Errol C. Saunders, II is a veteran history teacher and the Executive Director of Pathfinder at Hopkins School, an educational non-profit that prepares students from New Haven public and parochial schools for high school success. Errol has taught and developed innovative curricula for middle and high schoolers in both English and history with emphases on thematic content orientation, cultural relevance and responsiveness, historical problem solving, and making forceful, nuanced arguments from primary sources.
Errol holds a B.A. in Political Science from Yale University, an Ed.M. in Curriculum and Teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University and is currently a doctoral candidate in that department. Errol is a Ron Brown Scholar and has recently served as a research fellow for the Center on History and Education at Teachers College where he worked on the New York City Civil Rights History Project. His research interests include public pedagogies of race and how going to school across geographic boundaries affects students’ educational experiences, senses of belonging, and outcomes.
Errol believes that wholesale engagement in civil society can strengthen communities. To that end he has served on the boards of the Ulysses S. Grant Program, the New Haven Land Trust (now Gather New Haven), and the Urban Resources Initiative. Today, he serves on the Board of Directors of Common Ground, Long Wharf Theatre, and as a commissioner on the Board of Zoning Appeals for the City of New Haven.