Meet the Council
Kim is currently serving her second term on CEC3. Like so many other parent leaders, her interest in how our public schools are governed was born out of concern and frustration upon entering the public school system. First elected to the PTA at PS191 where daughter Harper attended Kindergarten (she is currently in the 3rd grade at PS166), Kim worked to support a transitioning school as she learned more about the deep-seeded segregation of District 3 and NYC schools. As Chair of the CEC3 Zoning Committee, in her first term Kim led the fight to secure support for zone line changes that had lasting impact on the success of all schools. The 11-school Upper West Side rezoning was a great achievement, but it pales in comparison to the work now focused on lower Harlem and Manhattan Valley. Hope for an urban public school system that readies all children for adult life is the inspiration that fuels this council term, and Kim is extremely proud to lead this incredible group of parent leaders on the 2017/19 CEC3.
Kim Watkins, President
CEc3 Liaison Schools:
PS 191, PS 199,
FDA II
Email:
Growing up on the Upper West Side Kirsten has witnessed the changes and evolution of our public schools first hand; having attended PS 166,
Manhattan East and Bronx High School of Science. She is currently serving her second term on the CEC to advocate for students across the district. Kristen’s background is as a policy analyst and grant writer both here and abroad. She continues to chair the Middle School Committee where she spearheaded the move to integrate our middle schools and works for equity across the district.
Kristen Berger,
1st Vice President
IEP
CEC3 Liaison Schools:
PS 166, PS 242, Mott Hall II
Chair:
Middle School Committee
Co-Chair
Special Education Committee
Email:
Dennis Morgan, 2nd Vice President, MBP Appointee
CEC3 Liaison Schools:
PS 9, MS 54, PS 149,
PS 185
Co-Chair:
Equity & Excellence
Committee
email:
Dennis Morgan has been serving on CEC3 since 2016. He is a boots-on-the-ground parent leader who is focused on building a better educational product for District 3 public schools and specifically to the community of Harlem where he lives. He believes all families and children in District 3 deserve unrivalled educational opportunities available for 21st and future centuries.
Dennis is motivated by the opportunity to work collaboratively with families in District 3, the DOE, and elected officials to make this belief a reality for all.
Bio coming soon
Lucas Liu
Treasurer
CEC3 Liaison Schools:
PS 165, PS 859, Wadleigh
CO-Chair:
Multilingual Committee
email:
Naveed Hasan
CEC3 Liaison Schools:
PS 87, PS 163, MS 243
CO-Chair:
Multilingual Committee
Email:
A set of recent studies point to the public health benefits of bilingualism. Particularly, "Degree of Bilingualism Predicts Age of Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease in Low-Education but not in Highly-Educated Hispanics" (1) is inspiring in showing that biliteracy can disproportionately help those who need it most in life and hopefully reduce inequality gaps over a lifetime as well as over successive generations. Study results like "Does bilingualism delay dementia?" (2) make it incumbent upon us as adults to comprehensively integrate multiple language learning into the NYC public school curriculum.
Naveed is a steadfast advocate of multilingual literacy, with learning starting as early as possible in a child's upbringing and continuing throughout their educational life. It has helped him personally develop and flourish in an increasingly globalized world. He feels it is his responsibility to pay it forward to the current generation of students by strongly supporting existing work in school language programs and helping expand new initiatives with evidence based approaches.
(1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3223277
Deirdre Garrett-Scott
CEC3 Liaison Schools:
PS 241, PS 452, MS 245
email:
Sharmilee Ramudit
Recording Secretary
CEC3 Liaison Schools:
PS 76,
Lafayette Academy
Co-Chair:
Equity & Excellence
Committee
Co-Chair
Special Education Committee
Email:
Sharmilee L. Ramudit has been a Harlem resident since 2004. She was born in Germany during her father’s first Overseas Tour in the Army. The child of Trinidadian immigrants, her education as an “Army Brat” has provided a diversity of lived experiences that informs how she approaches educational policy in Community Education Council for District 3’s unique landscape. After graduating in the top 1% from the International Baccalaureate High School she attended in Florida, she pursued a Bachelor and Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering from Columbia University’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. She worked in the pharmaceutical industry, developing computational models that tracked disease patterns and progression. Before she left to start a family, she developed an interest in ethical AI and engineering design. Raising a family in gentrifying Harlem sparked her interest in education policy, where she now uses a social justice-informed lens to ensure that new plans do not reinforce existing systemic disparities. She is a returning member-elect to the Community Education Council for District 3, where she currently serves as the Co-Chair for the Charter School Committee, and is a founding member of the Equity & Excellence Committee. She is also a member of the Steering Committee for the Education Council Consortium, and leads the Diversity & Inclusion Initiative at PS 452. Her passion about engaging in collaborative racial equity discourse that transforms how we approach decision-making in education policy and engineering design drives her aspiration for an ethically and morally-grounded vision for reimagining student education and society at large.
Assietou Sow
ELL
CEC3 Liaison Schools:
PS 84, MS 247
email:
Eric Wright
CEC3 Liaison Schools:
PS 145, The Anderson School, MS 421
Chair:
High School Admissions Committee
email:
Lisa Byrd
CEC3 Liaison Schools:
PS 75, PS 180, MS 250
Chair
Harlem Schools Summit
email:
Lisa Byrd is a cultural worker with over 30 years experience working in and providing leadership for community based arts and culture organizations. A recent transplant to New York from Austin, Texas, and Ms. Byrd is the mother of an 11-year-old student at Mott Hall II.
While in New York Ms. Byrd has been active in the PTA at PS 75 and in addition to her work as a CEC District 3 council member also serves as the Title1 representative for Mott Hall II.
Ms. Byrd believes that public education is the great mandate of a free society. In its pure sense it should embody the notion of equity, where all have equal access to the same resources.
Lisa is interested in addressing our cultural and political inability to reach this goal in our public education institutions. Because of her background in the arts Ms. Byrd is always interested in looking at ways art/culture can lead the discussions and help bring creative change.
Her previous work has helped to get students out of the classroom and into communities. As Founding Executive Director of Six Square, Austin’s Black Cultural District, Ms. Byrd along with middle school students developed an interactive map that provided detailed information about historic sites in the neighborhoods surrounding the school. Ms. Byrd was recognized for her educational work with a SXSW Interactive Dewey Wilburne Community Service Award.
With training in community organizing by Marshall Ganz and his “Leading Change “ methodology, Ms. Byrd has a long track record of community involvement in Austin and hopes to continue that work in New York.
Michael is practicing attorney in New York City. He is a partner in the real estate department at Dorsey & Whitney LLP, an international law firm. Michael was born and raised in Queens and is a graduate of Regis High School, Emory University in Atlanta and St. John’s University School of Law. Michael and his wife Alexis have three children that attend (or will attend) P.S. 199. Michael has served as the Co-Chair of the Jewish Community Center of Manhattan’s PTA Men’s Club. In his spare time, Michael is a volunteer baseball coach and flag-football coach
Michael McCarthy
CEC3 Liaison Schools:
PS 149, MS 291 WESS
Chair:
Charter School Committee
email:
Teddy Tawil
Student Member
Teddy Tawil is a senior at Hunter College High School. From kindergarten through sixth grade, he attended PS 334, where he learned to love history (and cafeteria pizza Friday's). His early interest in history has since evolved to include a passion for government and activism and he has served on Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer’s Youth Council, as a student government officer, as an active debater nad he works at the New-York Historical Society.
He is incredibly honored to have the opportunity to represent the students of District 3.