MESA Charter High School
Virginia Dallman currently serves as a College Persistence Counselor at MESA Charter High School, where responsibilities include managing the inaugural alumni success and college retention program, counseling alumni on various post-secondary transitions, and facilitating professional development workshops for staff. Prior roles at MESA include Special Education and College Bound Teacher, where Virginia developed curriculum and organized college visits, and Academic Culture Chair, focusing on initiatives for at-risk students. Previous experience includes teaching special education in Chicago Public Schools and participating in the Teach for America program. Virginia holds a Master of Arts in Special Education from National Louis University and a Bachelor of Arts in History and Political Science from Elmhurst University.
MESA Charter High School
Math, Engineering, and Science Academy (MESA) Charter High School is a community high school in Bushwick, Brooklyn. We opened our doors on August 19, 2013, and we now have 465 students in grades 9-12. We graduated our first class of seniors in June 2017 and our graduation rate is 92%. Our students come from more than forty different middle schools, including public, parochial, and charter schools. Some are advanced students coming from magnet schools; others are beginning English Language Learners. What they all have in common is a desire to succeed. MESA students come to school every day, ready to work—we have a 95% attendance rate and a 97% punctuality rate, both significantly higher than other high schools in our district! When it comes to regents pass rates, MESA outperforms its peers by a rate of 20-30%!