An exciting DREAM leadership announcement

by | Aug 19, 2021 | 0 comments

As we forge ahead toward the new school year, I’m excited to share some news with our community: This month, our Chief Education Officer Eve Colavito and I will transition from our roles to officially share leadership of DREAM as co-Chief Executive Officers.

I’ve often said that the best decision that we made in DREAM Charter Schools’ formative year was to hire Eve. I remember thinking, even back in 2009, that Eve was one of the strongest leaders I’d ever met. In the twelve years since we pivoted from Harlem RBI to become the DREAM that we know today, we’ve grown from one DREAM Charter School to five, developed our extended-day and extended-year Grow the Whole Child model, and graduated 100% of our founding DREAM Charter High School students—with Eve at the center of it all. She’s made our organization better, and she’s done it with clarity, grace, and exceptional results, all of which became particularly critical over the past 18 months during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Eve and I have operated as close partners for some time now. So more than anything, this new leadership structure is a move to formalize how we already run the organization today, with added intentionality around how we partner, make decisions, and empower others—DREAM’s next generation of leadership talent—to make decisions in order to maximize our entire team’s effectiveness and potential.

The latter is particularly important to Eve and me, as we acknowledge our position as two white leaders of a majority Black and brown organization. The co-leadership model, similar to the co-teaching model we employ in all of our classrooms, claims no single expert. It is built on the idea of shared power and shared leadership—and these are values that we want to continue to nurture within and across DREAM. Accordingly, we see co-leadership as a strategy and solution for the long-term sustenance of our organization, and not as a step in a succession plan. I’m as committed to DREAM as ever, and I’m excited to partner with Eve for many years in this manner.

DREAM is poised to continue on its growth trajectory, and having the right people and structures—and partners—in place to support that growth is essential. Below, you’ll hear briefly from Eve on what that partnership means to her, and you can expect much more from us in the coming months about what else is in the works here at DREAM. For now, thank you for your ongoing friendship as we work together to ensure transformative outcomes for our youth.

A Word from Eve

First, I want to send my profound thanks to everyone who has brought our organization to this moment. That includes Rich – though he will deny it, he is an integral part of what DREAM means to so many people, and there’s no one else I’d rather do this work alongside.

Rich and I are both keenly aware that no leader can do their job without the support of their community, and in our decades at DREAM, we have both received that support in abundance – from our families, from our staff, from our Legends, and from you, our partners and supporters. DREAM’s persistence through the pandemic, and our ability to now position the organization for continued growth, is the result of the countless community members over thirty years who have believed in and worked tirelessly toward realizing DREAM’s most core values. Today and every day, I am humbled to be able to do this work.

I also want to echo Rich’s words about DREAM’s co-leadership model – the idea that each and every person who works here at DREAM is a leader in their own right, and has the power and ability to nurture leadership in our young people. Rich and I are only a small part of what makes this place tick; we know that we are here to serve, and to listen. As ever, our doors are open.

<a href="https://blog.wearedream.org/author/rich-berlin/" target="_self">Richard Berlin</a>

Richard Berlin

Berlin, founding Chair of DREAM Charter School, served as DREAM’s Executive Director since 1997 and is its current co-Chief Executive Officer. Berlin joined DREAM as a volunteer baseball coach in 1994. Berlin holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and attended a Master’s Program in Political Theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science in London, England. He also serves on the Board of Directors of The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and the National Advisory Board of the National Summer Learning Association. He has previously served on the Board of Directors of Up2Us Sports and the Partnership for After School Education (PASE). Mr. Berlin has also been a Leadership Fellow at the Citizens’ Committee for the Children of New York City and a Greater NY Class of 2020 Fellow. He lives in Harlem with his wife, Kara, and two children, Logan and Sylvie.

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