Lesley College today announced that David Leslie is the new director of the Threshold Program at the college. Leslie is one the region's leading special needs educators and a Cambridge community activist.
Students also learn vocational skills in child care, human services and clerical services.
Leslie has served as the director of an alternative, independent secondary day school, the Palfrey Street School, and as the Headmaster of Charles River Academy, a private school for adolescents with special needs. He has been a teacher and counselor of students with learning disabilities at both Brookline High and the Landmark School. A graduate of Harvard University, Leslie continued graduate studies in organizational behavior at Cornell University and moral education at Goddard College before earning his master's degree in the management of human services at the Heller School at Brandeis University. His background also includes many years of voluntary service to a variety of organizations, including the Atrium School, the Cambridge Civic Association, the Center for Voting and Democracy, and the Wellmet Project, a non-profit agency that provides transitional housing and counseling services for mentally ill adults. Leslie and his wife, Clare Walker Leslie, live in the Agassiz neighborhood with their two children, Eric and Anna.