Who We Are
When Gillian Williams became the principal of Public School 63 in South Bronx in 1997, it had been ranked as one of the lowest performing elementary schools in New York City for 13 years.
In her first year at P.S. 63, Gillian led a turnaround that exhumed the school from the list of failing schools and posted a dramatic first year rise in test scores, with additional gains in her second and third years.
The Rensselaerville Institute learned of Gillian's ground-breaking approach at P.S. 63 and in 2001 convinced Gillian to leave her job as principal to start a national program to help other principals duplicate her success in other schools.
In this effort, she teamed up with Tony Amato, who had himself just come off an impressive school district turnaround as Superintendent in Hartford, Connecticut. In his first year as Superintendent, the district went from being ranked last among the seven metropolitan districts to second best.
In addition to Gillian and Tony, School Turnaround has a team of Turnaround Specialists across the country who have each, as principal or superintendent, personally turned around failing schools.