About Us

About Graduation Town

Graduation Town an online electronic learning community dedicated to supporting state, district and bulding efforts to ensure all students graduate high school college and career ready.  This is a place to share, ask, advise, collaborate, teach, learn, network, succeed and overcome.

Meet the  Dropout Challenge Team

Mike Flanagan, Superintendent of Public Instruction
flanaganm@michigan.gov

Mike Flanagan was appointed State Superintendent of Public Instruction by the State Board of Education on May 18, 2005.  Mike has been a local school superintendent, regional superintendent, and served as the Executive Director of the statewide associations that represent Michigan public school superintendents and intermediate school districts in the state.

For seven years, Mike Flanagan served as the Superintendent of the Wayne Regional Educational Service Agency (RESA).  Prior to that, he was Superintendent of the Farmington/Farmington Hills School District in Michigan for five years.  He is past chairperson of the Education Alliance of Michigan, a nonprofit coalition of leading parent, business, and education associations; and past president of the National County Superintendents Association.

Superintendent Flanagan has degrees from the University of Notre Dame and Eastern Michigan University.

Bersheril Bailey, Senior Program Associate, Learning Point Associates
bbailey@air.org

Bersheril Bailey is a senior program associate for State Consulting Services at Learning Point Associates. She works with state education agencies and intermediate school districts to develop systems that increase academic achievement for all students. She provides technical assistance to build their capacity to design statewide systems of support as well as to ensure alignment and coherence of all components of the system. She works closely with the Michigan Department of Education to organize a collaborative, cross-office team to develop a Michigan Framework for Re-imagining High Schools, and is a member of the department’s Dropout Challenge team.

Bailey has worked in elementary, middle, and high schools as a special education teacher, teacher consultant, assistant principal, director of alternative programs, and high school principal. She implemented and supervised Smaller Learning Communities and a magnet program for mathematics, science, and engineering. She was chose Employee of the Year in 2005 by the superintendent and school board in her district. Bailey earned a master’s degree in educational administration from Michigan State University.

Michele Robotham Corey, Vice President of Program, Michigan's Children
michele@michiganschildren.org

As the Director of Community Advocacy for Michigan's Children, a child advocacy organization that acts as a voice for children, Ms. Corey has created numerous opportunities for local advocates to become better informed about children’s issues and communicate effectively with local- and state-level policy-makers.

Most recently, she has been working with the Mott Foundation on a statewide initiative intended to build a system in Michigan that encourages more high school graduation through dropout prevention and recovery efforts.  This work concentrates on producing multiple pathways to graduation by growing better data about young people and the systems that serve them, providing better educational options for young people, and building public support for policy and practice that sustain those options.

Jan Ellis, Michigan Department of Education, Office of the Superintendent
ellisj@michigan.gov

Jan joined the Michigan Department of Education in 1995, where she has directed several award-winning department and State Board of Education programs and efforts. Major initiatives include: the national award winning R.E.A.D.Y. early childhood parent information program, resulting in the distribution of 1.5 million learning kits to Michigan parents of young children and the Alliance for Children’s Education, which placed several thousand corporate volunteers with students in schools with structured and effective reading and math tutorial programs. Recently, Jan launched the State Superintendent of Education’s Dropout Challenge, resulting in 1,100 elementary, middle and high schools across the state committing to identify and support 10-15 pupils per building at-risk of dropping out of school -- impacting an estimated 15,000 students during the 2009-2010 school year. Jan also continues to serve as the media spokesperson and communications expert for the department.

Before joining the Department, Jan served on several political campaigns and was a Presidential appointee in two administrations, co-founded a government contract consulting firm, directed key activities for five presidential conventions; and concluded her national political career as the director of transition personnel for President-Elect George H.W. Bush in 1988.

Leisa Gallagher, Dropout Challenge Coordinator for MDE and Co-Dir. Reaching & Teaching Struggling Learners, one of the MI3 programs of OSE-EIS
lgallagher@cenmi.org

Bio Coming Soon!

 Susan Codere Kelly, High School Project Coordinator, MDE Office of Education Improvement and Innovation
CodereS@michigan.gov

Sue joined the Michigan Department of Education in 2005 as the Project Coordinator of the High School Content Expectations Project.  In addition to her work with the Dropout Challenge Support Team, Sue works closely with others in OEII to coordinate the transition from Michigan's HSCE and GLCE to the Common Core State Standards, serves as a member of the OEII high school unit and the Michigan Literacy Team, is the liaison to the Regional Literacy Training Centers and the Mission Possible Adolescent Literacy Work Group, and facilitates ongoing cross-discipliary support for implementation of the Michigan Merit Curriculum.
 
Before coming to MDE, Sue served as the Curriculum-Assessment Coordinator for the Lansing School District where she was responsible for the development of K-12 curriculum pacing guides and 2-12 quarterly assessments in ELA, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies.

Diane McMillan, Dropout Challenge Grant Consultant
dianem@michiganprincipals.org 
 

Diane McMillan is the retired Associate Director for the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals. She now serves as the Graduation Town digital learning community coordinator and Dropout Challenge consultant. Diane has extensive experience in professional development, offering technical assistance in the areas of leadership, school change and reform and online learning.  She is a certified NASSP Breaking Ranks II trainer for Michigan, and has received training in the Education Trust Opportunity Audit process.

Previously, McMillan was the high school redesign consultant for the Michigan Department of Education where she was a member of the High School Graduation Taskforce that made the recommendations to Superintendent Flanagan that are now the foundation of the Michigan Merit Curriculum. McMillan retired after 32 years in education from the Grand Rapids Public Schools (GRPS).  Diane worked in GRPS for 6 years;4 years as principal of Ottawa Hills High School and two years at the district office working in secondary literacy and language arts, and high school redesign. McMillan worked for 25 years in the Lansing School District as a language arts teacher, assistant principal, and the district’s secondary language arts coordinator.  Michigan has a bachelor’s and master's degree from Michigan State University.

Myra Munroe, Instructional Specialist, Consultant, Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators
mmunroe@gomasa.org

Dr. Myra Munroe is an Instructional Specialist and lead for the Evidence-Based Intervention component and Support Partnership initiative with MAISA. Dr. Munroe began her teaching career as a special education teacher in a self-contained classroom of adolescent boys in grades 4-8 for the emotionally impaired. She has taught third grade, second grade, and first grade in both rural and urban settings. Dr. Munroe was an elementary principal for nine years prior to being employed by Reading First, was a member of the state technical assistance team, and is a professional development trainer.

Nancy Rotarius, Ed.S., Educational Specialist, DELEG-Bureau of Workforce Transformation - Office of Adult Learning
rotariusn@michigan.gov

Nancy Rotarius works for the Office Adult Learning in the Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth.  In this role, she oversees the state wide collaborative of Shared Youth Vision Partnership whose mission is to build and maintain an infrastructure through collaborative networks that guide economic and social policy in order to connect youth with high quality education, employment services and connecting activities for successful transition into responsible adult roles. Nancy has an Educational Specialist Degree from Oakland University, a Masters in Social Work from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor's Degree in Sociology from Aquinas College. Prior to her work with the State of Michigan she served as a social worker in an elementary school and at a homeless shelter for young women.

Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals Graduation Town Support Team

Jim Ballard
MASSP Executive Director

Chris Bach, Graduation Town Web site Support