Melissa M. Schaub

American International School of Lagos
Lagos, Nigeria
mschaub@aislagos.org

Melissa Schaub joined the American International School of Lagos in Nigeria as the elementary principal in 2019. Schaub believes deeply in the importance of serving as an instructional leader and finds purpose and meaning in the role she plays supporting teachers in designing, implementing, and monitoring curriculum. At AISL, she has facilitated teacher development in the process of unit review and alignment using protocols to deepen understanding of learning targets, assessment design, and best practice instruction. As a result, the elementary staff have grown in their knowledge of unit design and added critical skills to their professional tool kits. Schaub has spearheaded efforts to create a data-informed assessment culture where teachers engage in meaningful collaborations to review, analyze, and learn from student learning data and work. Driven by a deep belief that students should own their learning and become self-directed in that journey, Schaub has encouraged shifts and strategies in unit design to allow students to set goals, engage with success criteria, seek feedback, and reflect on their own learning. More recently, with the impact of the coronavirus, Schaub leveraged her proclivity for collaboration and team-centered approach to student learning, allowing her staff and students to innovate and excel in the realm of distance learning. Through her efforts to unite student, teacher, and parent voices, Schaub encourages “the hearts of [her] community to beat as one,” and says that celebrating “our shared accomplishments is the music of my work.” Schaub is a trainer at the Principal’s Training Center, where her focus is developing assessment leadership, and is working toward an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership from Wilkes University. She holds both a Post Graduate Leadership Certification and an M.A. from The College of New Jersey and a Multiple Subject Teaching Credential from San Francisco State University.