Delaware School Boards Association
Visit their website at www.edsba.org
David Sechler
President
David Sechler is an experienced school leader, consultant, staff developer and facilitator.
Before retiring in 2006, he taught for 15 years at the high school and adult education levels. He then served four years as a high school Assistant Principal and eleven years as a middle school principal. In his last principalship Dave opened a new school in a new building, and when he retired his fully inclusive school earned a Superior rating with an active special education cell.
Throughout his years as principal, Dave was active in state organizations such as the Delaware Principals’ Academy (serving as the Chair) and the Delaware Center for Educational Technology. He was appointed to serve on two State Task Forces on Best Practice in State Assessment, and he has consulted for the Delaware Department of Education on the issue of teacher assessment. Dave has served as a presenter and facilitator at the Coalition of Essential Schools national conference and has presented for the Center for Effective School Practices at Rutgers University. He now works at the Delaware Academy for School Leadership, a center at the University of Delaware, where he serves as Project Director for the state’s School Administration Manager (SAM) project (a Delaware Race to the Top project) and other projects focused on providing coaching and professional development for administrators and other school leaders. His areas of professional expertise are administrator coaching, the use of data to guide instructional improvement, assessment, technology and special education. He also teachers graduate courses in instructional leadership at the University of Delaware.
Dave is currently in his fifth and final year of his first term on the board of the Caesar Rodney School District in Camden, DE. He has served as his local board’s representative to the Delaware State School Boards Association (DSBA) for all five of those years, and he has served as DSBA’s representative on the state’s Innovative Action Team on Turn-Around Schools and on the state’s summer 2010 standards setting panel for Delaware’s new school accountability assessment. In addition to being President of the Delaware State School Boards Association, Dave serves as Vice President of his local board.
Susan Francis
Executive Director
Susan Francis has served as the executive director of the Delaware School Boards Association since November, 1998. Prior to that, she served eleven years as a local school board member, and eight years on the DSBA Board of Directors, with four of those years as an officer.
Francis began her education career as a special education teacher in Delaware. Following the birth of her children, she established her own business in the private sector but maintained her involvement in education through school boards.