"The Teachers Leadership Institute has helped me take my role as a teacher leader at my site more seriously. I have been encouraged to have faith in my own voice."
- Programs
- Educator Programs
- Teachers Leadership Institute
- Advisors and Participants
Advisors:
Barbara Henderson is the Academic Advisor for the Teachers Leadership Institute. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Elementary Education at San Francisco State University. She taught elementary school in the Bay Area, and then earned her Ph.D. from Stanford University. Her research expertise is in teacher research, self-study research of teacher education practices, and collaborative oral inquiry processes such as Prospect’s Descriptive Review processes. She teaches graduate courses in education on child development and research methodology. Together with Daniel Meier, she co-authored a book on teacher research entitled Learning from Young Children in the Classroom: The Art and Science of Teacher Research. Barbara and Daniel also co-edit a teacher research feature entitled “Voices of Practitioners” in the journal Young Children. Since 2005, Barbara has been the academic advisor for the San Francisco Education Fund’s Teachers Leadership Institute.
Sheldon Gen is the policy advisor for the Teachers Leadership Institute. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Administration and the new doctoral program in Education Leadership, at San Francisco State University. He researches and teaches courses in public policy and applied research. His recent research has examined the growth and impact of private philanthropy in public K-12 education. He has advised TLI since 2004.
Policy Fellows:
Claudia Bonilla Haas is a National Board Certified Teacher. She is originally from Mexico. Claudia has been working as a bilingual teacher (Spanish/English) teaching grades K-5 in the San Francisco Unified School District since 1996. She currently works as a science coach supporting 4 th and 5 th grade teachers in the classroom at low performing schools. She also facilitates and provides district-wide science professional development for teachers. Claudia is a Policy Fellow working on a team research project on teacher turnover in San Francisco.
K.E. Hones, the Library Technology Teacher at Stevenson School, has been teaching in SFUSD since 1987. K.E. attained her National Board Professional Library Media Teacher Credential in 2003. She also facilitates large and small groups for the Stanford National Board Support Program. She is an active member of the Prop H Committee and a State Farm National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Liaison for Northern California. K.E. has written many grants and received a Golden Apple Award in 2002. This year she received the 2008 Maureen Hayes Author/Illustrator Visit Award.
Peter Hippard is a San Francisco native and loves teaching in the City by the Bay. This is his second year with the Ed Fund and the Teachers Leadership Institute. For the past decade Peter has been a teacher at Clarendon Elementary School, in the Japanese Bilingual Bicultural Program. This program offers an enrichment of Japanese language and culture that has a thirty-year history in the SFUSD. Peter lived for four years in Japan where he was an ESL teacher and helped create a bilingual magazine in the city of Sendai. He then received his teaching credential from UC Berkeley in 1999, and received an M.A. in Educational Technology from SFSU in 2003. Currently, Peter teaches 4 th and 5 th grade.
Sara Falls has taught for eight years in three different districts. She currently teaches English at Abraham Lincoln High School in the Sunset. Not only does she teach English, she is the sponsor of the Creative Writing Club, New Global Citizens club, and the class of 2008. Originally from Michigan, Sara received her B.A. in English and her teaching credential from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. While there, she co-facilitated improvisational theatre and creative writing with incarcerated youth and adults. She has also worked as an environmental educator. She writes poetry, creative non-fiction, and short stories, and publishes her own zine. This is her fourth year with the Teachers Leadership Institute.
Susan Gold has been with the SFUSD for over 20 years and currently teaches English language arts and social studies at Presidio Middle School. While most of her experience is at the middle school level, she has also taught 2 nd and 5 th grades. Susan’s professional development experience includes coordinating an elementary school initiative, “Different Ways of Knowing,” focused on literacy development through the arts, mentoring teachers, implementing service learning in their curriculum, and teaching communicative language strategies to Japanese teachers of English in Shizuoka, Japan. In addition, Susan has taught curriculum and instruction courses to credential candidates at New College of California, San Francisco State, and the University of San Francisco where she is a doctoral student in the International and Multicultural Education Department. After grading student work and writing papers, she devotes her free time to making pottery. Susan would like to thank my two wonderful daughters for encouraging me in all these endeavors. This is her second year as a Policy Fellow with the Teachers Leadership Institute.
Virginia P. Marshall is a veteran teacher at Galileo High School and is delighted to be a returning Ed Fund TLI Fellow. Currently, Virginia facilitates after-school programs for the SFUSD with a focus on underserved students, particularly African American and Latino students, who reside in Bayview/Hunters Point. Her tenure with the district includes Summer/Saturday School Administrator, Program Resource Teacher, Mentor Teacher, Computer Teacher, Gifted and Talented Education Coordinator ( GATE ), and Black Student Union sponsor. Over the years, her greatest joy has been to help graduating seniors secure scholarships and enter college. Also, Virginia was part of a delegation of 14 educators to visit South Africa in the summer of 2005 where they adopted three schools and delivered school supplies. In addition, she traveled with Galileo to Shanghai and Beijing, China in 2005 and 2004 to initiate a Sister-School Agreement. Teaching is the joy of Virginia ’s life along with her three children Maritza, Vincent, and Vanessa. Her hobbies include reading, traveling, train rides, visiting national parks, and the enjoying the great outdoors.
Research Fellows:
David Lauter has taught high school sciences for 13 years and currently teaches biology at George Washington High. Prior to teaching David did biological research in agriculture, first as a graduate student and post-doctorate at UC Davis and then as a researcher for the government of Israel. As an undergraduate David also majored in history so his interests have always been split between wanting to know the story and wanting to step back and do analysis. As a teacher he wants students who feel alienated and isolated from the learning environment to become engaged in learning about biology. Currently David is trying to make biology fun by having students feel involved in learning nature’s stories. Class experiments are designed so students can compare and contrast two stories, thereby developing their analytical skills. David says participating in the Teachers Leadership Institute helps him to improve his teaching practices and gives him a clearer picture of how he fits into the very large story of public education in the USA. He and his wife have been married for over 30 years and have raise four children who are currently living in D.C., Paris, India, and L.A. David and his wife are both teachers, which he says helps alleviate their serious case of empty nest syndrome.
Debra Russell has taught high school English for six years. She started her career in education at her alma mater, Century High School, in Southern California. In addition to teaching, she served as the Puente Project advisor, Mock Trial team coach, Americorps service-learning project team member, and WASC committee member. Debra also worked closely with the Paulo Freire Democratic Project through Chapman University where she earned her teaching credential and M.A. in education. During her summers, she worked as a teacher in the Upward Bound outreach program and in the America China Teaching center in Guandong Province, China along with earning her master’s degree in rhetoric. Now, Debra teaches and coordinates service-learning projects at the Life Learning Academy, a small charter high school on Treasure Island in San Francisco.
Ellena Weldon has taught middle school and high school students for the past 12 years in Portland, Oregon, Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, and in Stockton, California before coming to teach in San Francisco. This is her third year teaching English and journalism at Burton High School in San Francisco. She received both her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Her experiences teaching in communities of privileged children in Portland and Venezuela and teaching underprivileged children at an inner city high school in San Francisco motivates her to pursue research related to race and education in her classroom.
Holly Link is in her sixth year teaching in SFUSD at Buena Vista Elementary in the two-way Spanish immersion school, where she is the English Language Development Specialist. Before teaching in San Francisco, she taught in a two-way immersion program in New York City while completing a master’s degree in bilingual education. She is a third year Fellow in the Teachers Leadership Institute, and her action research interests include supporting English learners as they transition to English literacy and English learner student engagement. She is also interested in exploring issues of power and voice, and their relation to language use (Spanish and English) within her school community.
Josey Sadler currently teaches an English Language Development 2nd grade class at E.R. Taylor Elementary School. Prior to teaching in San Francisco, Josey had the opportunity to work with indigenous people and upland farmers in conservation and protection projects sponsored by the UNDP-FAO and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in the Philippines. Little did Josey know then that this five-year experience would prepare her for a career in teaching. Her academic background is rooted in the environment, and while her passion revolves around this, she is also very interested in the arts and multiculturalism as an integral part of her class’s curriculum. Currently, her action research is focused on how she can best support my English language learners’ writing and level of engagement using experience-based learning as a strategy for teaching.
Maria Navarro received her teaching education at CCNY in New York City, where she began her teaching career. In 1981, Maria moved to California and shortly afterward started working for the SFUSD. While most of her experience is at the high school level, Maria has taught all grade levels in the SFUSD for over two decades. Presently, she teaches at Downtown High School . Maria earned a master’s degree from San Francisco State University in Education Administration, and currently is a doctoral student at USF’s School of Education. She has worked as a school administrator for the district during the summer and is a member of the leadership committee and the school site council at my school. Maria has participated in the Ed Fund’s Josephine Miles Fellowship program at UC Berkeley, where she also took graduate level courses. Her hobbies are reading, traveling, writing poetry, and playing the guitar.
Natalie Swope is in her third year of teaching middle school language arts and reading for the San Francisco public schools. She has also given private and group violin instruction to students of an after-school arts enrichment program. Prior to moving to California, Natalie worked in elementary and secondary education and earned a master’s degree in teaching from the University of Virginia, focusing her research component of the program on linking film to literature in the English classroom. This year she is excited to study the effects of infusing language arts and reading curricula with art and music to increase student learning and engagement.
Ruben Quezada has been a Social Studies teacher for 11 years in both middle and high school settings, including one year in alternative education. Ruben is new to San Francisco schools, but not to the issues and challenges facing many urban districts. His undergraduate work in Spanish language and literature allowed him to create an AP Spanish language program for native Spanish speakers. He also has an M.A.T. in social studies, which has afforded him the opportunity to create elective courses such as ethnic studies. Ruben has taught in a number of summer enrichment programs for underserved students in Upward Bound, Biz.Camps, and transition programs for incoming 9 th graders. Recently, Ruben’s interest is in middle level education; he teaches history and Spanish at Willie Brown College Prep Academy and assisting in the transition toward entering middle school. In particular, he leads efforts in creating and implementing a teacher advisory program, and his dream is to one day become a middle school administrator. Ruben greatly appreciates the support and encouragement of his wife and three children; his wife also teaches middle school, and they live in Alameda with their children ages 7, 9, and 11.
Tanya Friedman is in her 17 th year of teaching—her 14 th with SFUSD and her 12 th at San Francisco Community School, a diverse K-8 school with a project-based curriculum. She earned National Board certification in 2002. She has also participated in the Teacher Inquiry Project with the Bay Area Coalition of Equitable Schools and the Teacher Research Collaborative, sponsored by the National Writing Project and the Coalition of Essential Schools. Tanya’s primary focus has been investigating how teachers can interrupt the patterns of inequity that plague our school system. This year she is working on a peer observation structure that supports teachers to look deeply at the ways issues of race and class inequity play out in their classrooms. She is also examining how exit standards and portfolio assessment impacts African American and Latino students’ motivation and achievement.
Xio Lin was born and raised in China. Xio came to the United States after she completed her B.A. in China, earned a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificate in Australia, and worked as a college teacher for about eight years. In the United States, she completed her M.A. in TESL with the department of education at USF. After that she became the assistant director at the California English Academy, and later, a center director with International Culture and Exchange Cooperation working with international students and performing administrative tasks. Xio loves teaching and children and has always wanted to teach. After 10 years of experience with adult students, she decided to begin her career as an elementary school teacher. Xio earned her CLAD Credential from SFSU and passed a language and culture test to qualify for a BCLAD Credential. She began working at Ulloa Elementary in 2002 as a 3rd grade bilingual teacher, where her wonderful experiences with her classes have convinced her that her career choice is a very good one. She finds teaching young children very rewarding, and she has truly enjoyed her time with her smart, lovely students.
___________________________________________________________________________________
For more information, contact Program Manager Jeff Issenberg at 415.912.2929 x236 or jeff@sfedfund.org