School Districts Covet Alum’s Training

11/12/2014 

School districts and colleges seeking the guidance of a SUNY Cortland graduate’s highly successful consultant group likely will have to get in line.

APL Associates, an instructional organization co-founded by David Perry ’61 and focused on classroom management, has a waiting list of clients that spans nearly two years. But the former early secondary major and longtime educator will speak to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) teachers at a SUNY Cortland event Saturday, Nov. 15.

The daylong workshop, which takes place at Lime Hollow Center for Environment and Culture, is a follow-up to the College’s Clinically Rich Teacher Preparation Pilot Program. It will bring together STEM teachers from Binghamton High School and recent SUNY Cortland graduates who completed the program in 2013-14.

Not surprisingly, the event reached its capacity.

“We do two things basically for teachers,” said Perry, who co-founded APL Associates in 1986. “The first is instructional strategy — research-based practical strategies that are easy to implement and give you results.

“In other words, we know we can get performance scores up.”

APL Associates relies on up to five key strategies for improving test scores, according to Perry.

“It’s pretty easy to do, quite honestly,” he said.

The second major component of his group’s training is behavior management.

“That’s priority one,” he said. “If we can get the students to function effectively and in an appropriate manner, then quite honestly you can be more successful in delivering the content.”

SUNY Cortland’s Clinically Rich program, which was funded by a major grant from the New York State Education Department, took a new approach to bringing future science and mathematics educators to a high-needs, urban district.

Traditionally, adolescence education majors take part in two, eight-week student teaching placements at a middle school and a high school. But for Clinically Rich participants, their teaching training meant spending a full year immersed in observation and “interning” at Binghamton High School with the same mentor teacher.

Angela Pagano, an associate professor of biological sciences, and Mary Gfeller, an associate professor of mathematics, oversaw the program.

Perry’s consultant group, which gets its name from the first letters of its founders’ last names, visits teaching colleges and school districts of all types across the country — urban, rural and even schools located on Native American reservations. He and fellow co-founder Jean Anastasio provide much of the training, but their staff includes educators in states such as Michigan, Nebraska and Pennsylvania.

APL Associates even has branched out to the private sector in training employees at General Electric.

“They found that while their trainers are very knowledgeable when it comes to the content, they were having an awful time trying to deliver it,” Perry said. “People on the receiving end were struggling.”

Prior to his time as managing partner of APL Associates, Perry worked for many years in the Baldwinsville (N.Y.) Central School district as a teacher, principal and coach. He also worked as an assistant professor for two years at SUNY Oswego.

Throughout his career, his training at SUNY Cortland stuck with him.

“No question,” said the former lacrosse player and Kappa fraternity member. “I had a great experience at Cortland.”