NYS Arts In Correctional Education Network (NYSACEN)

Steering Committee

Sydney Blair

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

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/

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

Dwight Stecker