alSusan “DZ” Darville-Zuk (M.Ed., NBCT) has spent nearly three decades as an exceptional education practitioner and teacher-trainer.For the last eleven of those years, she taught at a Title I urban middle school in NC as an advocate for educational equity and restorative practices. She found joy working with our most fragile learners—first, as a remedial reading teacher whose students showed impressive growth on state end-of-grade exams. Then, when she saw firsthand the school-to-prison-pipeline happening with her students, she re-imaged,re-designed, and led a model for the in-school suspension (ISS) room at her school. Her program was called BASE, an acronym highlighting each of the areas of wrap-around support taught to students: Behavioral, Academic, Social, and Emotional. She successfully piloted this program for four years. Her mixed-methods action research for her masters degree highlighted its success.
Ms. DZ holds a B.B.A. from Adelphi University and both an M.Ed. in Urban Education and a Graduate Certificate in Anti-Racism from the University of North Carolina-Charlotte (UNCC). She has been a National Board Certified Teacher since 2002 and continues to successfully mentor NB candidates.
Her mission now, as founder of Designed Teaching, is to be an ally, advocate, changemaker, and consultant for educational equity and restorative practices. She works to facilitate collaboration among school and district leaders to build SEL and culturally-responsive pedagogy and discipline into their school policies. She approaches support from a collaborative stance and is equally comfortable coaching new teachers individually, professional learning teams collectively, or school/district leadership holistically.