Martone, Cynthia 1956–

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Martone, Cynthia 1956–

PERSONAL: Born 1956.

ADDRESSES: Home—Rochester, NY. Office—Villa Maria Academy, 2403 W. 8th St., Erie, PA 16505. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Holmes Road Elementary School, Greece, NY, former principal; Villa Maria Academy, Erie, PA, principal. Founder of Loving through Bars.

AWARDS, HONORS: Outstanding Educator Award, School Administrators Association of New York State.

WRITINGS:

Loving through Bars: Children with Parents in Prison, Santa Monica Press (Santa Monica, CA), 2005.

Contributor to periodicals, including Education Week, Teacher, and Journal of School Administrators Association of New York State. Member of editorial board, Vanguard magazine.

SIDELIGHTS: Cynthia Martone is a school administrator whose Loving through Bars: Children with Parents in Prison is a study of the more than two million children who grow up with a father or mother in prison. Martone is also the founder of the nonprofit organization Loving through Bars.

As a principal in the Rochester, New York area, Martone was asked by Steven, the incarcerated father of two girls who attended her school, to become involved in their education. Martone found it difficult to foster a relationship with either the father or the teachers of his children. She visited him at Attica Prison with the children and witnessed the manner in which the girls were treated under the impersonal prison rules. Their mother was also in prison at the time, and Martone notes that the older girl, Catrina, was unable to show affection for her mother.

In her book, Martone also documents that children who are deprived of their incarcerated parents and who also suffer from inadequate parenting, are "lost in a vicious cycle that often leads to future criminality and deviant social behavior." Antoinette Brinkman wrote in Library Journal that Loving through Bars "successfully highlights the plight of an under-researched and underserved population."