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NYS Arts In
Correctional Education Network (NYSACEN)
Steering
Committee
Sydney Blair
 Throughout her
career in education, Sydney Blair has had many
challenging positions. Beginning as a high school English
teacher, she was promoted to Supervisor of Special Education,
Title I Coordinator, Summer and Evening High School Supervisor,
Assistant to the President and Assistant in the Office of Public
Affairs of the New York City Board of Education, and Principal.
Ms Blair has been the founder and Principal of Passages Academy.
Passages Academy educates court-involved youth, grades four
through twelve, in eight sites throughout the City of New York.
They have twice received the City’s award for being a school of
outstanding achievement. Ms. Blair believes all children can
develop a life long interest in learning and are entitled to
respect, dignity and a nurturing environment to grow
emotionally, intellectually and socially as they acquire the
skills to become productive, effective members of a culturally
diverse society.
sblair@schools.nyc.gov
http://www.nyc.gov/html/djj/html/education.html
John Cates
Curtis
 John Cates
Curtis
is Assistant Principal of the Austin H.
MacCormick Island Academy on Rikers Island. For ten years, Dr.
Curtis has been a correctional educator and administrator in his
school-in-a-jail, working with sentenced and detained adolescent
males and females. Active in the Correctional Education
Association, he is the former Chair, Special Interest Group,
Research Training and Evaluation; he is a CEA accreditation
auditor, auditing participating schools in prisons and jails
across America for their curricula as well as for their
organizational and educational effectiveness. An active artist
himself, his areas of interest and research include evaluating
prisoners’ abstract thinking characteristics (i.e., weapons and
contraband – “shanks” – fashioned from seemingly mundane items),
assessing arts-based programming for inmate-students and
evaluating best correctional education practices.
jcurtis@schools.nyc.gov
http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/ri_academy/ps616.html
http://www.foiany.org/foia/index.php
Dale T. Davis
 Dale T. Davis
is the founder and Executive Director of The New York State
Literary Center (NYSLC).
NYSLC’s Arts In
Education programs have been presented as models for high-risk
youth at The National Alternative Education Conference, The
National Dropout Prevention Conference, The New York State
Association of Correctional Education Conference, and
Grantmaker’s Forum of New York 2007 NYS Funders Conference.
NYSLC was
cited for outstanding work with adolescents on
Tuft University’s Eliot Pearson Department of Child Development
website and The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies Stop
The Violence Through The Arts
website. Davis’ work has been subject of articles in many
publications, including New York Magazine, and
in 2004, her work with
young people in a juvenile detention center in St. Louis was the
subject of a feature story in the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
Davis was one of
the founding poets of New York State Poets In The Schools. She
has edited and published over six hundred books and anthologies
of the writing of young people. The plays she has written with
young people have been performed throughout New York State, and
her installations, combining the writing of young people and her
own photographs, have been exhibited in many prominent venues.
She pioneered teaching literacy and communication skills using
hip-hop culture as an education tool. She has written and
directed three hip-hop theater pieces, adapted from the writing
of the young people with whom she works, that have been
performed in juvenile justice facilities. Davis has also edited
and published a series of children’s books written by
incarcerated adolescents. She has produced thirty CDs that
feature the poetry, spoken word, and rap of the incarcerated
young people with whom she works.
She is a
recognized expert on Youth Culture having served as a consultant
to The Children’s Dignity Project, ABC Network. In 1999 she was
selected to participate in Harvard University’s Institute on The
Arts and Civic Dialogue.
She, also,
presently serves as Executive Director of The Association of
Teaching Artists and administrator of NYSACEN.
ddavis@nyslc.org
http://www.nyslc.org/
http://www.teachingartists.com/
Frank Dody
 Frank Dody
has been the Principal at Island Academy on Rikers Island for
eight years, and was Assistant Principal there for five years.
Prior to coming to Rikers to work as a correctional educator, he
worked for fifteen years for the NYC Department of Education in
a variety of Special Education positions including teacher,
education evaluator, CSE Asst Chairperson, and compliance
monitor. He is active in the Correctional Education Association,
NYS Association for Incarcerated Education, and NYS Arts in
Correctional Education network. He recently presented at the
European Prison Education Association annual conference.
fdody@schools.nyc.gov
http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/ri_academy/ps616.html
http://www.foiany.org/foia/index.php
Edward Ignarri
 Edward A.
Ignarri
serves in his current position of Director of Rehabilitation for
the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office in Rochester, New York. The
Sheriff’s Office maintains a 1,400 inmate County Jail System for
Monroe County, serving the Greater Rochester Area. The system
consists of two facilities. The Main Jail in Rochester functions
as a detention facility for those awaiting court proceedings and
houses approximately 1,000 inmates. The Monroe Correctional
Facility houses approximately 400 locally sentenced inmates and
focuses on intensive drug and alcohol treatment, education, and
work programs. As part of the education program, he has
collaborated with the Rochester City School District and the New
York State Literary Center on numerous arts in education
projects, including poetry, music, and in the near future, a
mural project. Prior to coming to Rochester, Mr. Ignarri worked
at the Chester County Prison in West Chester, Pennsylvania for
11 years, serving as the Major of Security Operations.
EIgnarri@monroecounty.gov
http://www.monroecountysheriff.info/
Margaret M.
Porter
Margaret M.
Porter
is the Program Administrator for Youth and Justice Programs in
the Rochester City School District. She has been with the
Rochester City School District for thirty years, and she has,
also, been involved working with inner city urban youth for the
City of Rochester. As both a community based organization
administrator and an administrator in a mid-sized urban school
district, she has piloted many youth and family oriented
initiatives where diversion, prevention, and transition are the
focus. Currently she serves as administrator for education
programs with both juvenile and adult populations in Rochester,
New York. Margaret Porter hold certification in Speech and has
earned a Masters degree in School Administration. She attended
Syracuse University's School of Social Work and completed
Masters work in Health Science Education.
Margaret.Porter@rcsdk12.org
http://www.rcsdk12.org/
Donnielle
Rome
 Donnielle Rome
joined Queens Museum of Art in 2004; she now supervises its
innovative ArtAccess program. ArtAccess is
community based Art Therapy program for children and adults with
special needs or in special situations. Ms. Rome was
instrumental in the design of an Art Therapy initiative for
select correctional educators from Austin H. MacCormick Island
Academy, a New York City Department of Education remand school
on Rikers Island. This innovative program has also expanded to
include correctional educators from Passages Academy, a New York
City Department of Education school for students being detained
by the department of Juvenile Justice. Ms. Rome is extremely
active in the field of special education and attends, and
presents at professional conferences in the field, including
those organized by the American Art Therapy, American
Association of Museums, Correctional Educators Association, the
Center for Arts Education and the New York City Museum Educators
Roundtable. Ms. Rome also served as a committee member for the
Special Needs section of the 2007 enhancement of Blueprint
for Teaching and Learning in the Arts, grades K-12. Ms.
Rome, after receiving her credentials as a Registered Art
Therapist, is currently and actively pursing her Board
Certification and New York State Licensure in Creative Arts
Therapy.
Drome@QueensMuseum.org
http://www.queensmuseum.org/education/art_access.htm
Sean Turner
 Sean Turner
has been director of literacy programs at Passages Academy for
the past three years and has been artistic director for various
performing and visual arts programs for middle school and high
school students within secure and non-secure detention centers
throughout New York. A PhD candidate in literacy at the
University at Buffalo, his research interests include using
performing and visual arts as forms of literacy, multi-modality
within immersive worlds (3-D animation), and identity work using
performance and text.
sturn4023@aol.com
http://www.nyc.gov/html/djj/html/education.html
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