Elizabeth Haran Caplan, Director Special Services
Harding Charter Prep
Oklahoma City, OK 73118
Ecaplan@hardingcharterprep.org
http://www.hardingcharterprep.org
Dear Esteemed Colleagues,
As a fellow educator and committed reformer for excellence and advancement for all youth, I proudly offer my enthusiastic support and highest recommendation of Carlton Leonard Rounds. In my years working in education among a vastly diverse group of individuals, Carlton remains without equal. As an inner city educator one often feels like they are part of a demolition team, swimming upstream, dismantling obstacles of failed curriculum, structural inequities and multiple “isms,” placed in our student’s way. For the weary colleague seeking refuge, Carlton’s humor and passion is an endless taproot of educator sustenance.
I marvel at his ability to inspire, engage and inform students and their families of the enormous opportunities available to them now. Rather than banking their trust on some hoped for future, Carlton mentors his students in such a way that they are empowered to seize the opportunities--from theatre to international service—available to them in the present. Pragmatically oriented, Carlton recognizes that access and ability are inextricably tied. Thus, by linking students with opportunities they may have considered impossible, students gain the invaluable sense of their own efficacy. Armed with the belief in their own capacity to pursue their goals and succeed, Carlton’s students take their successes one step further by encouraging their peers to do the same.
While Carlton applies an extensive repertoire of best practices, they are fully realized in combination with his keen intuition and insight. As a counselor, Carlton instills confidence in each of his students--through warm transactions—always knowing in vivo what a student needs to hear, attempt, avoid or strive to achieve. Within the counselor dyad, Carlton readily shifts students’ and others’ mindsets away from a deficit view of being “at risk” to more strengths based, perception of oneself and others. Thusly, all of Carlton’s show signs of great promise. In terms of outcomes produced by this approach the evidence of Carlton’s effectiveness abounds.
There are hundreds of youth, formerly categorized as “at risk” who are: in attendance at colleges across the globe; serving as Americorps Volunteers with inner city youth; interning for the United Nations; studying abroad; serving in the military; pursuing graduate degrees, and occupying important posts within transitional democracy in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Africa. Regardless of background, all of Carlton’s students share an essential trait. They were all once young adults who for social, political, or cultural reasons were considered “at risk” of either academic failure or poor life outcomes.
In the years I have known Carlton, I have had the privilege of developing deep connections with many of his students and each time we partner, I am renewed by a greater sense of self-efficacy as a educator. Continual renewal and partnerships are of critical import to me, given the pervasive hopelessness and professional dissatisfaction that grips hold of educators within my field (special education). Special educators must constantly battle for their student’s inclusion and developmental right to human potential the point of entry, until they leave, more often than not without a diploma.
Finally, I would be remiss without stating what I believe is Carlton’s most astounding quality: his enduring commitment to students beyond their high school career. Whether, networking to help a former student secure rent to begin a doctoral program, or attending an HIV support group to hold the hand of a former student he meets on the streets whose been recently diagnosed, Carlton’s commitment to students is for life.
Best wishes in all that you do for children,
Elizabeth Haran Caplan
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” Albert Einstein
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