BTR residents hit the ground running at BLA

9.17.11 By Ivelisse Santos Rodriguez

It is a new year, and BTR’s 9th in our schools. This year, BTR has placed a number of residents at our beloved Boston Latin Academy. There are about 10 mentor/resident pairs now working together to bring our students the best education in this city. As usual, the new school year crept up on us, as if August were no longer than the blink of an eye. But for myself and the other mentors at BLA, the excitement of bringing a resident into our classrooms was overwhelming.

It has been two weeks since we began working with our residents and the response from the mentors, residents, and students has been nothing but “thumbs up.”  My resident, Gina Nota, was comfortable in her new teacher surroundings from day one.  She is constantly trying to learn and contributing positively to my classroom.  We are an absolutely great mentor-resident match: a pair of energetic and fun-loving, but professional and dedicated biology teachers. And we both have an unhealthy addiction to Google Apps and other geeky technologies.  The students already missed her on Thursday morning and on Friday while she was out for her “flex time” and graduate courses.  All day long, all I heard was “Where is Ms. Nota?”  We are lucky to have another biology mentor-resident pair at BLA: Fabienne Mondesir and her resident, Sarah Houlihan. Together with my BTR colleague from Cohort 2, Kelly Houser, and my former mentor, Ally Via, BLA has a BTR-powered, extraordinary Biology team this year. 

But the hype is out about BTR residents in other subject areas, too. This past Thursday I walked past a student making sure that, once his schedule was switched, he would still have Mr. Jones and Ms. Macleod (history residents David Jones and Caitlin Macleod-Bluver) in Mr. Isen’s class.  The students already know their BTR teachers names, and are happy to have more knowledgeable and caring teachers in their classrooms. It seems as though, according to the students, the more residents at BLA, the merrier.