Yale Child Study Center, delivered her keynote speech, “The Whole Child Approach - Effective Teaching, Learning and Development on May 18, 2012 to the conference participants who are superintendents and special education administrators. “She exceeded our expectations,” said Francis. “I have never encountered a speaker who was more enthusiastically received. This was confirmed by the exemplary ratings and remarks received in the formal evaluation process.”
He shared the following examples of the feedback on Dr. Brown’s presentations:
Dr. Fay Brown was terrific; dynamic, engaging, used research, examples, references to suggest changes in how we might operate in schools and in classrooms.
I wish that there was a way to get Dr. Fay Brown's message to every teacher and principal. I would love to see her travel to Vermont to work with schools. Her message was very powerful and she was really engaging.
I was so pleased that you brought Fay Brown of the School Development Program to Vermont. It was exactly the right message and one that is based on a true understanding of how to improve education opportunities and address the achievement gap.
Fay Brown was the most dynamic speaker that I have heard in a long time.
Fay Brown was fantastic and should be brought back to Vermont. Her presentation on the six developmental pathways left me wanting to hear more.
Dr. Brown has been invited to return to Vermont to speak at the Vermont Council of Special Education Administrators’ Fall conference on December 7, 2012.