Devon Madison, passionate Philadelphia educator and volunteer, has died at 34

Devon Claire Mizzell Madison, 34, of Point Breeze, a Philadelphia educator, died Tuesday, March 5, of brain cancer at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Ms. Madison devoted her professional life to serving children — both in the nonprofit sector, and as a teacher and administrator in Philadelphia charter and traditional public schools.

Born in Takoma Park, Md., to Jane Clark and Christopher Madison, Ms. Madison attended public schools there before studying education at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, a natural path for someone who decided very early in her life that she wanted to work in special education.

“Dev wanted to help people who needed help the most,” said her husband, Ian MacKinnon.

After graduation in 2011, Ms. Madison moved to Philadelphia, where she became a member of the founding leadership team of Minds Matter Philadelphia, a nonprofit that provides mentoring and other support to high school students. Ms. Madison wrote curriculum and was the first director of programming for the organization, which remained close to her heart even after she moved into the classroom herself.

Ms. Madison wasn’t the assigned mentor of Asia White, a member of the first Minds Matter class, but Ms. Madison became White’s mentor anyway, and it was a defining relationship of White’s life. When White graduated as valedictorian of Parkway West in 2011, Ms. Madison was in the stands with a giant smile and an air horn, and she continued to play the booster role for as long as she lived — as White powered through undergraduate and graduate degrees and launched a successful career in social work.

“She showed up in every sense of the word — she offered me so many resources and supports, and I learned through Devon what an unconditional support system is,” said White. “She always held me accountable, but she was my biggest cheerleader, too.”

Ms. Madison worked as a special education teacher at Eugenia Maria de Hostos Charter School, in North Philadelphia, a teacher and administrator at schools in the Mastery Charter network, and special education coordinator at the Antonia Pantoja Charter School in North Philadelphia before becoming assistant principal of Andrew Hamilton Elementary, a Philadelphia School District school in West Philadelphia.

She earned a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, and served on the board of Northwood Academy Charter School.

In 2021, Ms. Madison was diagnosed with brain cancer. Even after surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, she worked as much as she could, because that was her style, her husband said. She focused on her husband and their son, Clark, but the children she served were important to her, too.

“She was back in action pretty quickly — she needed to exercise her brain constantly, she wanted to stay engaged and felt a responsibility to go back,” said MacKinnon. For a time, things were stable — Ms. Madison was far enough past chemotherapy that her doctors said it was OK to try for another child, something she wanted very much.

Ms. Madison worked into December, but swelling on the left side of her brain began giving her trouble typing and writing. She checked into the hospital Feb. 16, and the family celebrated Clark’s fourth birthday in her hospital room.

MacKinnon and Ms. Madison grew up in the same town, but didn’t really meet until her freshman year during college, at a bar in Washington. Ms. Madison walked up and introduced herself to MacKinnon, despite their five-year age difference.

“She had moxie — she approached me and said, ‘Are you Ian MacKinnon?’” said MacKinnon. They pursued a long-distance relationship — MacKinnon had already graduated from Drexel University.

He was the introvert, and she the extrovert. When Ms. Madison studied abroad in Italy, MacKinnon joined her for a week, over Thanksgiving, and the pair tracked down a whole turkey, and muddled their way through roasting it, laughing at the mystifying Italian oven, and the bird that came with claws still attached.

“We’re lucky we didn’t get food poisoning,” MacKinnon said. “She opened me up to the world a little bit more.”

Besides work, her main passion was her family, MacKinnon said.

“She was such a good mom,” he said.

Ms. Madison loved to host people at their home in Point Breeze. She threw epic Friendsgivings, and loved to bake, especially with her son. She delighted in being an aunt, too, and after her mother died in an accident, Ms. Madison carried on one of her favorite childhood traditions by baking cookies for her nieces and nephews and sending them for their first day of school, even if they lived far away.

She “just cared for her people so hard,” said Ms. Madison’s friend Kelsey Harryman, a fellow educator. The two talked every day, and even after Ms. Madison became ill, she wanted to know the ins and outs of Harryman’s day.

“She would always say to me, ‘Life is way too short, we just have to do what we want to do in this world,’” said Harryman. “We would always say, ‘I love you, I’m so thankful for you.’ Dev showed up for her people — her students, the people that she mentored, her friends, her family.”

Besides her husband and her son, Ms. Madison is survived by her father, a brother, and a sister.

A memorial service will be held in Maryland March 23.

Donations in her name may be made to a fund to support her son’s education: www.gofundme.com/f/in-loving-memory-of-devon-madison.