After 35 Years, NHPS Stalwart To Retire

Michele Sherban plans to retire at the end of this school year after more than three decades of serving New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) as a teacher, administrator, and central office director of research and evaluation.

NHPS Superintendent Iline Tracey announced Sherban’s coming departure at a recent regular bimonthly full Board of Education meeting. 

Sherban, 59, has worked as NHPS’s director of research assessment and evaluation since 2016. She plans to retire at the end of this school year on June 30, 2023.

While the ed board does not vote on retirements, Tracey highlighted during the meeting Sherban’s commitment to the district for more than three decades. (Click here to read a previous independent story about Sherban’s work.) 

“She does a lot of our state reporting. And a lot of those things, managing PowerSchool, managing teacher and administrator evaluation. She’s just an ​‘all arounder.’ Very quiet but very efficient and valuable to New Haven Public Schools,” Tracey said. 

Tracey added that Sherban’s replacement will have to be very tech savvy. 

In recent years, Sherban has also taken on some of the district’s data analyst responsibilities since that separate position has been vacant for the past four years, Tracey said. (Click here to view NHPS’s job posting for manager of data and analytics.) 

Tracey also told the board last week that there are a total of 251 job vacancies in all sectors of the NHPS district. 

In a follow up email comment Sherban sent to the Independent for this article, the longtime NHPS staffer described her career in and commitment to the local public school district.

She began her NHPS career as a chemistry and physics teacher at her alma mater, Wilbur Cross High School, in 1988. 

“The leaders at Cross provided me with leadership opportunities outside of the classroom that included an administrative internship in which I supervised the Mathematics and Science departments, coordinated assessments, and developed the master schedule,” Sherban told the Independent.

In 2005, Sherban was appointed as an assistant principal at Cross. She then moved over to NHPS’s central office in 2010 to lead the implementation of the new ​“Educator Evaluation & Development Plan.”

For the past 13 years, Sherban served at the district-level doing NHPS’s assessment coordination and working as the TEAM facilitator. In 2016, she was promoted to the role of supervisor of research, assessment and analytics.

In her current role, her primary responsibilities include coordination of the administration of state assessments (Smarter Balanced, LAS Links, SAT), supervising educator evaluation, supervising beginning teacher mentoring program (TEAM), managing student and teacher information systems (PowerSchool, PSIS, EDS, TalentEd), compiling and submitting data for state and federal reports, and managing the district IRB process.

When asked what’s kept her committed to the district for the past 35 years, Sherban said: ​“I have chosen to spend my career in the New Haven Public Schools because of the support I have received from colleagues and mentors over the years. I have been fortunate to have been part of great teams of educators and support staff who have pushed and challenged me to continuously improve my practice at all levels. Most importantly having served as an educator in the district for so many years I have witnessed the impact we as educators have on the lives of our students.”