Ellen Cogut
Ellen Cogut is a speech pathologist, who has worked primarily with pre-school language impaired children in a variety of settings, including Brookdale Hospital Developmental Center, The League School, and The Little Room of the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School. From 1988 - 1990 she supervised graduate students in speech pathology at Brooklyn College. Ellen has served on the Boards of the Brooklyn Heights Association, the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School, and Graham -Windham Agency, and is currently serving on the Board of The Brooklyn Children’s Museum. She received her BA from George Washington University in 1969 and her MA from Temple University in 1971.

She and her husband, Casey Cogut, have two daughters. They have lived in Brooklyn since 1973.

K. Don Cornwell
K. Don Cornwell currently serves as Managing Director in Morgan Stanley’s Investment Banking Division. He works in the Mergers & Acquisitions area where he focuses on retail, fashion, media and entertainment companies. Prior to Morgan Stanley, he worked in the Finance and Strategic Planning department of the National Football League and as a consultant in McKinsey’s New York Office.

He received his MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and his AB from Harvard College where he was a Government concentrator.

He currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the East Harlem Tutorial Program, an after school one-on-one tutoring program for the youth of East Harlem. He is also on the Board of the Community Roots Charter School of Brooklyn, New York.

Katharine Darrow
Katharine Darrow has had a thirty-year career as an attorney and business executive in New York City. During her legal career at The New York Times Company her representation of the company covered all aspects of its corporate and publishing activities, including many that are of direct application to the creation and conduct of a charter school. These include issues relating to the New York Open Meetings Law, the Freedom of Information laws, conduct of not-for-profit corporations, real estate matters, contract drafting and negotiation, labor relations, human resources and corporate development. As a business executive she was, at various times, responsible for the financial and operating performance of several subsidiaries of The New York Times newspaper and for the company’s Broadcasting Group.

Debbian Fletcher-Blake
Miss Fletcher-Blake has been a Family Nurse Practitioner for over ten years. She has been working to eliminate disparities in healthcare in underserved communities for her entire Nurse Practitioner career. She worked for the Institute for Urban Family Health a non- profit healthcare organization for over nine years as medical director for the Homeless Program. She directed up to ten homeless shelters, and soup kitchens in New York City. She currently works for New York University as the clinical director and Nurse Practitioner for Brooklyn Community Health Partners, a mobile health clinic in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Debbian was an Adjunct Instructor in the College of Nursing at New York University teaching Community Nursing from 1996 to 2000 and was honored as Instructor of the year 1998.

Amy Fontaine is currently the Co-Lower School Librarian at St. Ann’s School in Brooklyn where she provides library instruction for students in kindergarten through third grade. She has taught for over twenty-five years, primarily at the early childhood and elementary levels, at several New York schools including the Greenwich Village Neighborhood School. During her tenure at Brooklyn’s Plymouth Church School she also served as a curriculum consultant. A trained reading specialist, she works privately with children and adults with reading difficulties and delays.

She received her B.A. in History from Oberlin College, her M.A. in Early Childhood and Elementary Education from New York University, and her New York State Reading Certification from Hunter College. She currently serves on the Children’s Book Committee at Bank Street College of Education, which is responsible for the annual publication of The Best Children’s Books of the Year.<br>

Raised in New York, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.

Allison Keil
Allison Keil grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Ms. Keil has taught and consulted in private, public and charter schools in New York City. After graduating from Brown University Ms. Keil went to work at St. Ann’s School one of the most highly respected private schools in New York. After two years working as an assistant teacher Ms. Keil was offered a Masters teaching position but declined in order to pursue teaching in the public schools. Ms. Keil was accepted into the very rigorous Teach For America program, which prepares top college graduates to teach in under resourced public schools. After spending the summer training in Houston, Texas and teaching in a bi-lingual 2nd grade classroom Ms. Keil accepted a first grade teaching position at PS 30 in Harlem, New York where she taught for two years. In her second year at PS 30 Ms. Keil’s second grade classroom was chosen as a model room for the newly selected Success For All Reading program. During this time Ms. Keil pursued professional development opportunities by attending the Teacher’s College intensive writing workshop summer institute (which she attended twice) as well as beginning to take masters level education classes at Bank Street College.

Beth Lief
Beth Lief has been a leader in public education reform and innovation for 20 years. She is currently a Nation Fellow at the Institute for Learning, based at the Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh. The Institute for Learning is an internationally recognized center for linking research and practice in urban public school reform. Her work is focused on leadership development and regional instructional and professional learning design in Regions 1 and Region 2 of the New York City Department of Education, and most recently in Region 10.

Marion Panas is an associate in the Exempt Organizations Group of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. She advises a variety of public charities and private foundations on structural and operating issues, including governance, reorganizations and domestic and international grantmaking. In addition, she has significant expertise in reviewing private fund investments, including private equity funds and funds in other asset categories such as real estate and venture capital, on behalf of exempt organization investors.

She earned her J.D. at New York University School of Law, where she graduated*censored*laude, and earned her B.A. degree from Yale University, where she majored in Ethics, Politics & Economics.

In addition to serving on the Board of Community Roots, she currently serves as a member of the Non-Profit Organizations Committee of The Association of the Bar of the City of New York and as a member of the Pro Bono Advisory Council of New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.

She grew-up in Brooklyn.

Melissa Rackoff is a Vice President of Brause Realty Inc., a family owned and operated commercial real estate company founded in 1927. Prior to joining her family’s company, Melissa worked for Morgan Stanley in their Real Estate Investment Banking Group from 1998 - 2003. At Brause Realty, Melissa oversees the leasing and management of several of the company’s Manhattan properties. In addition, Melissa focuses her efforts on redeveloping/repositioning and growing the firm’s portfolio. Melissa graduated*censored*laude from Harvard College with a degree in economics and serves as a vice-chair for the class of 1998’s fundraising activities. Currently, Melissa is the Chairman of the Real Estate New Leadership Cabinet of the State of Israel Bonds and is a member of Civic Builder’s real estate advisory board. Melissa was treasurer of the Young Men and Women’s Real Estate Association of New York (YM/WREA) in 2006 and continues to actively participate in YM/WREA’s activities.

Sara Stone
Sara Stone has been working in public education for seven years. After graduating from Syracuse University with a degree in Inclusive Education Ms. Stone began working as a consultant teacher at Midtown West (MTW), a top performing Public Elementary School in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of NYC. As a consultant teacher Ms. Stone worked with students with learning disabilities in small groups or one on one in the classroom setting and worked to develop Individualized Education Plans and assist teachers in modifying curriculum to meet the needs of the students in their classrooms. The following year Ms. Stone took on a fourth grade head teaching position. Ms. Stone has had a major role in curriculum development at Midtown West. She has specifically focused on developing a streamlined social studies curriculum across the grades, aligned with New York State standards. Ms. Stone has taken advantage of professional development opportunities at Midtown West as well as in the larger community by attending intensive workshops on the TERC math program and Teacher’s College Summer Writing Workshop Institute. At MTW Ms. Stone sat on two important committees, the Pupil Personnel Team and the Think Tank, a small group of representative teachers who meet to discuss and manage school related issues.