George Simpson, Principal
Mr. Simpson brings more than a decade of experience in arts education. Prior to joining Arts High this academic year, he served as director of a public high school with a focus on music, the Roland Hayes School of Music in Boston, since 2006. From 1999 to 2006, Mr. Simpson was a founding faculty member of the Boston Arts Academy, the city’s first and only high school for the visual and performing arts, where he was a teacher and chair of the Department of Music.
A native of Toronto, Canada, Mr. Simpson began his musical studies on trombone.
For three seasons Mr. Simpson was a member of the Band of the Ceremonial Guard, the official band of Canada’s head-of-state in Ottawa, Canada. He also attended Humber College in Toronto with studies in jazz and commercial music and has worked with jazz greats Phil Nimmons and Alastair Kay. George also maintains certification in school administration from Northeastern University with additional studies in special education and education administration from Harvard.
Mr. Simpson’s work at BAA led to the inception of the Berklee College of Music Preparatory School in 2000 and served as its founding director for 8 years. This year-round intensive music education program was designed to prepare underserved urban students to pursue higher education. He is also the principal architect of the PULSE music curriculum. The on-line initiative is a part of Berklee College of Music’s City Music Network, designed to connect the college to organizations nationwide that share a similar educational mission of empowering underserved youth to obtain a contemporary music education.
George has currently overseen several outreach efforts within the Boston Public Schools and was tasked to lead the design team for a new middle school of the arts for the city of Boston. He has presented at conferences throughout New England on topics ranging from urban education to curriculum design and sits on the advisory board of the Boston Classical Orchestra, the Music Corps/Music Service National Initiative, and Urban Music Coalition.
George received degrees in music and education from the University of Western Ontario and a Master’s degree in music education from Boston University.
Lisa Sherman-Colt, Assistant Principal
Lisa Sherman-Colt grew up in St. Louis, Missouri where she studied dance with members of the Kathryn Dunham Dance Company and faculty at Washington University. She received her B.S. in Dance from the UW-Madison and was awarded scholarship money allowing her to spend her summers studying in New York with Lar Lubovitch, Twyla Tharp, Molissa Fenley, and Charles Moulton. For the next five years, she lived in Boston, Massachusetts where she directed and taught repertoire for both her studio and company, ProArt Dance, Inc. In 1992, Lisa came to Milwaukee where she taught dance at Milwaukee High School for the Arts. In 1999, Lisa received her M.F.A. in Dance from UW-Milwaukee. In 2001, Lisa was selected to direct a production at the American High School Theater Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. From 2001-2004, she received three National Time Warner Teaching awards and was flown to Washington, D.C. for an awards ceremony. She was recently the recipient of a Michael Jordan Foundation Grant, a Teaching Tolerance Grant from the Southern Poverty Law Center, and was a finalist in the Surdna Fellowship Program. In 2004, Lisa earned her second graduate degree in Educational Leadership with a Principal license and a Curriculum and Instruction license from Cardinal Stritch University. From 2004-2007, Lisa held the administrative position as Artistic Director of Milwaukee High School for the Arts. In June of 2008, Lisa joined the LACHSA (Arts High) administrative team as the Assistant Principal of Arts.
