Dr. Sarah Rosati has joined the St. Thomas Aquinas College academic community as an Assistant Professor of Education. Dr. Rosati earned her Ph.D. in Special Education at the University of Connecticut and has collaborated on numerous publications and grants.
Before pursuing a doctoral degree, she taught for a decade in K-12 schools across New York City, San Diego, and San Francisco. Dr. Rosati was inspired to become an educator in order to disrupt macro-level systems that exclude and limit children from realizing their potentials and from achieving their goals. She cherished the opportunity to serve children and their families, taking great care to foster individual relationships with each student. As a classroom teacher, Dr. Rosati was committed to celebrating and centering the abilities, voices, and multiple identities of her students.
She recalls fondly a time when one of her first grade students read their first book to the class. “This student was from a Russian-speaking family that had emigrated from Kyiv to New York City on a diversity visa. The student had been labeled with the multiple disabilities of autism, speech and language impairment, and specific learning disability and had spent the previous two years repeating Kindergarten.” Dr. Rosati recorded the read aloud so that she could play it for the student’s parents, who had been told that their child would likely not be able to read, write, or produce spoken words. She recalls, ”It was an emotional moment and a testament to the powers of opportunity, access, and individualized supports.”
With a background in integrated multi-tiered systems of support, Dr. Rosati hopes to guide future teachers in connecting assessment results with research-based practices so that future generations are prepared to take on the world. She is looking forward to cultivating teachers as change agents here at St. Thomas Aquinas College.