Tom presenting at PEL’s Next Level Instructional Leadership Workshop in Providence, RI – March 2025
PEL Staff Associate Tom Nobili didn’t set out to become an educator. Growing up in Trumbull, Connecticut, his father was a CPA, his mother a legal assistant for the Stratford town attorney, and Tom—sandwiched between an older sister and a younger brother—was the only one who would eventually choose education as a career path.
Tom had always gravitated toward working with children—camps, clinics, the Boys & Girls Club—but when he began college at La Salle University in Philadelphia, he followed his dad’s practical advice and majored in accounting. During his senior year, as interviews ushered him toward the “real world,” a realization hit: I don’t want to do this. He decided that working with young people wasn’t a side interest; it was his vocation.
A chance conversation during a college break led him to a master’s program at the University of Bridgeport that offered paid tuition in exchange for teaching. He took the leap, interned in Bridgeport, and knew he’d found his place. Tom spent seven years teaching fifth- and sixth-grade math and science before moving into a numeracy coaching role across two schools. Coaching, he discovered, allowed him to work not only with students but with systems—and he loved the shift.
From Bridgeport, Tom’s career expanded across varied contexts: a rural district in Region 14, where he served as a math coach and later as a districtwide K–12 STEM coach; then Milford Public Schools, where he became Elementary STEM Supervisor, overseeing PreK–5 math and science across eight schools. His tenure there included the upheaval of the pandemic years and deepened his conviction that instructional improvement and equity are inseparable.
In August 2024, Tom made another pivotal decision: he left Milford to focus full time on his growing work with Partners. He had already been collaborating with Partners for years, drawn by the organization’s reputation, its people, and its focus on connecting research, practice, and systems thinking.
“What sets Partners apart,” Tom explains, “is that we’re not neutral. We have a clear stance on what high-quality instruction should look like—and we’re willing to push thinking.” That stance shows up in coaching, curriculum audits, long-term district partnerships, and professional learning designed not as one-off workshops but as capacity-building work that lasts.
Much of Tom’s current focus centers on equitable and ambitious instruction, including work around Building Thinking Classrooms (BTC) and maintaining the cognitive demand of tasks—levers he sees as critical to improving student experience and outcomes, particularly for historically marginalized learners. He is also co-authoring an upcoming practitioner-focused book with PEL colleagues Isobel Stevenson and Andrew Volkert on equitable, ambitious instruction, slated for publication by Teachers College Press.
Outside of work, Tom is grounded by family life with his wife and three young sons—ages eight, six, and three. “We never have a dull moment,” he laughs.
Busy as he is, Tom remains deeply grateful. “This is useful work that needs to be done,” he says. “We’re trying to create more equitable outcomes and environments for kids. There’s no finish line—but that’s exactly what makes the work worth doing.”
Learn more about Tom’s work in his Substack newsletter “The Core of the Matter.”
Contact Tom at tnobili@partnersforel.org
