Niloy Gangopadhyay

Prior to co-founding Success Preparatory Academy, Niloy Gangopadhyay, was the founding principal of Cleveland Lighthouse Community School and served as the instructional and operational leader of the Kindergarten through 6th grade school. The school outperformed many others on network assessments, including making the largest gains in math on the SAT-10 for the 2006-07 school year and showed significant growth over a two-year period. Before the school opened its doors in August 2006, he personally recruited nearly 90% of the school’s 255 students in a two month door-to-door campaign.

Prior to that he served as the Director of Special Projects at Excellence Charter School of the Uncommon Schools network in Brooklyn, New York, where he worked on facilities and recruiting. It was his work at Uncommon Schools that exposed him to some of the country’s premiere charter school founders and leaders.

His initial entry into urban education was as a 2002 Teach For America (TFA) corps member in San Jose, California where he taught 4th grade and made tremendous gains with his students on the state tests. During his TFA experience he also taught a middle school summer advancement program where 100% of his students were promoted to high school and coached middle school basketball.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley and a Masters in Education Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education where he focused his studies on school reform specifically on improving teacher quality and charter schools. While at Harvard he led teacher development through the Summer Urban Program.

Contact Niloy at: ngangopadhyay@successpreparatory.org

St. Claire Adriaan

Prior to co-founding Success Preparatory Academy, St. Claire Adriaan, has had a seventeen-year career in education. Growing up under the apartheid regime in South Africa, St. Claire attended the Dower College of Education where he received his diploma in elementary education. He then enrolled at The University of Port Elizabeth where he obtained his Bachelors of Arts in Secondary Education. He also holds two post graduate degrees from the University of Port Elizabeth, a Bachelor of Arts (Honors) in Biblical and Religious Studies and Bachelor of Education. He also holds a Post Graduate Diploma from Rhodes University in Educational Leadership and Management.

St. Claire trained teachers at Kagisanong College of Education in South Africa before coming to the United States in 1999. He was also Adjunct Professor in the School of Education at Dominican University, River Forest. St. Claire came to the United States in 1999 through the Visiting International Faculty and began teaching in North Carolina. Then he moved to Chicago to teach at Noble Street Charter School, one of the nation’s highest performing high schools. He then moved to San Diego to teach at Kipp Adelante, where for two consecutive years (2005-06, 2006-07) his English Language Learner students were the highest scoring in math the entire San Diego County and in 2007 they were the highest scoring in the State of California.

After his work at KIPP, he moved to Cleveland to become the founding principal of Villaview Lighthouse Community School, where after just five months the school had the highest gains in math and second highest in reading on the Northwestern Evaluation Association (NWEA).

During his teaching career in the United States he has been recognized for his tremendous achievements: Disney Teacher Award Honoree – 2006, San Diego CW5 Dream Classroom winner- 2006, University of Kentucky, Teacher who made a difference – 2006 and 2007, North Carolina Wal-Mart teacher of the year (Fayetteville)-2002, VIF Cultural Educator of the year -2002. St. Claire’s biography has also been included in Marquis Who’s Who In America for two years in a row. He has commendations for exemplary teaching from the Mayor of San Diego, United States Congress, and the United States Senate. St. Claire also presents workshops for math teachers throughout the country. St Claire Bio (PDF)

Contact St. Claire at sadriaan@successpreparatory.org

Director of Finance and Operations

Prior to joining Success Preparatory Academy, Brittany Baize was the Director of Sales Operations at Van Wagner Communications, LLC.  She brings 6 years of business and advertising experience to Success Preparatory Academy, and she graduated with honors from the University of Texas at Austin with a BBA in Finance and a BS in Radio-Television-Film.  She was drawn to closing the achievement gap during her four years as a mentor for English as Second Language students at Washington Irving High School in New York, and she is thrilled to now be serving the children of New Orleans.

Contact Brittany at bbaize@successpreparatory.org

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Chair

Avery Corenswet is the Vice-President of Clinical Community Outreach at Ochsner Health System where she is responsible for identification, development, and implementation of community partnerships for clinical services between Ochsner. A native of New Orleans, she received her Bachelors of Arts from Newcomb College of Tulane University, her Bachelors of Science Nursing from Loyola University-New Orleans, and her Masters in Health Administration from the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

Vice-Chair

Sassy Wheeler is a clinical supervisor of student teaching in the Department

of Educational Theory, Policy, Practice, and Procedure at Louisiana State University. She received her Ph. D. and her Masters in Special Education from the University of New Orleans. She graduated Cum Laude from Southern University and A&M college with a Bachelors of Science in Psychology.

Secretary

Nia Davis is an independent researcher and evaluation consultant for various non-profit organizations in New Orleans. She is also currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of New Orleans in the Urban Studies program. She received her Ed. M. at the University of New Orleans in Health Promotion and her Bachelors of Arts in General Studies at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge.

Treasurer

Kathryn Broussard is the Senior Vice-President & Senior Banker Middle Market

Banking of JP Morgan Chase Bank in New Orleans. She manages commercial operating

businesses in the Greater New Orleans region with annual revenues between $10 and

$750 million. She received her Bachelors of Science in Business Administration at the

Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge.

Member At-Large

Benjamin Blanchard is the Chartering and Operations Manager at Van Weelde Chartering USA, L.L.C., in New Orleans. He received his Bachelors of Science in International Trade and Finance at the Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge.

Member At-Large

Jack Carey is the Managing Director of Recruitment and Selection for Teach For All, where he provides strategic consulting services to independent social enterprises working to expand educational opportunities in Australia, Chile, Deutschland, Estonia, India, Latvia., Lebanon, Lithuania, and South Africa. Prior to that, he served as a Senior Recruitment Director of Teach For America in the Midwest region. He was a 2004 Teach For America corps member and a recipient of the Michael Jordan Foundation grant. He received his Bachelor of Science in both Environmental Studies and Political Science from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

Member At-Large

Ana Menezes is the site manager for The New Teacher Project/teach Nola which places over one hundred teachers in the city of New Orleans. She also serves as the resource and training manager for the new alternative certified teachers in the program. She received her Masters of Arts in Education from Stanford University, her Masters of Science for Teachers in Early Childhood Education from Pace University and her Bachelors of Arts in Political Science and Communications from Boston College.

Member At-Large

Lee Adler is a partner in the business group at the New Orleans office of Phelps and Dunbar LLP. He has an extensive transactional-based practice representing clients in a wide variety of fields. He has been heavily involved in the New Orleans community as he has served on various boards including STAIR (Start the Adventure in Reading), President (2006-2008); Summerbridge, a Breakthrough Collaborative Educational Program, Chair - Board of Advisors; Isidore Newman School, Former Board of Governors; Newman Alumni Association, Former President; New Orleans Vanderbilt Club, Former President; Young Leadership Council’s Recreate New Orleans.

The Success Preparatory Academy Board of Directors meets at 6:30pm on the first Thursday of every month.  Meetings are located in the library of the school at 2011 Bienville Street.

CALENDAR OF BOARD MEETINGS: