Partnering with Athens College

CEHD’s School Success Center continues international partnership with Greek preparatory school to offer teacher training

A commitment to meaningful collaboration with school and community partners within Delaware and across the globe is a defining feature of University of Delaware’s College of Education and Human Development (CEHD). Through a two-day professional development workshop in November 2023, the Delaware Academy for School Leadership (DASL), housed within CEHD’s School Success Center, continued a four-year partnership with Athens College, a private preparatory school in Athens, Greece. 

With expertise in educational leadership, DASL supports school and district leaders throughout all levels of their careers by providing powerful research-based professional learning programs and differentiated coaching services. At Athens College, Le Roy Whitehead and Michele Savage, DASL school success specialists, trained 30 newly-hired teachers and other staff on creating a successful classroom through better relationships, planning, instruction and a supportive environment. Topics included building positive student-parent relationships, quality lesson planning and instruction, personalizing educational experiences and understanding proactive classroom management strategies. 

While DASL offers most of their programming in U.S. settings, many of their leadership and instructional strategies are also applicable to international settings. 

“While the context of an international private school is different, the educational techniques are applicable in any setting,” Whitehead said. “Though we need to change our presentation approaches slightly—for example, the term ‘director’ means the same as ‘principal’ here—the concepts of instructional planning, relationship building and leadership skills are easily translatable to the Greek systems.”

In the upcoming year, DASL plans to continue working with the newly-hired teachers at Athens College on instructional planning, fostering student and parent relationships and personalized learning. DASL is also looking forward to expanding the partnership to include leadership training for the educational leadership at Athens College and other schools in the region.  

“While Athens College is very interested in how American schools operate, we, as presenters, learn so much about what the Greek educational systems value,” Whitehead said. “I was uniquely struck by how much importance they place on the arts, both visual and performing. As presenters, we can incorporate these values into our future sessions so that we can best serve our audiences, and in turn, their students and families.” 

To learn more about DASL’s programming, visit their website.

Article by Jessica Henderson. Photos provided by Le Roy Whitehead.