PAIS & NJAIS Boarding Schools Conference
Workshop Descriptions and Speaker Bios 

WORKSHOP ONE SESSIONS:
1-1. Top 10 Legal Issues Facing Your School
Presented by Stefani C Schwartz, Esq., HatfieldSchwartz Law Group LLC
TRACK: Leadership
Audience: Leadership, residential staff
Hear independent school lawyer, Stefani Schwartz, discuss the wide range of legal challenges confronting boarding schools and learn proactive strategies that can limit liability exposure.
Stefani C Schwartz, a founding member of the Hatfield Schwartz Law Group, provides comprehensive legal counsel to numerous independent schools throughout the State. Her areas of expertise include discrimination and harassment laws; corporate governance; disability and medical leave issues; EEO compliance; Federal and State employment laws; hiring, discipline and terminations; internal investigations; human resource audits; management employee training; wage and hour laws; restrictive covenants and trade secrets; and handbook reviews. Ms. Schwartz appears in State and Federal Courts, labor arbitration proceedings, and administrative agencies such as the EEOC, New Jersey Division on Civil Rights, and the Department of Labor. Ms. Schwartz is an active member of the legal and non-legal communities, serving on Boards and committees for nonprofit organizations, private companies, and professional associations. Ms. Schwartz earned her bachelor’s degree from Gettysburg College, and her MPA and JD from Rutgers University.

1-2. Auditing Athletics for Philosophical Alignment
Presented by Paul Sipes, Senior Associate Athletic Director at Mercersburg Academy
Audience: Leadership, AD’s, coaches
TRACK: Leadership
Private school athletics are a complex web of programs in different states of function and excellence, with a host of pressures on the administrators that are trying to provide a positive experience to their students. This presentation will help guide Heads and AD's to establish objectives and measures as they navigate the difficult pathway of parent and student expectations, and the financial reality and resource limitations that are common in the everyday operation of private schools.

Paul Sipes serves as the Senior Associate Athletic Director at Mercersburg Academy. In addition to his role in the athletic department, Paul Sipes is head coach of girls’ varsity basketball. He is a former state coach of the year in both Maryland (2001) and Virginia (2013) as well as a nine-time conference coach of the year. He is the 2012 Athletic Director of the Year with the Virginia Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association. Paul is a former assistant executive chairman of the Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association, and has been athletic director at Wakefield School in The Plains, VA, and St. Thomas More Preparatory School in Oakdale, CT. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland and a master’s degree in social sciences from Wesleyan University. Paul is a member of the Mercersburg Borough Council.

1-3. Empowering Student Agency: Don't Do for Students What Students Can Do for Themselves
Presented by Glenn Cassidy, Director of Fr. Mark Payne Institute at St. Benedict's Preparatory School
TRACK: Culture and Community
Audience: Leadership, teachers, counselors, learning support, DEI Directors, residential staff
Granting young people, especially young people of color, agency in their school allows them to develop a sense of pride, accomplishment, resilience, and control. This session will help educators consider the power of granting students the ability to take responsibility for their learning environment. We will focus on student leadership, agency, responsibility, and accountability. K-12 educators will be challenged to consider ways in which they can step back so students can step up. Educators will be presented with school-based scenarios that are normally the purview of faculty or administrators. After thinking through the scenarios and asking questions, participants will be asked to think about how students could be engaged in the process of resolving the situations. What are the opportunities for student learning? How could adults create an atmosphere for students to be actively engaged? What happens if students make a bad decision or their plan fails? How can granting students agency in the school allow young people to be better prepared for postsecondary success? This session is based on the living educational model of St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark, NJ which has a 50+ year history of educating and empowering young men and, more recently, young women.

Glenn Cassidy, Ed.D has 30 years of experience in education, all spent working in the city of Newark, New Jersey. He has spent most of this time working with students who come from challenging backgrounds and teaching students how to be effective leaders. Dr. Cassidy is currently the Executive Director of the Fr. Mark Payne Institute at St. Benedict’s Preparatory School.

1-4. Leveraging AI Tools to Enhance Learner Voice and Choice
Presented by Melinda Martin, Fourth Grade Classroom Teacher/ LS DEI Coordinator at Tower Hill School
TRACK: Academics and Program
Audience: teachers
Do you find yourself asking whether AI can meaningfully impact your students’ experience in the classroom? Have you wondered whether you could use AI to enhance the way in which your students can see themselves represented in your mathematical stories, your exemplar texts, and your activity choices? Are you curious about whether AI can help you maximize your precious instructional time, while enhancing the feasibility of students making connections across the curriculum? Join me as I share ways that I have begun dabbling in utilizing free AI tools in my fourth grade school classroom, to enhance students’ voice and choice and provide greater opportunities for students to make cross curricular connections. Starting with a simple survey of students’ preferences, we’ll walk through the process of using that data to create a range of teaching and learning resources, tailored specifically to students' interests. We’ll also explore how to use AI to generate choice boards that allow us to offer learners choices in their learning, while tackling content and skills across the curriculum.

Melinda Martin is a fourth grade teacher at Tower Hill School in Wilmington, DE. With the bulk of her career spent in international schools, she has recently leaned into immersing herself in American independent school culture. Melinda is passionate about leveraging technology effectively to enhance collaborative practices in and out of her classroom. She has a penchant for spreadsheets and finding new ways to use data to engage students and build a stronger community.

1-5. Math Coaching​: A Program to Foster Success in Foundational Courses
Presented by Amy Kelley, Math Department Head, and Marie Donahoe, Math Faculty at Mercersburg Academy
TRACK: Academics and Program
Audience: Leadership, teachers, learning support
In Fall 2024, Mercersburg launched a Math Coaching program to address content gaps in foundational math courses. This session offers an in-depth look at the program’s design and the outcomes we’ve observed so far. We will outline the process of identifying students in need, the structure of the coaching schedule, and the targeted strategies used to foster student growth. Early results—including quantitative improvements in math skills and qualitative gains in confidence and engagement—will be shared. Additionally, we’ll discuss challenges encountered during implementation and how they’ve shaped ongoing program adjustments.

Amy Kelley serves as the Mathematics Department Head at Mercersburg Academy, where she teaches mathematics and oversees the Math and Science Help Center. In addition to her academic roles, Amy is also an adviser and dorm faculty member for Fowle Hall. She previously taught in the Springboard senior capstone program, co-teaching 3D Design. Before joining Mercersburg, Amy was an associate professor of mathematics at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville, GA. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Manhattanville College, a master’s degree from Boston College, and a Ph.D. from the University at Albany, State University of New York.

Marie Donahoe joined Mercersburg in 2022 as a learning specialist and mathematics faculty. She is originally from the United Kingdom, where she taught math and learning support at a U.K. further education (FE) college. Marie earned a bachelor's degree in mathematical sciences from the University of the West of Scotland and a master's degree in special education from Wilson College.

WORKSHOP TWO SESSIONS:
2-1. Supporting the Mental Health and Wellness of Today's Student-Athletes
Presented by Chad Bridges, Associate Head of School at The Pennington School, and Rob Tuckman, Counselor and Sports Psychologist
TRACK: Culture and Community
Audience: Leadership, counselors, AD’s, coaches
Working with Rob Tuckman, Sports Psychologist, The Pennington School has implemented a mental health and wellness program for its athletes and support program for their coaches. There are many levels to this support including team programs, captains training, and coach support. Given the stress and anxiety around sports, Pennington has taken an approach for their student-athletes during their time in high school and beyond.

Rob Tuckman is a licensed Professional Counselor who, along with his private practice in sport, has been working for the past 25 years as a school counselor providing psychological support for students in Elementary, Middle and High School. Along with his responsibilities as a mental health professional, Rob has also coached athletes at the varsity, junior varsity, middle school and collegiate levels in sports such as Lacrosse, Basketball, Soccer and Wrestling. The combination of Rob’s experience providing psychological support and his athletic coaching experience has provided an expertise in working with both male and female athletes.

2-2. Differentiating for Success: Team Teaching and Earned Honors in English
Presented by Michele Poacelli, English Department Chair, and Alexandra Patterson, Library Director, at Mercersburg Academy
TRACK: Academics and Program
Audience: Leadership, learning support, teachers
This session will explore how a team-taught, earned-honors approach in 9th and 10th-grade English classrooms enables differentiated learning, providing each student with the opportunity to succeed. By leveraging the unique strengths of multiple educators and a flexible Earned Honors system, we have curated a learning environment that balances rigor with inclusivity. Our program empowers students with agency, promotes engagement, and fosters a clear understanding of what is expected and how to meet those expectations. Participants will gain insights into structuring collaborative, differentiated classroom settings that support various learning styles and encourage student buy-in. Through a combination of slides and hands-on activities, this session will reveal the transformative potential of group curation and structured choice in an Earned Honors framework.

Michele Poacelli is the Chair of the English Department at Mercersburg Academy and the Director of the Writing Center. She teaches 9th grade in a cohort of four teachers as well as 12th grade Advanced Studies English term classes. Michele collaborates with her co-presenter and colleague, Alexandra Patterson, to chair Mercersburg Academy's Community Reading Committee to select the all-school summer read.

Alexandra Patterson joined Mercersburg Academy as a research librarian and became director of library services in 2017, holding the Marjorie McCrae McCulloh Chair for the Library Director. Since 2018, she has taught in the English department, contributing to the 9th-grade collaborative program and its advanced 10th-grade component. Alexandra was awarded the Ammerman Distinguished Teaching Award for Religious and Interdisciplinary Studies in 2023-24 and named to the second cohort of the PAIS Emerging Leaders program.

2-3. Crisis Checklists and External Statements
Presented by Jennifer Craig, Associate Head of School, and Amy Marathe, Director of Marketing and Communications at Mercersburg Academy
TRACKS: Leadership & Culture and Community
Audience: Leadership, counselors, residential staff
In schools, "crisis" moments can emerge in an instant. Those moments impact our different constituencies differently. At Mercersburg, we have developed a flowchart of checklists as a tool that we can share with other schools. This series of checklists helps us navigate novel, risky, and anxiety-provoking moments with timely execution but also drives us to frame communication with our internal and external constituencies in a more nuanced way. In addition, it guides the path on how we will address our students and employees in the care needed following an event and focuses any external statement on the care we give our community with clear-eyed inclusivity and mission-driven purpose.

Jennifer Craig is the Associate Head of School at Mercersburg Academy, with administrative and teaching experience at Hebron Academy in Maine and The Hotchkiss School in Connecticut. In addition, she has worked internationally at The American School in London for seven years, and was a part of a founding team for a school in Shenzhen, China.

2-4 CHECK Yourself: How Practicing Viewpoint Diversity Can Cultivate Constructive Conversation
Presented by Erin McLaughlin, English Faculty at Wyoming Seminary
TRACKS: Academics and Program & Culture and Community
Audience: Leadership, teachers, residential staff
During a time of unprecedented political polarization, how do you create a culture where differing viewpoints have a place in your school? This session will teach the basics of what it means to embrace viewpoint diversity and will introduce my "CHECK Yourself" training method. Participants will learn about creating a shared language grounded in the science of positive psychology and based on the tenets of viewpoint diversity--self-awareness, intellectual humility, and critical thinking. To have a truly inclusive school, my "CHECK Yourself" method provides a path forward to foster a sense of belonging for everyone in the community.

Erin McLaughlin is an English teacher at Wyoming Seminary and the founder of Positive-Ed Consulting. She has spent her career focused on learning and teaching about the best strengths-based methods of unlocking individual potential. A graduate of the world's premier master's degree program in applied positive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, Erin earned distinguished capstone recognition for her work in the realm of viewpoint diversity. She has continued to pursue this passion, writing educational curricula and designing and delivering workplace training, as well as giving talks and presentations on the subject of viewpoint diversity in the United States and Australia.

2-5. Making Space for Innovation and Community Engagement: A Case Study
Presented by Twila Fisher, Director of Community and Economic Development, Co-Founder of Entrepreneurship & Social Enterprise, Executive Director of Hobart's Run Neighborhood, and Hoda Ehsan, Director of Engineering and Design at The Hill School
TRACK: Culture and Community
Audience: Leadership, teachers
Set in a small post-industrial town, The Hill School has been recognized since 1851 as a notable anchor institution in Pottstown. For 175 years, it largely remained an island, impervious to the town and its residents just blocks away. This changed visibly in 2016 when the School rolled out an ambitious 900-parcel neighborhood engagement plan, bringing people, initiatives, and resources together to uplift the neighborhood and Pottstown. In 2022, when faced with a struggling, post-Covid downtown, the School leased a vacant 3000-square-foot storefront on a prime retail block. Through a four-month interdepartmental collaboration between the entrepreneurship and engineering classes, the space became an off campus, experiential learning lab, resulting in a zero-waste book cafe, community maker space, community kitchen, flex space for meetings, and two offices leased to youth-focused nonprofit leaders. Eighteen months later, the Pottstown Area Social Innovations Lab (PASIL) is going strong, with the student-designed book cafe open to the public five days a week. Students and faculty continue using this unique opportunity to engage with Pottstown residents in an unprecedented way, building community while creating live case studies in classes such as history, entrepreneurship, economics, statistics, journalism, and photography. Now, Pottstown feels more like home.

In December 2015, Twila Fisher was hired as the first ever director of community and economic development for The Hill School, a co-educational, private boarding school in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. During the first few years, she pioneered the official launch of Hobart’s Run Neighborhood District, an institution-driven 900-parcel focus area near the School and started over a dozen new community impact programs. In 2017, these efforts earned her “Person of the Year” by the Rotary Club of Pottstown. In 2018 she piloted the grant-funded Pottstown Area Social Innovations Lab, a seven-week afterschool program for area youth that ran for two years. This led to designing the first-ever Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise course for The Hill School, which she taught for five years. A small-town advocate, Twila serves on several boards and committees and is leading a local equitable transit project. Before her current role, Twila worked for the City of Reading, Pa. in the Department of Community Development. Prior to that, she founded several startups, including a Fisher Consulting and Management Services. Twila earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Columbia University, a Master of Arts in Public Administration from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Master of Science in Cities from the London School of Economics. Twila is a licensed realtor, fluent in Spanish, and she holds certificates in zoning, grant writing, and economic development.

Dr. Ehsan is currently director of Quadrivium Engineering and Design at The Hill School. She holds a PhD in Engineering Education from Purdue University. With more than 15 years of teaching, research, and design experience, she has designed several engineering learning opportunities/experiences for in-school and out-of-school settings, such as museum exhibits, summer camps, afterschool programs, parent professional development, and teacher professional developments. At The Hill school, she has developed integrative and multidisciplinary engineering and computer science programs which connect in-school learning to out-of-school and community engagement. In 2023, she founded ARTEC, a non-for-profit Community MakerSpace, offering programs for children and adults of the community. She has authored/co-authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications, and 100s of presentations, and two book chapters, and received several awards for her teaching and research. She is currently the Program Chair-Elect for the Pre-College Division at American Society for Engineering Education.

WORKSHOP THREE SESSIONS:
3-1. Co-Teaching Across the Curriculum
Presented by Jennifer Smith, Dean of Academics at Mercersburg Academy
TRACK: Academics and Program
Audience: Leadership, teachers
The shifting landscape of independent schools has led to a student population with a wide variety of educational backgrounds. At Mercersburg we are using several different co-teaching models to meet the needs of a heterogeneous student body in which each student benefits from both autonomy and support in the classroom, but the specifics of those needs often vary from student to student. In this session we will illustrate how teachers in math, English, science, and our capstone classes are using co-teaching to create opportunities for agency and choice for students, as well as to provide targeted support to the students who most need it. A variety of co-teaching models will be discussed.

Jennifer Smith has been the dean of academics at Mercersburg Academy since 2019. Some of her current responsibilities include overseeing the peer and instructional coaching programs, serving as program director for the Penn Fellows program, as well as teaching in the math department. Prior to her current role she served as science department head and has also been involved in athletics and outdoor education as a diving and rock climbing coach.

3-2. Leveraging Institutional Data to Drive Decision Making
Presented by Julia Maurer, Associate Head of School for School Life at Mercersburg Academy
TRACK: Leadership
Audience: Leadership
Learn how Mercersburg Academy has implemented longitudinal data work to drive institutional decisions. Through this project we have gained insights into the behaviors and experiences of students, employees, parents, alumni, and admission prospects, enabling us to make informed decisions and execute strategic initiatives aligned with our mission.

Dr. Julia Maurer graduated from Mercersburg Academy in 1990. She joined the faculty in 2001 and has served as chair of the mathematics department, developed the school’s robotics program, and was appointed associate academic dean (2009) and academic dean (2010) before becoming Mercersburg’s first assistant head of school for academic affairs in 2015. She was appointed in 2019 as associate head of school for school life. She teaches Advanced Studies Statistics. Her doctoral work focused on developing novel nondestructive methodologies for analyzing critical titanium aerospace components. She and her husband, fellow faculty member Matt Maurer, have five children: Emma ’18, Will ’20, Michael ’22, Nathalie ’23, and Mary '28.

3-3. Mental Health Implications in the College Counseling Office
Presented by Nicolas Dillman, Associate Director of College Counseling at George School
TRACK: Academics and Program
Audience: Leadership, counselors
The college search and application process is anxiety-inducing for many students. Because of this, your school's college counselors are often the first points of contact students seek out in times of crisis. However, in most cases, your college counselors are not trained mental health professionals. This presentation serves to present data collected from members of PACIS (Philadelphia Area College Counselors in Independent Schools) about how independent school college counselors are seeing - and being asked to directly address - mental health issues in their offices. It will also introduce Solution-Focused Brief Counseling (SFBC), a counseling technique utilized by most professional school counselors. SFBC relies on open-ended questioning and a solution-focused mindset; it can be used alongside active listening resources to directly address stress and anxiety in students.

Nicolas Dillman is an Associate Director of College Counseling at George School in Newtown, PA. He previously worked at Germantown Friends School in Philadelphia and spent eight years as a school counselor in New Jersey and Massachusetts public schools. He has also worked in financial assistance at Boston University and MIT.

Alison Abrams - Senior Associate Director of College Counseling at Rutgers Prep (former professional school counselor)
Mary Maier - Senior Associate Director of College Counseling at the Episcopal Academy (former Director of Admissions at Haverford College)
Sarah Sterling - Associate Director of College Counseling at Shipley School (former licensed clinical social worker)

3-4. Balancing Learning and Ethics: Empowering Students to Navigate Gen AI
Presented by Hoda Ehsan, Director of Engineering and Design at The Hill School
TRACK: Academics and Program
Audience: Leadership, teachers, learning support
This session shares our department’s approach to integrating Generative AI into education, focusing on its potential as a learning tool while addressing its limitations, ethical implications, and biases. As AI becomes an inseparable part of human lives, the engineering department at The Hill School has embraced a human-centered AI approach to enhance students’ AI literacy. Our goal is to empower students to not only use AI responsibly, foster agency in their decision-making, critically interrogate its outputs, and design and create with AI, while understanding its potential impact, particularly on marginalized communities. The session will be divided into two parts. In the first (15 minutes), I will present an AI framework for developing literacy modules, examples of Generative AI lessons, a co-designed module created with students, and their reflections on AI, ethics, and creativity. In the second part (30 minutes), participants will engage interactively with AI tools, including Generative AI and trainable AI apps, and discuss strategies to balance student learning, and engagement with ethical considerations. Although this session focuses on practices used in an engineering program, the strategies can be valuable insights for teaching across various subjects, fostering a critical, reflective, and agency-driven approach to AI in education.

Dr. Ehsan is currently director of Quadrivium Engineering and Design at The Hill School. She holds a PhD in Engineering Education from Purdue University. With more than 15 years of teaching, research, and design experience, she has designed several engineering learning opportunities/experiences for in-school and out-of-school settings, such as museum exhibits, summer camps, afterschool programs, parent professional development, and teacher professional developments. At The Hill school, she has developed integrative and multidisciplinary engineering and computer science programs which connect in-school learning to out-of-school and community engagement. In 2023, she founded ARTEC, a non-for-profit Community MakerSpace, offering programs for children and adults of the community. She has authored/co-authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications, and 100s of presentations, and two book chapters, and received several awards for her teaching and research. She is currently the Program Chair-Elect for the Pre-College Division at American Society for Engineering Education.

3-5. Beyond The Dorm: Fostering Trust with Parents from Underrepresented Communities
Presented by Sakeenah Allen, Senior Director of Child and Family Wellness, Health and Wellness, and Calvin King, Director of Residential Life at Christina Seix Academy
TRACK: Culture and Community
Audience: Leadership, teachers, counselors, residential staff, DEI Directors
This presentation explores effective strategies for developing trust with parents from underrepresented communities within boarding programs. Boarding programs offer students unique experiences that prepare them for college and life, yet many parents—especially those from less-represented backgrounds—feel hesitant about entrusting their children to a residential environment. We’ll discuss the importance of understanding the nuanced fears and concerns that parents may have, including cultural differences and anxieties about separation. Participants will learn why building trust must extend beyond the residential staff to the entire school community, creating a cohesive, supportive network. By approaching boarding as an extension and enhancement of the day program, rather than a separate entity, schools can offer students a seamless experience that reassures parents about their child’s safety, growth, and success. This session will provide practical insights on fostering open communication, cultural sensitivity, and collaboration across school roles to create an inclusive, welcoming environment that builds meaningful relationships with all families.

Sakeenah Allen, a founding Senior Director of Health and Wellness at Christina Seix Academy and part of the executive leadership team, oversees health services, residential life, athletics, and counseling. She has built strong trust within the community by deeply understanding its needs and aligning support services with them. A Pediatric Nurse Practitioner with a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a Wharton School graduate, Sakeenah integrates health initiatives with organizational goals, fostering a cohesive approach that emphasizes preventive care, health education, and holistic wellness as essential pillars for academic success and lifelong health.

Calvin King is the Director of Residential and Student Life at Christina Seix Academy, dedicating over a decade to building a supportive student community. Previously, he developed his teaching and mentoring skills at The Eagle Rock School in Colorado as a Teaching Fellow and AmeriCorps Member, leading classes on civics, social justice, and sociology. A Los Angeles native, Calvin holds a Master's in Independent School Leadership from Columbia University’s Klingenstein Center and a Political Science degree from Morehouse College. As a Bonner Scholar, he completed over 2,000 service hours, earning the Presidential Service Award for his dedication to community service.