Sam North

History Teacher/School Board Trustee (specializing in issues of race, class, and gender; educational equity; and criminal justice reform) Ossining High School

As a social studies teacher at Ossining High School in Ossining, NY for the past 18 years, Sam North has taught Regents, college level, and advanced placement U.S. History.  Recently, Sam developed and implemented college level SUNY U.S. History and college level SUNY Social Science and Humanities Research Seminar.  Both courses are now offered at Ossining High School through SUNY Albany and students are taking them for college credit.   Professionally, Sam is most proud of his ongoing collaboration with a colleague from the English department in the creation of several college level elective courses including SUNY Racism, Classism, Sexism; SUNY The Black Experience Through Literature and History; SUNY Latin American and Caribbean Studies; and SUNY Crossing Borders.

Currently, Sam is working with Smithsonian Museum of American History Director Emeritus Brent Glass on curriculum design and educational materials in the area of criminal justice and incarceration.  Mr. Glass is leading a team that is building the Sing Sing Prison Museum.  Sam brought together a team of educators from both Ossining and Peekskill to develop curriculum materials designed to engage students in a critical examination of our criminal justice and incarceration systems.

Sam is also a trustee on the Peekskill City School District Board of Education in Peekskill, NY.  Serving as a board of education member in a diverse small city school district gives Sam another level of understanding regarding issues of equity in education including issues of race-based disproportionality to the inequitable state funding.

Equity in education is a passion of Sam’s and as such he has been involved in the implementation of programs targeting the achievement gap in educational outcomes and is currently serving on the Ossining Superintendent’s district wide Equity Task Force.  Sam is also an active member of the Peekskill NAACP.

Press Clippings:

Once racially troubled, a district shrinks the achievement gap, The Hechinger Report, 2013.

Race Conversations in the Classroom, CRE Stories, 2018.

Keywords: Education policy, Public education, Racial justice, School funding, Teacher workforce, Implicit bias training, Culturally Responsive Education