Board
Adela Madrigal Jones
Adela Madrigal Jones is the retired Superintendent of Sanger Unified School District. She beganher career as an elementary teacher before leaving the classroom to work in the EnglishLearner Services Department for the district. She then moved on to administration, becoming aVice Principal and Elementary Principal, an Area Superintendent, and eventually AssociateSuperintendent of Curriculum and Instruction. […]
Stefanie Phillips
Stefanie Phillips is an expert in innovative talent management systems and system change efforts. As Chief Talent Officer, she leads WestEd’s Human Resources, Learning & Development, and Employee Experience and Belonging teams, and she is responsible for developing and implementing innovative strategies for the agency and modernizing the agency approach to talent development and management. […]
Phil Halperin
Phil is a Co-Founder and the Executive Director of California Education Partners. As Executive Director, Phil is responsible for guiding the mission and vision of our work. By always having his eyes over the horizon one to three years away, Phil makes sure that the organization is providing a valuable service to our districts today […]
Laura Schwalm
Laura’s career in public education began as a student teacher in the Garden Grove Unified School District and concluded 42 years later as the superintendent. Her experiences included teaching and administration at both the elementary and secondary level, district office roles in curriculum and instruction, human resources and business and 15 years serving the district […]
Mike Hanson
Mike Hanson is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He is the former superintendent of the third largest urban school district in California, and co-founder and inaugural president of CORE, a nonprofit organization that seeks to improve student achievement by fostering highly productive, meaningful collaboration and learning between California’s […]
Jorge Ruiz de Velasco
Jorge Ruiz de Velasco is the Deputy Director of the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities. Affiliated with the Stanford Graduate School of Education, the Gardner Center develops leadership, conducts research, and works to support reform efforts in youth-serving organizations. His work focuses on the study and promotion of change in public […]
Jennifer O’Day
Jennifer O’Day is an Institute Fellow at AIR. Over the past 25 years, Dr. O’Day has carried out research, advised national and state policy makers, and written extensively in the areas of systemic standards-based reform, educational equity, accountability, and capacity-building strategies. One main focus of her work in recent years has been on strategies for […]
Ellen Moir
Ellen Moir began her career as a First-Grade Teacher at Grace Thille Elementary in Santa Paula, California. She went on to serve as the Executive Director of the New Teacher Center at the University of California–Santa Cruz for eleven years. Most recently, she served as the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of New Teacher Center […]