Chair: Kristin Ehrgood is president & founder of Sapientis, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of public education in Puerto Rico. Additionally, she is the President of the Flamboyan Foundation, a family foundation that focuses on improving public K-12 in school time through strategic partnerships in Puerto Rico and Washington, DC. In spring 2005, Ms. Ehrgood’s work at Sapientis was recognized by Ernst & Young when she was awarded Entrepreneur of the Year in the area of Social Responsibility. Previously, Ms Ehrgood joined Teach For America and taught for three years in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Trenton, New Jersey. Ms. Ehrgood later joined the Teach For America staff as Executive Director of their New Jersey region and then as Director of New Site Development. Ms. Ehrgood is a graduate of Bucknell University and Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Vice-chair: Mieka Wick is a Director at CityBridge Foundation, in charge of Partnerships, Programs and Strategy.  Her work is focused on efforts to educate and engage other local philanthropists in DC’s education landscape and build collaborations of funders around high impact investments in K-12 education reform in Washington, DC.

Mieka’s prior experience includes three years at New Profit Inc., a Boston-based venture philanthropy fund, where she served as Investor Relations Manager, and two years as a consultant to Massachusetts’ Commissioner of Education David Driscoll on teacher quality legislation for the State of MA.  After completing her MBA, she spent two years at Reebok International working on the merger of the Reebok brand with The Adidas Group.

Mieka holds a BA from Brown University and an MBA from Babson University.  She is a Founding Board Member of DC School Reform Now and is a Member-at-Large of the Executive Board of the National Cathedral School for Girls Alumnae Association.

Treasurer: Jerry Hauser co-founded and leads The Management Center, which provides management assistance and coaching to make it easier for leaders of progressive nonprofit organizations to achieve outstanding results. Before this, Jerry served as President and CEO of the Advocacy Institute and, for seven years, as Chief Operating Officer at Teach for America. In addition, Jerry worked as a Teach for America teacher in Compton, California and as a consultant at McKinsey & Company. Jerry received his BA from Duke University and JD from Yale.

Secretary: Mary Siddall is the founder and an advisory board member of America’s Future Foundation, a network of young conservative and libertarian leaders. In a previous life she ran the Heritage Foundation’s No Excuses campaign, a national marketing effort that showcased high-performing, high-poverty schools. A mother of three, Mary currently has two school-aged children enrolled in DCPS.

Terry Goings is the president of the Local School Restructuring Team (LSRT) at Coolidge High School DC, tasked with restructing the school after it failed to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)for five consecutive years, as mandated by the No Child Left Behind Program. Two of Terry’s children also graduated from Coolidge.

Andrew Simon is the founder and president of High Five Consulting, astrategic communications, public relations and political consulting firm. He previously served as the Deputy Regional Political Director at the Republican National Committee. He is a graduate of Bates College and an MBA Candidate at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Emily Bloomfield is Senior Policy Advisor at Stand for Children, an education advocacy non-profit that organizes (currently in six states) to advance initiatives promoting improved public education. Prior to returning to Washington DC several years ago she served on the school board, as vice chair and then chair, of the Santa-Monica-Malibu Unified School district. She has worked in economics, marketing and product management in a variety of private and non-governmental organizations over the past twenty five years. She holds an A.B. from the University of Chicago, an MPA from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and an M.Phil from Oxford University.