Select Page

Superintendent of Schools

Wilmer Chavarria

Wilmer Chavarria

Superintendent of Schools

In addition to his leadership in our district, Wilmer is actively involved in advocacy and mentorship for educators and educational leaders as a board member of the Los Alamos National Laboratory Foundation and as a Program Core Experience coach for graduate students in the Education Leadership, Entrepreneurship and Organizations program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Wilmer draws from a diverse professional background, much of which reflects our own realities and assets in the district. Immediately prior to Winooski, he served as the Director of Equity and Education Support Systems for the Milton Town School District where he carried out in-depth assessments of systems of support for students and the creation of a robust and comprehensive framework for alignment and strengthening of systems across schools. He also championed district efforts in the creation of a system-level equity strategy, roadmap, and guiding policy to ensure long-term impact beyond isolated initiatives within the schools.

Before Milton he served as a school principal both in the Windham Southwest Supervisory Union and the Espanola Public Schools in New Mexico. Achievements during this time include the creation of the only Dual Language immersion program in the Northern New Mexico area; leading the largest district art program that prioritized bringing local artists into the classrooms; noticeably boosting English Language Arts achievement across all grades as measured by state mechanisms; implementing new academic and cultural initiatives such as Math Olympics, PAX, AVID, school-wide Nature Expeditions, and peer-to-peer mentoring; establishing the most comprehensive teacher support and evaluation system in the district (which became a model for other schools); restructuring and modernizing school schedules, Response to Intervention (RTI/MLSS), and the Student Assistance Team (SAT/EST) processes; introducing genuine and sustainable trauma-informed approaches to education and discipline that minimized out-of-school suspensions to historic lows and reduced repeat behaviors; and leveraging special program and operational funds to create brand-new classroom libraries, boost student activities and field trips, and allocate considerable funds for teacher discretion. During this time, he carried out research on Bilingual Education Attitudes in the state with funding from Trinity College, Dublin, and taught college classes for teachers pursuing TESOL and Bilingual teaching endorsements.

Before serving as an administrator, Wilmer was a National Board-certified teacher of English Language Arts, Spanish Language Arts, Bilingual Education, and English as a Second Language in New Mexico, and held additional endorsements in Visual and Performing Arts. As a teacher, he served as the AP (Advanced Placement) coordinator in the district, which allowed him to expand opportunities for students from first-generation migrant families. He also received the formal designation of “Exemplary Teacher” by the New Mexico Public Education Department after achieving the highest proficiency scores in ELA of any grade district-wide for two consecutive years and achieving the highest rate of growth (up to 4 years’ worth of growth in a single year for some students) district-wide, out of over 200 teachers. In his final year, he led the first standards and competencies alignment between the local college and the high school for Dual Credit courses and established the State Seal of Bilingualism and Biliteracy graduation pathway for Espanola Valley High School students, making it one of the first in the state.

Prior to his professional experience, Wilmer spent his learning years in many places around the world. His first school was in Ocotal, Nicaragua, in a settlement for refugees after the Nicaraguan Sandinista-Contra war. He continued his education in Nicaraguan public schools until graduating from high school when he received a scholarship to attend the United World College of the Pacific in British Columbia. After his time in Canada, he moved to the US to obtain his BA at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana—a small Liberal Arts Quaker-affiliated school. Among other things, he co-designed a full-immersion language program in Nicaragua that involved local host families and a mix of US and local teachers; he was awarded the President’s Discretionary Fund Award to carry out a “Project for Peace” in the Occupied West Bank and in Central America; and in 2013, he was awarded the prestigious Watson Fellowship, which allowed him to travel for a year around the world exploring independent filmmaking, storytelling, and local journalism. Upon his return to the USA, he pursued his first role as an educator in the Espanola Public Schools in Northern New Mexico while obtaining two Master’s degrees: one in Education Leadership from the University of New Mexico, and another in Education Policy and Management from Harvard University. He was granted US citizenship in 2018.

Help Home | Email | Site Map | Search | Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Contact Webmaster | New Window | Human Resourcese | Top of Page | Log in | Log Out | School Announcements