Connie L. Malin is currently the Chief Educational Officer of Innovations International Charter School of Nevada. She earned her B.A. in Elementary Education at Mansfield State College and spent her first teaching years working as a director of a private preschool for three and four year olds. As she returned to graduate school, Connie took a position with the Corning-Painted Post Area School District in New York. For more than seven years she worked exclusively with students in the areas of English, reading comprehension, and mathematics. Dr. Malin returned to Mansfield University while her children were young to earn her M.Ed. in Elementary Education with an emphasis in Literacy Specialization and a M.S. in Special Education.
In 1991, Dr. Malin and her family moved to the Las Vegas area where she spent another nine years teaching for the Clark County School District in an inclusive setting and in test preparation and scoring. In her final year with the district, Dr. Malin was assigned to be a Teacher on Special Assignment where she worked with UNLV and CCSD on the alternative routes to teacher licensure for the early childhood degree program.
Connie earned her Ph.D. in Special Education from UNLV in 2002 with an emphasis in early childhood special education and gifted and talented education. While completing her degree, Dr. Malin was recruited to be the Director of Curriculum and Staff Development for the newly opening Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy. After having completed her doctorate, Connie returned to UNLV to complete her administrative degree. After two years with Agassi, she was again recruited to work with Odyssey Charter School as an assistant principal.
Throughout her years of teaching, Connie has presented at a variety of state, national, and international conferences on literacy skills, teaching techniques, accelerated schools practices, and on inclusive education practices. She has currently co-authored a chapter in a book to be published in the fall of 2008 with Dr. Putney concerning the use of qualitative research practices and experiences.
Dr. LeAnn Putney"Why would you take your time to open a charter school? Don't you have better things to do?" she once was asked at a professional conference on educational research. Dr. LeAnn G Putney's response was, "Frankly, I can't think of anything better to do with my time than providing an alternative form of quality education in a public school for students in need of it. Charter schools are not for everyone; they are for risk-takers and those who want to think out-of-the-box. Our mission is to supply a place where that can happen, not only for the teachers, staff, and students at the school, but also for the university students and professors who want an innovative place to conduct their research on teaching and learning in a K-12 public educational setting."
LeAnn began her educational career as a secondary teacher of Spanish and English in rural Indiana. After moving to central California with her husband, she ventured into the world of small business, and learned about small corporations as an office manager for 10 years. However, the lure of the humanistic work in education was just too much and drew her to a Master's degree in Multilingual/Muliticultural Education at California State Stanislaus, and a doctorate from the University of California, Santa Barbara in Language, Culture, and Literacy.
From Santa Barbara, she found her way to the Educational Psychology Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. It was here that she met up with then graduate student, Connie Malin, and they began to envision their dream school. When Connie finished her degree, the two of them continued a partnership through their research together at the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, and then at Odyssey Charter School. It should surprise nobody, then, that they worked together to found Innovations International Charter School of Nevada.
LeAnn brings to the school her expertise on ethnographic research and her work with classroom teachers on constructing academically successful and socially responsible classroom and school communities. LeAnn has co-authored A Vision of Vygotsky, that explains the social/cultural/historical nature of learning from Vygotsky's perspective and is a useful tool for classroom teachers. In addition she has presented her work at national and international conferences and has published articles related to teaching and learning in academic journals.
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