Sheldon H. Berman

Dr. Sheldon Berman (Shelley) retired after serving across 28 school years as superintendent in four diverse districts—Andover Public Schools in Massachusetts, the Eugene School District in Eugene, Oregon; the Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, Kentucky; and the Hudson Public Schools in Hudson, Massachusetts. He is now working with AASA, the school superintendents’ association, to lead the work in social-emotional learning.

Dr. Berman is the author of three books—The Ethical Educator: Pointers and Pitfalls for School Administrators, Children’s Social Consciousness, and Promising Practices in Teaching Social Responsibility—as well as numerous articles and book chapters on social-emotional learning, universal design for learning, special education, social responsibility, service learning, and education reform. He has been a contributor to the monthly Ethical Educator column in the School Administrator since January, 2012.

Dr. Berman served as the President of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents and has been a policy leader in three states in the areas of education reform policy, social-emotional learning, civic education, special education, charter school issues, and education funding. He received the 2003 Massachusetts Superintendent of the Year Award, the 2011 Sanford McDonnell Award for Lifetime Achievement in Character Education, recognition in 2011 by the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) as one of ten courageous superintendents for providing leadership for school desegregation, the Mary Utne O’Brien Award from the Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) for lifetime achievement in implementing social-emotional learning in 2020, and AASA’s Distinguished Service Award for lifetime contribution to the field in 2022.

Prior to his service as superintendent, he was one of the founders and President of Educators for Social Responsibility. Prior to that, he taught high school social studies in Bangor, Maine, and Brookline, Massachusetts.

www.sheldonberman.com