An expert in special education will take over as dean of DePaul University's School of Education, school officials announced today.

Paul Zionts, currently the dean of the School of Education at the University of Michigan at Dearborn, was selected after a national search. He will assume his new post at DePaul on July 1, taking over for acting dean Marie Donovon.

“The potential they have to do even better work is what really drew me,” Zionts says. “There’s a real strong nucleus of faculty there.”

Zionts received his doctorate degree in 1979 in educational psychology and special education from the University of Connecticut, he says. He has served as dean of the School of Education in Dearborn since 2005. Prior to that, he served as professor and chair of educational foundations and special services at Kent State University, and as a professor at Central Michigan University.

The hallmark of his time in Dearborn, he says, has been forging partnerships with urban high schools and helping turn them around. That includes meeting with district officials, then bringing university faculty and students into high school classrooms and helping overhaul programs. The results have been noticeable, with two high schools that had been failing on yearly achievement tests now getting high marks, he says.

He envisions developing similar programs in Chicago, not just with Chicago Public Schools but with districts in nearby suburbs.

“When things aren’t so well, it amazes me the opportunities we’ve had to collaborate here on every single level, and that’s the sense I’ve had talking to folks in Chicago,” Zionts says.

But he doesn’t expect to single-handedly get those plans in motion, either.

“My role was to meet with superintendent and say, ‘Yeah, the faculty are the people that did it,’” Zionts says. “There’s no way the dean gets any of this stuff done. I just try to provide the opportunities.”