Olivia Flood, an incoming junior at Ramstein High School, helps second-grade teacher Sherry Brooks set up a classroom at Ramstein’s elementary school on Wednesday. (Ben Bloker/Stars and Stripes)
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Number of kindergarten classes jump to meet ratioPacific Back to School 2009WIESBADEN, Germany — After 13 years in Japan, Nancy Bresell finds herself in familiar territory.
More than 30 years after she first taught at Mainz Elementary School, across the river from her current sixth-floor office with a view in Wiesbaden, Bresell is starting this school year as the new director for Department of Defense Dependents Schools-Europe. She replaces Diana Ohman, who took Bresell’s old job in Japan as DODDS-Pacific and Domestic Dependent Elementary and Secondary Schools Guam District director.
The longtime school leaders swapped posts at the direction of their boss, Shirley Miles, head of the Department of Defense Education Activity since June 2008.
"This change will be advantageous to the schools in each area by allowing for the benefits a different leadership perspective will bring to each school system," Miles was quoted as saying when the move was announced in May.
"It’s really just to have a fresh pair of eyes looking at the total operation," Bresell said in an interview last week at her office.
The move also supports a larger organizational shift in DODEA to make its practices standard across its three geographical regions — in Europe, Pacific and military schools stateside.
"With the reduction of the U.S. military presence, primarily here in Europe, we have seen a need to centralize more of the operations and decision-making, particularly with respect to curriculum and instruction initiatives," Bresell said.
This means that in the future, it’s unlikely any one of the areas in DODEA will implement any of its own initiatives, she said.
Some of those unique programs have already gone away.
For example, a literacy program that Bresell spearheaded in the Pacific is no longer in place. The Pacific Area Literacy Project targeted struggling readers in kindergarten through sixth grade.
And Reading Recovery in Europe, a program to help struggling first-graders catch up with their peers in reading, was dropped starting with this school year.
Bresell said some aspects of both of those programs could be rolled back out again, but this time systemwide, depending on the recommendations of a DODEA literacy task force that was formed last year.
"We’re both committed to the direction DODEA is going as a system," Bresell said of herself and Ohman.
Another area that may see changes in the future is foreign language. DODEA is conducting a review of foreign language programs in its schools, with a particular focus on the Foreign Language in the Elementary School program, or FLES, for K-3 students. FLES offerings won’t be expanded pending the outcome of the review, according to DODEA officials.
"I love the FLES program. I think it’s great," Bresell said. "But I also like the partial immersion that we have in some of our schools. I think Dr. Miles is interested in seeing an expansion of those programs, as well." But with FLES, which exposes students to 90 minutes a week of foreign language instruction, "we haven’t done a full evaluation of that program," Bresell said.
Bresell is a big advocate of foreign language education. "I feel it is very helpful to understand other cultures," she said. "One way we can do that is by learning their language."
She was a diligent student of German during her first stint with DODDS-Europe in Germany.
Even though she’s been in Japan for 13 years, Bresell said, she still speaks German.
"My vocabulary is small but Germans tell me I speak without an accent," she said. "I’m very proud of that."
As the new school year gets under way Monday, students will benefit from a rosier budget outlook, she said.
There will be money for some field trips, she said. And this year, schools in Europe will replace outdated computers by the end of the calendar year. The goal is to have one computer for every employee, and a computer for every two students, Bresell said.
"I’m personally very excited to be here in Europe, working with the commanders, our parents, with our school administrators and teachers," she said. "I’ve heard so many good things about what we’re doing in Europe and I’m here to contribute … to making our schools really outstanding and offering the best educational programs for our students here."
After her stint at Mainz, Bresell was the assistant principal at a DODDS career center in Darmstadt. She later worked at the regional office in Wiesbaden as a special-education coordinator while also doing personnel staffing. Subsequent jobs included the principals of three schools in Germany and the superintendent of what was then the Stuttgart district. She became director of DODDS-Pacific in 1997 after serving as the district’s deputy director.
She also took some time away from DODDS to work in the States and to earn a doctorate from the University of Southern California in educational administration and supervision.
Olivia Flood, an incoming junior at Ramstein High School, helps second-grade teacher Sherry Brooks set up a classroom at Ramstein’s elementary school on Wednesday. (Ben Bloker/Stars and Stripes)
Nancy Bresell ()
Lizzie Alonzo, 14, cuts out letters Wednesday for her mother’s classroom at Ramstein Elementary School. Lizzie’s mom teaches German immersion. New DODDS-Europe director Nancy Bresell hopes to expand foreign language programs. (Ben Bloker/Stars and Stripes)
