By Emily Leclerc | Waisman Science Writer
The Waisman Early Childhood Program’s (WECP) longest serving teacher, Lisa Marie Carilli-McCord, officially retired at the end of October. She joined the WECP in 1989 and across those three and a half decades, she has not only become a beloved teacher but a cornerstone of the program. Her ceaseless passion and dedication to early education and love for each child that passes through the WECP’s classrooms leaves behind an important and powerful legacy. Lisa Marie is an embodiment of the WECP’s mission of inclusion and exemplifies what an excellent educator should look like.
In August of 1989, she started as a student teacher in the kindergarten room. From a young age, Lisa Marie knew she wanted to be a teacher, wanted to work with kids, and find new ways to make education fun. After a year, she was officially asked to join the WECP’s staff. She spent many years working among different classrooms aged two to five before spending her last 14 years teaching one-year-olds. Over the last two years, Lisa Marie has served as the WECP’s associate director where she has the opportunity to work with all of the kids across the WECP’s six different classrooms.
One of the main reasons she stayed with the program for so many years, Lisa Marie says, is the WECP’s mission for inclusion. The WECP was intentionally established as a part of the Waisman Center to ensure that children with disabilities could not only receive early education that met their needs but also that they were fully integrated into the classroom to learn and play alongside their peers. The program reserves up to a third of its enrollment for children with disabilities and is designed to promote inclusion and accessibility for all kids. “The mission of inclusion is so important. Every child is unique,” Lisa Marie says. “Every child should be given the opportunity to grow, learn, and be included.”
Lisa Marie’s drive to teach always came back to the children. The opportunity to see them grow, thrive, reach milestones, and just be happy was the most rewarding part of the job for her. She was constantly learning about them and learning from them. “One of my favorite moments is when a child masters a skill or has that Ah Ha moment when they figure something out,” Lisa Marie says. “Or when I would set up the classroom over the weekend for a special theme and seeing their faces full of excitement and delight when they came in Monday morning.” The kids were always the reason she was excited to come into work each day.
Her announcement to retire has been an incredibly bittersweet moment for her. While she looks forward to all of the things retirement has to offer, it is not easy to say goodbye. “The WECP is home to me,” Lisa Marie says. And she will be sorely missed by not just the kids but the parents and staff as well. Lisa Marie has served the WECP with nothing less than her whole being and her legacy of joy, passion, and kindness will impact and influence everyone in the program for many years to come.
Replacing her in the role of associate director is Devora Ballo. Devora has been teaching young children in various capacities for more than 20 years. She has worked in public school, private school, in childcare, for Head Start for a short time, and at MATC supervising Early Childhood Education student interns. Devora hopes to give the WECP families the same wonderful experience she received as a parent when her children attended childcare.
