ARISE High School - Granicus

•
•
•
Emma Paulino, who will continue to play a leadership role in ARISE High School as a
parent representative, has been a full-time organizer for two and a half years with
Oakland Community Organizations (OCO), a faith-based organizing group
representing 40,000 Oakland families. Prior to her organizing work at OCO, she was
a leader with St. Elizabeth/OCO for six years. Emma provided organizing support for
a small schools policy in Oakland and collaborated on the design and organization of
ASCEND, a K-8 school in East Oakland, which was one of the first small, autonomous
schools developed in Oakland Unified School District. Emma was born in Michoacan,
Mexico, and has been in the U.S. since 1985. She is married and has three children
in the Oakland Public Schools: Fhatima and MacEdward attend Oakland Technical
High School, while Edgardo, Jr., an eighth grade student at ASCEND, hopes to be a
founding student at ARISE High School.
A partial list of other members of the design team includes Bronwen LaMay, an
English teacher with experience in the Mills College Upward Bound program; Jean
Johnson, a parent of an Upward Bound student; Josue Hernandez, a current student
in the Upward Bound program and student board member for Oakland Unified School
District; Michael Torres, chairman of the theater arts program at Laney College; and
Eileen and Leslie Barrera, current 8 th grade students and potential founding students
at ARISE High School. Jane Bowyer, chair of the School of Education at Mills, and
Delaine Eastin, a professor and former California State Superintendent of Public
Instruction, have both aided the design team in an advisory capacity and will continue
to play that role for the school.
The team brings substantial experience in the key areas needed to ensure the
school's success, which Mills College will supplement. In addition, the founders have
tapped into a number of development partners, including CCSA and EdTec. CCSA is
providing technical support on charter school development. EdTec is assisting the
school to set up compliant, sustainable business systems that will ensure that ARISE
HS opens with a solid business operations and financial management structure. The
array of people on the team and at Mills responsible for creating and sustaining an
excellent new charter high school has tremendous collective experience.
Attached as Attachment II are the resumes of ARISE High School's founders and
several design team members, including Mills College staff. Some of these individuals
will be future staff and Board members. Attachment III includes material about the
Coalition of Essential Schools and the CES Small Schools Project.
6
ARISE High School
Charter Petition Submitted to the Oakland Unified School District
July 18, 2006