About

Roy Lincoln Karp, Owner

During the last two decades, I have been involved in education as a classroom teacher, curriculum writer, restorative practitioner, and school leader. In that time, I have developed the skills needed to cultivate community through a deep focus on relationships.

In 2003, I founded the Civic Education Project to promote civic engagement and learning in the Boston area. Highlights of that work include running the Boston chapter of the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project, developing a 2-year Law & Justice curriculum for high schools, and working with teens from the Hyde Square Task Force to create a new high school civics course for the Boston Public Schools. During that time, I was also involved with early efforts to bring Restorative Justice to BPS, where it was being piloted at Social Justice Academy and the Curley K-8.

I then served as director of the Alternative Diploma Program at UTEC, where I built a restorative, community-based high school in Lowell, Massachusetts that successfully engaged young people facing significant barriers to education. The heart of that program was trust and relationship building and making sure every student felt truly welcome and had a real voice. Our courses centered on social justice themes and utilized project based learning to successfully engage students. As Director, I led the development of robust partnerships including a dual enrollment program at Middlesex Community College, a camping and hiking program with the Appalachian Mountain Club, and a community garden leadership program with Mill City Grows. (There is an excellent, 6 minute film about this program, Beyond the Mask: The Alternative Diploma Program at UTEC, by Cameron Zohoori of Vignette Creative.)

In June 2014, my life changed significantly when my daughter Lucy was born over three months prematurely. She spent five months in the Beth Israel NICU and when Lucy finally came home, I stepped down from my position at UTEC to care for her and support her significant medical and developmental needs. During the next several years, I worked closely with medical providers, homecare nurses, and Early Intervention team to help her learn how to talk, walk, and eat food by mouth.

As my daughter’s health improved and needs lessened, I was able to slowly return to the workforce, at first writing for the Dorchester Reporter and then helping to start Rozzie Bound, a community owned cooperative bookstore in Roslindale, Mass. I then returned to work supporting restorative practices in education as a trainer and coach with the Center for Restorative Justice at Suffolk University and then for the Watertown Public Schools.

I currently live in Roslindale, a diverse urban neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts (USA) with my wife Courtney Feeley Karp and daughter.