Dulari Tahbildar cares about education. Since writing her senior thesis on Providence’s student assignment plan, she has conducted education-policy research in Washington, D.C., raised funds for a Harlem-based community organization and helped build a new school in the Bronx. Last year, her career came full circle when she took a position as executive director of Providence Summerbridge.
In her new position, Tahbildar manages a program that serves more than 100 low-income Providence youths each year, providing them with the necessary support and encouragement needed to attend college. Since taking the position, she has raised nearly $60,000 in new gifts, established a partnership with Classical High School and increased the program’s visibility.
Tahbildar brings a unique background to the position, having worked in many different areas of education. Her first job after graduating from Brown University was with The Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based policy think tank. It wasn’t long before she realized that her skills were better suited for community-based education work and she left to take a position with Brotherhood/Sister Sol, a Harlem-based organization dedicated to empowering black and Latino youths. Following her desire to work with the public school system, she then served as a coordinator for a new middle school in the Bronx, where she developed the school’s math and science theme, supervised the student advisory program and formed a parent association.
Tahbildar later returned to school herself, earning a master’s degree in city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As part of her studies, she worked with a local neighborhood association in post-Katrina New Orleans to establish community control over its neighborhood high school as residents began returning to the city. •
