Malden Teacher Wins Scholarship For Emerging Latinx Leaders

MALDEN, MA — Malden Public Schools teacher Leanne DeRosa last week won a scholarship from the nonprofit Hale Education to attend a Hale-organized program focused on teaching participants key leadership skills for school settings and community-based organizations.

Dubbed the Carmen M. Torres Scholarship for Emerging Latinx Leaders, the scholarship specifically helps DeRosa secure a spot in the Perrone-Sizer Institute for Creative Leadership at Hale.

It honors the Perrone-Sizer Institute’s founder, Carmen Torres.

“I am grateful to be in this program because of the generous donations of those who were touched by Carmen,” DeRosa said in a press release. “I feel so motivated to prove her mission in my own leadership and will forever carry her with me, even though I did not know her. She will never know how she is changing my life.”

DeRosa was honored last week with a ceremony involving Hale personnel.

DeRosa is a theater and English teacher at Malden High School.

“Her commitment to restorative justice and arts equity creates access to theatre in spaces where the arts have historically been diluted,” Hale’s scholarship announcement noted.

DeRosa recently helped create BIPOC affinity spaces within the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. She also helped create a new community theater program within Malden, as noted in Hale’s scholarship announcement.

DeRosa, is likewise, a company member of The Open Door Theatre in Henniker, New Hampshire and a member of a team that aims to build restorative justice practices into the infrastructure of the Malden Public Schools.