Denise was born in Georgetown Guyana and lived there until she was 7 years old. Guyana is a country in the northeastern corner of South America, just east of Venezuela. Here family moved to Canada – first to North York, then St. Catharines and finally to Scarborough. It was there that she attended Norman Bethune Secondary School. Being a brand new school, Denise felt that she was part of establishing the culture of the school and from this base she started her long career in secondary school education.
Denise studied Physical Education (now Kinesiology) at McMaster and then earned her B. Ed. At Queen’s University. She started teaching in the Bahamas but returned to Canada. Her first position was at York-Humber High School where she taught Phys. Ed. and Math. Over the next several years Denise taught at and was Vice Principal and then Principal at several high schools in the Toronto District School Board. She was principal at four different high schools.
Her first was Scarlett Heights which was very multicultural. It was there that she learned about different cultures and how to interact with families. She was the lead principal as the TDSB implemented a student success program and this was where she developed her skills with working with other principals. Then she was back to York-Humber where she continued to develop her leadership and professional growth and finished at Danforth Collegiate and Technical Institute. She was there for five years and all of her experiences were conflated in one as the school was a composite one combining tech., special education and a typical secondary school. The school suffered a significant fire in 2012 and Denise and her team had to operationalize a plan for students to continue their education and then get back to Danforth.
Denise then moved on to a Superintendent role at the Grand Erie School Board where she worked with Scott Sincerbox. It was there that she learned how different school boards could be. While at Grand Erie she had responsibilities for four different initiatives: staffing for e-learning, transition plan for student leaving elementary school and entering high school, amalgamation of athletics (which took four years and was very difficult but successful), and Indigenous Education where she was responsible for developing a mandatory course. Denise spoke to our club about this project which is described in detail here: https://dvsrc.ca/Stories/truth-reconciliation-a-school-board-s-curriculum
Denise’s closing comments in terms of the learning during her career were: lead by example, actions speak louder than words and the importance of relationships. Denise retired in 2021 and her time with the Grand-Erie School Board is described in this nice tribute: https://granderie.ca/board/news/superintendent-martins-next-move-retirement