Moore Brings a Lot to Humanities Post

When new Winthrop Schools Superintendent John Macero announced last week that he was promoting educator and curriculum coordinator Connie Moore to the position of Director of Humanities for the school district, it was an acknowledgement of both Moore’s fine work and background as an educator, and the district’s need to align its studies vertically from kindergarten through high school.

“This approach will not only help the high school,” said Macero at the time, “but the entire school district.”

Moore is one of two district-wide curriculum directors and her role will be to focus on Humanities curriculums such as English Language Arts, foreign languages, fine arts, and social sciences. In addition, the directors will work with head teachers at the high school and building principals at the other grade levels to ensure that district’s approach to all areas of study is cohesive top to bottom and provides teachers with the level of support they need to help improve student performance.

For her part, Moore has been a teacher in the Winthrop schools since 2000, when she accepted a position as an art teacher. In 2004 she also took on curriculum coordinator duties and has worked in a dual role overseeing curriculum development, professional development and grant writing responsibilities for the district, as well as teaching part-time.

Before coming to Winthrop, Moore was an educator in the state of California, where she was on an administrator’s track, completing her Master’s degree in Education Administration and coordinating a Gifted and Talented program in her old school district.

“I taught at different levels each year, to get experience working with children of all ages and did field work as an administrator in training,” explained Moore. “I also previously had studied at the University of Barcelona.

Moore speaks, “a few” languages as well.

“I’m really excited about the new position because I’ve been trying to do a lot of this kind of work over the last few years alone and with my new colleague [Brian Addessa has been named Director of Science, Technology and Math (STeM) programs] the position will actually be split and I’ll have time to do a lot more in depth work with the teachers. We’ll both be able to do a lot more as far as coordinating professional development, providing teacher support and working toward closing the achievement gap.”

See next week’s Sun Transcript for a profile on new STEM Director Brian Addesa.