HIGH TECH HIGH GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Special Projects Coordinator
Ady Sukkar Kayrouz is a lifelong career educator who is comprehensively committed to serving education, humanity and equity. Her work is rooted in designing innovative frameworks that cultivate transformative educational practices focused on deeper learning and student engagement. Ady designs and facilitates professional development that is centered in fostering organizational culture and grounding foundations for systemic change and sustainable impact. As a young immigrant, Ady was positioned to understand the importance of prioritizing the value of the human experience in learning which defined the core principle of her professional journey in education. Ady served as a secondary English teacher, curriculum designer, instructional coach, instructional team leader and professional development designer for almost two decades before joining the High Tech High organization in 2015. She describes her initial experience in PBL practice and design as "coming home to education and learning."
Ady served as a Humanities Teacher at HTH Media Arts before serving in leadership as the Dean of Students where she focused on creating human centric programs and designing systems to cultivate a culture of equity, inclusion, multiculturalism and access to fully support student agency and PBL practices. Ady also held the position of Program Coordinator for the M.Ed. in Educational Leadership, M.Ed. in Teaching and Learning, and New School Creation programs at the HTH Graduate School of Education. Currently, as a Professional Learning Designer at the HTH GSE, Ady works with teachers, practitioners, specialists, administrators, leadership and policy makers around the world to provide high quality design and facilitation of standing HTH GSE PBL adult learning offerings and customized professional development experiences. Ady speaks English, French, Arabic and Spanish.
Job Titles:
- Chairman, Education Studies, University of California, San Diego
Job Titles:
- Editor of High Tech High Unboxed
Alec is the editor of High Tech High Unboxed, which is the place where High Tech High shares what it knows, thinks and dreams of. Specifically, it's an online collection of podcasts, videos, and articles, and a semi-annual hard-copy journal.
Alec taught humanities for five years, first at High Tech High North County, then at High Tech High Chula Vista. As part of the projects Alec has designed, his students have produced podcasts about California's state Propositions and plays about wrongfully convicted inmates. One year, students designed and ran a simulation in which audience members took on the roles of Syrian citizens forced to leave and seek refuge in another country. In partnership with biology teacher Matt Leader, Alec led 45 11th graders who became the first large group ever to walk the entire San Dieguito Coast-to-Crest trail, a total of 72 miles.
You can learn more about Alec's projects on his Digital Portfolio, here. Prior to joining High Tech High, Alec worked at the Innovation Unit in London, England, where he wrote Work that Matters: The Teacher's Guide to Project-based Learning. Alec first became interested in project-based learning when he was doing his Ph.D. at the University of Sheffield, and designed a program that trained undergraduates to record and transcribe oral history interviews for the British Library's Theatre Archive Project.
Job Titles:
- Financial Services Manager
Anna recently moved to California in January of 2017. Prior to that she lived in Mississippi for 19 years. During her professional career in Mississippi, she served in many diverse roles. She began as a staff accountant. From there, she worked in administration at a finance department, with a NASA contractor at Stennis Space Center. One of her favorite places of employment was at the University of Southern Mississippi in Long Beach. There, she held the position of a Business Operations Manager. She loved the scenic view on the Gulf Coast campus, the culture of the organization, and people that she worked with. Anna is happy to be working in the educational industry again and excited to be joining the team at High Tech High. Anna graduated from William Carey University with a B.S. in Business Administration, major in Accounting.
Job Titles:
- Logistics Manager
- Logistics Manager for the 8th Grade on - Track Program
Anthony Rayos joined the HTH GSE in October of 2020 as the Logistics Manager for the 8th Grade On-track Program. As a supportive role to the program, Anthony handles all logistics involved in event planning, travel, meetings, and ensuring that all administrative needs are met so that the program functions at full potential.
Previous to working at HTH, Anthony has always worked in an educational setting; 12 years at Altus Charter Schools and 1 1/2 years at the University of San Diego School of Law. Anthony's strengths include strong organization skills, building continuous improvement processes, and seamless procedures. His passion for supporting programs has ensured their successes.
Ben joined High Tech High to teach physics as a founding faculty member in fall 2000. He has been a school director, chief operating officer, and chief academic officer for High Tech High and is now the president of the Graduate School of Education. As a student at Haverford College, Ben majored in physics and was credentialed in secondary physics and math, student teaching at Lower Merion High School outside Philadelphia. After graduation, he traveled to the Philippines and taught science and math at an international school in Manila. Upon his return to the U.S., he taught physics and AP physics at the Madeira School, a girls' boarding school in suburban Washington, D.C. He then moved to California to coach basketball and to teach physics at Pomona and Pitzer Colleges. He earned an M.A. in Science Education at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership at the University of California, San Diego.
Ben's research is focused on continuous improvement in schools, which is an effort to spread good practices in education using a broad range of both outcome and process data. He completed a dissertation on increasing college access for traditionally underserved students using these methods.
Job Titles:
- Director Data Analytics
- Is Director of Data Analytics
Ben Sanoff is Director of Data Analytics, where he supports teams in using data for learning. Since joining the GSE in 2016, he has been most involved in the Share Your Learning Campaign, Deeper Learning HUB, CARPE College Access Network, and the Center for Research on Equity and Innovation. In each project, he is focused on empowering teams of practitioners to use educational data to collaboratively solve problems of practice. In addition, Ben brings years of experience designing online learning experiences and implementing educational technology. He developed the Deeper Learning Hub Courses and the CARPE College Pathways Course to support educators transitioning to online and blended learning contexts.
Prior to joining High Tech High, Ben served as a social studies teacher, technology coordinator, and teacher leader at Berkeley High, where he was deeply involved in program design, professional development, and technology implementation to help address issues of equity and make instruction more student-centered. As technology coordinator, Ben developed a blended learning program and later as a teacher implemented a self-paced mastery economics course.
Inspired to become an educator as a result of his educational experiences growing up in Cambridge Massachusetts, Ben attended Colby College, received a Master's of Education from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and was awarded a Master's of Education in School Leadership from the High Tech High Graduate School of Education.
Job Titles:
- Project Manager
- Project Manager for the Center for Research
Betty Hua is a Project Manager for the Center for Research on Equity and Innovation where she supports the CARPE College Access Network and the CARE 8th Grade On-Track Network.
Betty's passion for equity stems from her experiences growing up in City Heights in San Diego. Prior to joining the HTH GSE, Betty worked at Teach For America San Diego where she managed the onboarding, school placement, and credentialing processes for beginning teacher leaders in low-income schools and supported program alumni in their pursuit of educational equity.
Betty taught at the elementary and middle school levels in public and public charter schools in Washington, D.C. She earned her teaching credential through the Center for Inspired Teaching teacher residency program. Betty holds a B.A. in Education and Sociology from Brown University and a M.A. in Teaching in Elementary Education from Trinity Washington University.
Job Titles:
- Principal, Pacific Ridge School, Carlsbad
Job Titles:
- Outreach Manager
- Recruitment & Outreach Manager
As the HTH GSE Recruitment and Outreach Manager, Brittney Quinones works directly with our three programs including the M.ED in Educational Leadership, San Diego Teacher Residency and the New School Creation Fellowship in outreach, recruitment and admission.
As a native long-islander, Brittney had the opportunity to explore the entire West Coast as a regional admission officer for the University of Richmond. During her time as an alumna and Senior Assistant Director, Brittney worked very closely with the HTH college counseling teams as an inaugural university partner for Elevate Scholars. Her involvement as a board member of the Regional Admission Counselors of California (RACC) broadened her knowledge of recruitment, strategic planning, creativity, organization and teamwork with a network of nearly 200 regional colleagues. In her most recent role as a School Relations Manager at Revolution Prep, Brittney explored an entirely new aspect of education via academic tutoring and test prep.
After graduating with a B.A in Leadership Studies and Sociology, Brittney was inspired by professors and mentors to begin a career in higher education. She is extremely passionate about helping first-generation and BIPOC students explore their full potential through the college process and now looks forward to doing the same at the graduate level. She is excited to support future teachers and school leaders this time around to find the right fit programs within the GSE to help reach their goals of becoming educational change-makers in our own local community and worldwide!
Job Titles:
- Professor at UCLA
- Secretary, HTH GSE Board of Directors
Carl Maida is a professor at UCLA, where he teaches medical anthropology, global health, and scientific research ethics in the Graduate Program in Oral Biology. He has a joint appointment in the Institute of the Environment in the UCLA College of Letters and Science, where he teaches courses on action research methods and conducts community-based research on natural hazards, community toxics, environmental disease, and urban sustainability. He co-directs Howard Hughes Medical Institute Pre-College Science Education program at UCLA School of Dentistry. At UCLA Geffen School of Medicine, he conducts studies of the impact of natural disaster on children, adolescents and their families as a member of the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress, and as a member of the UCLA AIDS Institute, among persons living with HIV. He is a member of the UCLA Campus Sustainability Committee, and chairs its Academic Subcommittee. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Anthropological Association, and the Society for Applied Anthropology.
Job Titles:
- Educational Leadership Coordinator and Director of the Mission Valley Regional Center Point Loma Nazarene University
Carol A. Leighty is a life long educator who has spent 40 years in public education. Starting her career as an elementary school teacher, Dr. Leighty completed her career as a superintendent. During her career, she supported the charter schools in her districts. She is a graduate of San Diego State University and the University of Southern California. She is now semi-retired while teaching part-time at Point Loma Nazarene.
Job Titles:
- Director, San Diego Teacher Residency
Carol Battle is a 20 year veteran of public education. Her experiences as "the one" African-American student and teacher in most of her academic settings have shaped and driven her pursuits in equity and diversity issues. She has taught in both Texas and California and in charter and traditional school settings. Prior to joining the GSE, Carol served as CSUSM's 2018-2020 Distinguished Teacher in Residence and Elementary and Middle School Humanities teacher in San Diego. Her emphasis on all campuses was infusing analysis of texts and historical events with a multifaceted lens. Carol is also a Teacher Consultant for the San Marcos Writing Project, an affiliate of the California and National Writing Projects. Additionally, she is a Board Member for the San Diego Council of the California Teachers of English and the California Teachers of English where she spearheaded the addition of a Diversity and Equity AdHoc committee and has written a column for their quarterly publication, California English. Carol completed her Doctorate in Educational Leadership from the Joint Doctoral Program at UCSD and CSUSM in Fall of 2022. Her area of research in Black female educator retention.
Job Titles:
- Practitioner Faculty
- Writer, Artist
Carolene Cabrera King is an educator, writer, artist, and breathwork facilitator committed to the deep learning and unlearning we must do to build a world of liberation. In her work with Forged Ed, an organization that supports educators as they build schools where students of color thrive, Carolene designs and facilitates professional development on equity for educators across the country. She is an alumna of the year-long Antiracist Teacher's Cohort with Joe Truss, and she has been a featured teacher speaker at the Dismantling White Supremacy in Schools Conference. Carolene graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a double major in Theatre and Literature/Writing. From there, she completed a Master's in Education at the High Tech High Graduate School of Education, with a focus on teacher leadership, studying how teachers can cultivate environments that help students learn empathy.
In 2013, Carolene was a founding teacher and Literacy Coach at El Dorado New Tech High School, creating the vision and mission of the school with 4 other teachers. Following her time with New Tech, she returned to California where she taught 9th grade and coached the improv team at High Tech High North County for a decade. She went on to New York University to complete a second Master's in Art, Activism, & Community Practice where her thesis work focused on rights of the Indigenous Lumad People in the Philippines, the country where her parents immigrated to the United States from, in collaboration with the New York Committee of Human Rights in the Philippines. She is the recipient of the 2013 Teacher Excellence Award in El Dorado, Arkansas, and the recipient of the 2018 Innovative Use of Technology in the Classroom award. She is the proud mother to Kayda Pauline King, and proud partner to magician Skyler King.
Hi, I am Charity. I support both the San Diego Teacher Residency and Educational Leadership programs. My journey in education administration began at National University where I oversaw the Teaching Performance Assessment Program and through evening coursework earned a Bachelor's Degree in Organizational Behavior.
Job Titles:
- Director, M.Ed. Teaching & Learning / Improvement Coach
Curtis Taylor is currently serving as an improvement coach at High Tech High's Center for Research on Equity & Innovation in San Diego, California, with 10+ years of teaching experience. Taylor's passion is for every student to see themselves as a brilliant mathematician. He is part of a Mathematical Agency Improvement Community that is working toward abolishing the phrase "I am not a math person".
Because of his passion, Taylor has made equity in math his priority. He has served as the co-project director for the Lesson Study Fellowship at all High Tech High Schools, a collaborative effort to promote more equitable practices in math classrooms. Taylor also is a faculty member of High Tech High's Graduate School of Education, where he co-facilitates the capstone course for the Teacher Apprentice Program. Taylor holds a B.A in elementary education from Clemson University, a M.Ed. from the University of San Diego, and has recently completed his Ed.D in Educational Leadership from the University of California San Diego. His dissertation focuses on the impact of lesson studies on math teachers' understanding and self-efficacy in culturally relevant pedagogy.
Deborah Meier is currently on the faculty of New York University's Steinhardt School of Education as a senior scholar and adjunct professor. She is also a Board member and director of New Ventures at Mission Hill, director and advisor to the Forum for Democracy and Education, and on the Board of The Coalition of Essential Schools. Meier has spent more than four decades working in public education as a teacher, writer and public advocate. She began her teaching career as a kindergarten and Head Start teacher in Chicago, Philadelphia and New York City schools. She was the founder and teacher-director of a network of highly successful public elementary schools in East Harlem. Between 1992 and 1996 she also served as co-director of the Coalition Campus Project that successfully redesigned the reform of two large failing city high schools, and created a dozen new small Coalition schools. She was an advisor to New York City's Annenberg Challenge and Senior Fellow at the Annenberg Institute at Brown University from 1995-1997. From 1997 to 2005, she was the founder and principal of the Mission Hill School, a K-8 Boston Public Pilot school serving 180 children in the Roxbury community.
Meier attended Antioch College and received a Master's in history from the University of Chicago. She has received honorary degrees from Bank Street College of Education, Brown, Bard, Clark, Teachers College of Columbia University, Dartmouth, Harvard, Hebrew Union College, Hofstra, The New School, Lesley College, SUNY Albany, UMASS Lowell, and Yale. She was a recipient of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 1987. Her books, The Power of Their Ideas: Lessons to America from a Small School in Harlem (1995), Will Standards Save Public Education? (2000), nbsp; In Schools We Trust (2002), Keeping School, with Ted and Nancy Sizer (2004) and Many Children Left Behind (2004) are all published by Beacon Press.
Job Titles:
- Project Co - Director, CARPE
Job Titles:
- Co - Director, Big Picture Learning San Diego
Job Titles:
- Director, M.Ed. Educational Leadership
For 25 years Mr. Kemerer has taught education law as a Regents Professor at the University of North Texas in Denton, where he also served as the Director of the Center for the Study of Education Reform and conducted several major studies on school choice and charter schools. Most recently, he was a Professor in Residence at the University of San Diego, teaching education law in both the School of Law and the School of Leadership and Education. He received his doctorate in educational administration and policy analysis from Stanford University in 1975 with a law minor from Stanford Law School. He has authored, coauthored, or co-edited twelve books. Among them is the legal textbook Constitutional Rights (West Publishing Company 1979); School Choice and Social Controversy: Politics, Policy and Law (Brookings Institution Press 1999); and School Choice Tradeoffs: Liberty, Equity, and Diversity (University of Texas Press 2002). He received the Scribes Certificate of Distinction in 1992 from the American Society of Writers on Legal Subjects for William Wayne Justice: A Judicial Biography (University of Texas Press 1991) and the 2002 Bronze Medal Book of the Year Award in Education from Foreword Magazine for School Choice Tradeoffs. His latest book, California School Law, was published by Stanford University Press in 2005.
Gary Hoachlander is president of ConnectEd: The California Center for College and Career. Beginning his career in 1966 as a brakeman for the Western Maryland Railroad, Gary has devoted most of his professional life to helping young people learn by doing connecting education to the opportunities, challenges, and many different rewards to be found through work. Widely known for his expertise in career and technical education and many other aspects of elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education, Gary has consulted extensively for the U.S. Department of Education, state departments of education, local school districts, foundations, and a variety of other clients. Gary is the president of MPR Associates, Inc., an educational research and development organization closely affiliated with ConnectEd. He is also one of the country's leading policy analysts for the U.S. Department of Education, including the National Center for Education Statistics and the Office of Vocational and Adult Education. Both MPR Associates and ConnectEd are headquartered in Berkeley, California. Gary earned his bachelor's degree at Princeton University and holds master's and doctoral degrees from the Department of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley.
Job Titles:
- Envision Education Oakland
Job Titles:
- Chief of Staff & Operations
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- Leadership & Education Sciences, University of San Diego
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- Chief Schools Officer, New Tech Network
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- Creative Director, Center for Love & Justice
Job Titles:
- Professional Learning Designer
Job Titles:
- Principal Fred Baker Elementary School, SDUSD
Leslie Santee Siskin is a noted sociologist of organizations and organizational change. Her research focuses on high school structuring, restructuring, and reform. She is the author or co-author of several articles and books about high schools, including Realms of Knowledge: Academic Departments in Secondary Schools, The Subjects in Question: Departmental Organization and the High School, and The New Accountability: High Schools and High-stakes Testing. She has been a Fellow at Columbia University and Cambridge University, and was Associate Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and at Hofstra before coming to New York University. Leslie earned her master's and doctoral degrees from Stanford University, and her bachelor's from Middlebury College.
Job Titles:
- Senior Fellow for the American Institutes for Research
Libia Gil is a senior fellow for the American Institutes for Research (AIR), where she assists in leadership development initiatives and collaborates with states and districts to develop strategies for improving student achievement. Libia was Superintendent of the Chula Vista Elementary School District for over nine years. Under her leadership, which began in 1993, the district experienced continuous growth and is currently serving more than 27,000 students in 43 schools. Libia also fostered the successful implementation of numerous partnerships and school change models, resulting in the creation of six charter schools that have shown continual gains in student achievement and customer satisfaction. In 2002, she received the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education for her outstanding leadership in Chula Vista. She is nationally recognized for her work in redesigning central office roles and functions to serve and support teaching and learning. Libia began her teaching career in the Los Angeles Unified School District and, with her colleagues, created a successful K-12 alternative school and numerous alternative classroom programs. She has held a variety of administrative positions including school principal, Area Administrator (supervisor of K-12 principals), and Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction. Libia holds a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis on bilingual and multicultural education from the University of Washington.
Job Titles:
- Project Director Deeper Learning Hub
Job Titles:
- Director of Leadership Development
Job Titles:
- Treasurer, HTH GSE Board of Directors
- VP of Strategic Partnerships at TGR Foundation
Michelle Kim is a VP of Strategic Partnerships at TGR Foundation (TGRF), a Tiger Woods Charity. For the past 16 years, she has been spearheading the public & private partnerships on behalf of the Foundation as well as emerging initiatives including TGRF's international expansion plan. Prior to joining TGRF, she was a Global HR Director at Accenture. Michelle has served as an advisor to Johns Hopkins University, KPCC-Southern California Public Radio and several Silicon Valley social impact firms. When Michelle is not traveling to remote parts of the world, she can be found on a tennis court working on her backhand.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Board of Trustees of High Tech High
- Managing Director of Jacobs Investment Company
- Vice - Chair, HTH Board of Directors
Mr. Gary Jacobs is the Managing Director of Jacobs Investment Company LLC (JIC). JIC was created in 1997 to participate in real estate development throughout the United States. In partnership with several developers, JIC has invested over sixty million dollars in projects ranging from government services to residential to commercial. Mr. Jacobs serves as Chairman of the Board of DermTech International, Ora Bio Ltd. and Nutrinia Ltd. Mr. Jacobs is also a director of Next Generation Technologies, GEO2 Technologies Inc., Flourinex Active Ltd. and Fallbrook Technologies.
In the community, Mr. Jacobs serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of High Tech High charter high schools, Graduate School of Education and is active in the national high school reform movement. HTH is founded on three design principles: personalization, adult-world connection, and a common intellectual mission. He also serves as Chair of the Dean's Advisory Council for the Social Sciences at University of California at San Diego UCSD. He and his wife, Jerri-Ann, created the Gary and Jerri-Ann Graduate Fellowship in Social Sciences Endowment and the Jerri-Ann and Gary Jacobs Chair in Social Sciences.
In addition, Mr. Jacobs is a past president of the United Jewish Federation of San Diego County. He and Jerri-Ann have endowed the Jerri-Ann and Gary Jacobs Teen Director position and created an endowment for the senior department at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center, Jacobs Family Campus. Mr. Jacobs is also a board member of the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center, the San Diego Center for Jewish Culture, Jewish Community Foundation, The San Diego Foundation and the UCSD Board of Overseers.
In the summer of 2000, Mr. Jacobs created and funded the Gary and Jerri-Ann Jacobs International Teen Leadership Institute. The institute brings together ten Jewish teenagers from San Diego, ten Jewish teenagers from the Shaar HarNegev region in Israel, ten Israeli Bedouin teenagers from Segev Shalom and ten Palestinian teenagers from Gaza for a year long program during which participants and staff travel together to San Diego, study historical Muslim/Jewish relations in Spain for a week and then in Israel for a week to study with a modern perspective.
Mr. Jacobs graduated in 1979 from the University of California at San Diego with a B.A. in Management Science. He worked as a Software Programmer and Engineer at Linkabit Inc. and QUALCOMM from 1979 through 1996, then as a Senior Education Specialist until 2000 working with K-12 educational institutions to enhance science and math studies."
Nancy Faust Sizer is a career teacher who has worked in public and private high schools, including Cambridge Rindge and Latin, Phillips Academy, and the Wheeler School. With her husband, Theodore R. Sizer, she has taught at Brown University and currently teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Both Nancy and Ted recently served as acting co-principals at the Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School where Nancy also was Transition Counselor, helping to lead its first graduating class through the transition to postsecondary education. The Students Are Watching: Schools and the Moral Contract (Beacon Press, 1999) is her most recent book, written with her husband Ted.
Job Titles:
- Director, School Redesign
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- Professional Learning Coordinator
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- Director of Experience Design
Job Titles:
- Project Director, PBL Leadership Academy
Richard C. Atkinson served from 1995-2003 as the seventeenth president of the University of California system. His eight-year tenure was marked by innovative approaches to admissions and outreach, research initiatives to accelerate the university's contributions to the state's economy, and a challenge to the country's most widely used admissions examination the SAT 1 that initiated major changes in the way millions of America's youth will be tested for college admissions. Before becoming president of the UC System, he served for fifteen years as chancellor of UC San Diego, leading its emergence as one of the top research universities in the nation. His own research in cognitive science and psychology addresses problems of memory and cognition. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Education, and the American Philosophical Society. He is a former director of the National Science Foundation, a past president of the American Association of Universities, and was a long-term member of the faculty at Stanford University. A mountain in Antarctica is named is his honor.
Job Titles:
- Professional Learning Designer
Job Titles:
- Director of Continuous Improvement
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- Director, HTH Residency Grant
Job Titles:
- Chairman, HTH GSE Board of Directors
Shafeen Charania is a successful and proven leader, marketer, business strategist and entrepreneur. He has more than 20 years experience in a variety of US and international roles with companies like Microsoft and IBM, where he excelled by exhibiting creativity, customer and market savvy, leadership, and by achieving high impact results.
Shafeen's strength is solving complex problems, really understanding the nature of a situation, and then finding creative answers that are attainable, sustainable, and transformational.
A passionate entrepreneur, Shafeen is a partner/founder of several hightech/ education/media startups based in Seattle, Washington. Shafeen also consults to corporations, educational institutions, governments and nonprofits on new market entry, global business execution, strategy, vision, mission, and marketing/business execution.
He is a noted public speaker and lecturer, and has spoken at a number of business schools across the United States and Canada, including Foster School of Business at University of Washington, Harvard Business School, Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, Ross School of Business at University of Michigan, Sauder School of Business at University of British Columbia, and Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Job Titles:
- Superintendent of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District
Ms. Shiels proudly serves as the Superintendent of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District (SVUSD). SVUSD serves the city of Sonoma and the unincorporated Valley area between Glen Ellen and the Napa County border. She works alongside the proud and hardworking staff over 600 employees who educate and nurture nearly 4000 students across five elementary schools, two middle schools, and both a comprehensive and continuation high school. The school district is excited to be moving forward several key bond projects, including improvements to classrooms, greater technology, and pool and athletic fields. The first year of her tenure, new board members and staff met to update the district mission, vision and core beliefs. This work, once through the final vetting and after final board approval, will serve as the North Star for decisions in the district regarding student success. District work will begin to focus on using data to problem-solve together, having the best instruction in every classroom and strengthening the system to meet every student where they are.
Previously, Ms. Shiels served a statewide organization as the Director of Education for the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (CCEE), where she worked closely with districts. As a Sonoma County resident, she traveled the state to support and champion districts seeking to improve outcomes for those historically underserved. Post-fire, it was clear it was time to reinvest personal effort and attention to the local community she values so much. She feels privileged to be able to serve students and families of the Valley.
She has over 20 years of public education experience at the administrative and classroom level. She also had the opportunity to serve as the Superintendent of Santa Rosa City School (SRCS) District for four years. Her proudest career highlights include empowering district culture shift to restorative justice for the entire school community and intentionally creating inclusive community and organizational cultures.
As a Santa Rosa resident for nearly a decade, she has been a strong supporter and partner of a community working together. She believes that public-private partnerships across the county to ensure community health, economic vitality, and educational attainment at all organizational levels. She is a proud member of the Valley community and looks forward to working together on behalf of each and every student. The future of the Valley is in SVUSD classrooms right now.
Job Titles:
- Director, New School Creation Fellowship
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- Founder
- Principal
- Instructor at the UPenn Graduate School of Education
Stephanie Rogen, Principal and Founder of Greenwich Leadership Partners LLC (GLP, www.greenwichleadershippartners.com), is a consultant, coach, and facilitator to educational and not-for-profit leadership. Her work integrates more than twenty-five years' experience in the corporate, educational and not-for-profit sectors. Stephanie brings a fresh approach to strategy, leadership development, and transformational change in schools and organizations. An experienced executive coach and facilitator, she works with a diverse range of nationally recognized schools and not-for-profits ranging from Columbia University to The White House Project and Northwell Health.
Stephanie's approach to innovation in organizational systems is enhanced by her collaborations with educational thought leaders such as Tony Wagner (author, The Global Achievement Gap, Creating Innovators) and her work with young professionals incorporate and not-for-profit environments. She has established herself as an expert in Gen X and Gen Y populations and helps organizations to "bridge the gap" between generations in communications, performance management, and collaborative learning. She served as Educational Advisor to the 2015 Sundance Selected Documentary "Most Likely to Succeed" and the associated movement to change education nation-wide. She regularly writes and speaks on topics related to education and leadership development of young adults and women, and has been featured in Forbes, The Glass Hammer, Career-Intelligencer, and other major industry publications.
Stephanie's path to the not-for-profit sector was a long and winding one. During the period of 1992 to 2000, she was Vice President, Strategic Planning and senior advisor to the CEO of IBJ Whitehall Financial Group (NY). In this capacity, she worked with the CEO and his executive team through a period of financial crisis, organizational restructuring, and ultimately a sale. She managed major bank wide consulting projects and investment banking relationships. In addition, Stephanie was responsible for developing a CEO succession plan and transition process, which she managed to completion.
Stephanie serves as an instructor at the UPenn Graduate School of Education. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics with a minor in Organizational Behavior from Brown University (1986) and a Masters of Education (EdM) in Administration and Policy from Harvard University (1992). She received her certification in executive and organizational coaching from Columbia University in 2011. She has served on the boards of Blair Academy, St. Luke's School, the Greenwich United Way, and Year Up.
Stephanie is based in Greenwich, CT.
Job Titles:
- President and CEO of the NewSchools Venture Fund
Ted Mitchell is President and CEO of the NewSchools Venture Fund, a venture philanthropy firm working to transform public education by supporting the creation of entrepreneurial organizations that serve the nation's most underserved communities. Ted became the CEO of NewSchools in the fall of 2005. He began a lifetime's work in education as a professor at Dartmouth College, moving to Stanford, then to UCLA, and most recently to Occidental College, where he served as President from 1999-2005. Ted is a national leader in the effort to provide high-quality education for all students and has long been active in California and Los Angeles educational reform initiatives. He currently chairs the Governor's Committee on Educational Excellence, charged with making recommendations to overhaul California's system of K-12 finance and governance. Ted received his bachelor's degree in History and Economics, his master's degree in History, and his doctorate in the history of American education, all from Stanford. He also served as a member of the Stanford Board of Trustees from 1985-1990.
Job Titles:
- Director, National Faculty & Strategic Partnerships