Kelsey Onofrio, Joseph Melillo Middle School, East Haven Public Schools

Kelsey Onofrio is one of two 8th-grade teachers at Joseph Melillo Middle School in East Haven. As a Fellow, she has stepped into multiple leadership roles this year at the school-level and beyond.  Last spring, Kelsey opened her classroom for math coaches from Hartford Public Schools to observe the Building Thinking Classroom (BTC) model in action. Within her school, Kelsey will be a TEAM mentor for the first time, supporting a new 7th-grade math teacher. Drawing on her experience working with the BTC model, Kelsey was asked to lead an interdisciplinary initiative to bring the model to all subject areas at her middle school. In addition, Kelsey was invited to participate as part of East Haven’s team in an interdistrict consortium through The Acceleration Networked Improvement Community (NIC) and Partners for Educational Leadership. Reaching out state-wide, in August, Kelsey – along with Fellows Marta Soto-Johnson and William McKinney – hosted a Back-to-School Webinar on BTC and how to design curricular tasks that promote student autonomy. The webinar was attended by educators from across the state and is posted online at this link.   

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