Yale Faculty

Shelia G. Brantley serves as a Student Support Facilitator Coordinator for the New Haven Public Schools. Before that she served as the District Comer Facilitator in New Haven. She has been trained in the Comer Process and has implemented the program in New Haven since 1995. She presently collaborates with the School Development Program to work with ten schools in the district in the areas of team effectiveness, relationship building, child and adolescent development, and utilizing the guiding principles. She presents professional development in the Comer Process to teachers, staff, parents, and students.Shelia has taught high school English and Special Education in public and private schools for over 30 years in a continuum of elementary, high school, and college levels. She attended Winthrop University and earned a BA in English and a MA in Learning Disabilities at the University of Northern Colorado. In addition, she completed post-graduate work in Educational Leadership at Southern Connecticut State University.Shelia holds a leadership role in the educational reform School Change initiative presently being implemented by the New Haven Federation of Teachers and the District Central Office.

Jeffery German, EdS is an Implementation Coordinator working with schools and districts in several states. Jeff taught history at the junior high level and has been a principal at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. During his tenure as principal of Welborn Middle School in Guilford County, North Carolina, the school won several achievement awards and was featured in a PBS television special. In 1997, Jeff received the Patrick Francis Daly Memorial Award for Excellence in Educational Leadership from Yale University.He holds a B.S. in History Education and an M.S. in Education Administration from North Carolina A&T University, and earned his Education Specialist degree in Education Administration from Appalachian State University. He completed the Principals' Executive Program at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Sheila Jackson, M.S. is the director of the Department of School Improvement in the Prince George's County Public Schools in Maryland. She has also directed the Comer SDP Regional Professional Development and Training Center in Prince George’s County since its inception in 1994.For the past 20 years Sheila has been working with the Comer SDP Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS). In 1991 she was hired as a Parent Facilitator of the Comer SDP and helped to implement what has been the school system’s model for comprehensive school reform and targeted parent/community engagement since 1985. Since 1997, Sheila has served as the director of several departments within the Prince George’s County Public Schools, including the Department of Comer SDP, Milliken II and Special Programs; the Department of Family and Community Services; the Department of Family and Outreach and Strategic Partnerships; and the Department of School Development and Special Programs. The common denominator in all of these departments is that they always included supervision of Comer SDP within the school system.Sheila has co-authored several articles on the Comer Process and with Jan Stocklinski and Beckie Roberts co-authored a chapter on the Comer Facilitator in Dr. Comer's book, Child by Child. Most recently, she co-authored a number of chapters in The Field Guide to Comer Schools in Action.Sheila consults nationally on school reform, team development, community development and parental engagement. She has received the PGCPS Outstanding Educator of the Year Award and has served as an adjunct professor for the graduate education program of McDaniel College since 1997.Sheila holds a B.A. in Microbiology from the University of Virginia where she was a National Merit Scholar, and an M.S. in Curriculum, Instruction, Supervision and Administration from Western Maryland (since renamed McDaniel) College.Sheila and her husband have two sons and two daughters who are graduates of the Prince George's County Public Schools before going on to obtain degrees in higher education.

M. Ann Levett has been as a professional educator for over 30 years. She has served as Deputy Director and Executive Director of the School Development Program (SDP). In addition to managing all aspects of the SDP, she coordinated the SDP’s university partnerships and managed its federal grants.Prior to coming to the SDP, Dr. Levett served as Chair of the Masters in Educational Leadership and Principal Licensure programs at Antioch University McGregor in Yellow Springs, Ohio and in the positions of interim superintendent, deputy superintendent, assistant superintendent, secondary principal, assistant principal, and special education teacher.Dr. Levett has served as a school board member for New Haven Public Schools and a board member for two charter schools. In addition, she served as a National Review Panelist and Site Visitor for the National Blue Ribbon Schools (National Schools of Excellence) program for more than 12 years. Dr. Levett is actively involved in her community, and she has received numerous awards for her work as a school leader and community activist. A few of the organizations with which she is or has been affiliated in a leadership capacity include Junior Achievement, Girl Scouts USA, Boy Scouts USA, National Business and Professional Women, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Phi Delta Kappa, Zonta International, Education's Leadership Georgia, and Leadership Savannah.Dr. Levett has been a speaker for state and national conferences, and she serves as an educational consultant for school districts, community organizations, and other entities. She has created and conducted leadership development academies for principals, aspiring administrators, and parents in addition to programs designed to address behavior management issues and special education concerns.Dr. Levett's research interests include minority student achievement, leadership development, and instructional leadership. Her most recent publication is the chapter, “Performance Management: The Principal's First Priority” in Dynamic Instructional Leadership to Support Student Learning and Development: The Field Guide to Comer Schools in Action.Dr. Levett earned a B.S. in Speech and Language Pathology from Armstrong State College. She also earned a Masters degree in Special Education, a Masters degree in Public Administration, and an Education Specialist degree in Educational Administration from Georgia Southern University. Dr. Levett earned her doctorate in Educational Administration at the University of Georgia in 1992. In addition to her formal studies, she has participated in leadership development programs at Harvard University, Vanderbilt University, the University of Delaware, the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

Former principal of Nathan Hale school in New Haven, CT. Recipient of the SDP’s outstanding principal award – the Patrick Daly Memorial Award for Excellence in Educational Leadership.

Carol P. Ray, M.Ed. is the principal of Asheville High School in Asheville, North Carolina. She is a nationally distinguished principal, twice named Principal of the Year in Asheville. In over 30 years as an educator Carol has been a teacher, assistant principal, a director of elementary education, and the principal of four schools: Jones Primary School, Hall Fletcher and Claxton Elementary Schools, and Asheville High School.In 2004 Carol received the prestigious Patrick Francis Daly Memorial Award for Excellence in Educational Leadership from Yale University, which has been given to Comer school principals who have demonstrated both outstanding leadership and commitment to children. That year she also received the Congressional Black Caucus Educational Leadership Award for Empowering Families & Communities.Carol speaks nationally on educational leadership and is a contributing author of Six Pathways to Health Child Development and Academic Success and Transforming School Leadership and Management to Support Student Learning and Development. She was featured in a chapter in Leave No Child Behind: Preparing Today’s Youth for Tomorrow’s World by Dr. James P. Comer.In October 2010 Carol delivered a riveting presentation describing how she implemented the Comer School Development Program and dramatically increased student achievement and engagement at the schools which she has led at the briefing for the NCATE Initiative on Increasing the Application of Developmental Sciences Knowledge in Educator Preparation at the National Press Club. To learn more about how Carol and her staff used the Comer Process to close the achievement gap in Asheville, click here.Carol earned her B.A. from Mars Hill College in Elementary Education with a minor in music, and her M.A. and Administrative Certificate from Western Carolina University.

Jan Stocklinski, MA is a Senior Implementation Coordinator and has been involved with the SDP since 1985. She retired in 1998 as Director of the Comer School Development Program after 32 years working in the Prince George's County Public Schools and the last 13 years in the Comer Office.She was one of the original National SDP facilitators. Working with her staff she saw the Prince George's County SDP grow from 10 schools in 1985 to over 80 in 1998 and from a staff of 2 to a staff of 16. Together with her staff and others in the school system, Jan led the effort to create a local professional development program that became a Regional SDP Training Center in 1995. The center hosts training for school staff and parents locally and from around the United States.Prior to working in the Comer Office, she worked as a Magnet Schools Facilitator, a Project STAY specialist, a pupil personnel worker, a junior high and high school counselor and a junior high school teacher. For two years, she served as a member of the Management Oversight Panel for the Prince George's County Public SchoolsJan has worked with school systems all across the United States (including Puerto Rico) and Trinidad and has presented at numerous conferences, which includes a presentation at the London Institute. She taught graduate courses for Western Maryland College (now McDaniels College) for 14 years, including courses on learning styles, coaching, motivation, classroom management, curriculum trends and issues, multiple intelligences, questioning skills, and verbal and non-verbal communication. She also coordinated the off-campus graduate program in Prince George’s County, MD.She has received numerous recognition including Outstanding Educator for Prince George's County, "Women of Achievement in Prince George's County History" and congressional recognition (ET TEC Champion Award-2004) from Congressman Major Owens for her work with the Comer School Development Program. During the 35th anniversary of the School Development Program, she received the SDP’s Award for Excellence in Educational Leadership for a lifetime of dedication to children and families.Jan has co-authored several articles on the Comer Process and co-authored with Sheila Jackson and Beckie Roberts a chapter on the Comer Facilitator in Dr. Comer's book, Child by Child. Most recently, she co-authored a number of chapters in The Field Guide to Comer Schools in Action.Jan earned both her BA and Masters from Frostburg State University.