K. M. Dico Dicolandrea

About K. M. Dico Dicolandrea

From I competed on the Stuyvesant High School Speech & Debate Team, where I was a state finalist in Extemporaneous Speaking and a national finalist in Congressional Debate. After being the first in my family to attend a four-year college, I graduated with a B.A. in Philosophy from Yale and joined Teach for America.While teaching in NYC public schools for twelve years, I started debate teams at the Frederick Douglass Academy and Achievement First Brooklyn High School. There, I coached students to success on local and national circuits; my students were champions at national tournaments including Harvard, UPenn, Columbia, and St Joseph\'s University, and my teams have been featured in national media including Time Magazine, The Kelly Clarkson Show, and Malcolm Gladwell\'s podcast.I am a recipient of several teaching prizes including the Teach for America Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Jewish Education Project\'s Robert Sherman Young Pioneers Award. The National Speech and Debate Association named me a First Diamond Coach and awarded me the Brother Sterner Lifetime Service Award in 2022.In 2017, I co-founded Brooklyn Debate League, an organization supporting Speech & Debate programming in NYC public schools, with my former student Jonathan Conyers, whose recent memoir \"I Wasn\'t Supposed To Be Here\" tells the story of how debate changed his life. When the social media platform Humans of New York profiled us in May 2022, over 30K people donated a total of $1.3 million, which helped us grow Brooklyn Debate League from a passion project to a fully fledged 501(c)(3).

Experience

1. Executive Director

   Brooklyn Debate League

   Present

Education

• Stuyvesant High School

  High School Diploma

• Pace University

  Master's degree, Education

• Yale University

  Bachelor of Arts - BA, Philosophy