Chi Kim, Board Chair
Chi Kim serves as the Chief Executive Officer at Pure Edge, Inc., a private operating foundation dedicated to bringing educators and scholars strategies to achieve success through focus. Prior to joining the foundation, she served as a California school superintendent, school principal, leadership coach, classroom teacher, as well as a program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She is also co-founder of the Teaching Garden program that was adopted by the American Heart Association to support heart health through school gardens.
Chi is a 2018 Pahara-Aspen Education Fellow, serves on the Board of Directors of CASEL, YouthBuild USA, Coalition for Career Development Center, FairVote, and FECOP. She also serves on the national advisory councils of the COVID Collaborative, More Perfect, SEL4US, and Project Wayfinder.
She earned a B.A. in Psychology and an M.Ed. from UCLA, a Tier I Administrative Services credential from California State University, Dominguez Hills, Tier II Administrative Services credential from Loyola Marymount University, XPT Performance Breathing Certification and Oxygen Advantage Functional Breathing Certification. She is mom to three wonderful girls and resides in the greater Boston area.
Jason Griffiths, Interim Executive Director, Trustee
Jason Griffiths is an entrepreneurial and mission driven leader experienced in building innovative educational organizations. Jason was the founding headmaster of The Brooklyn Latin School (TBLS), a selective New York City public high school which grew from 43 to 625 students under his leadership. In 2013, just seven years after opening, US News and World Report ranked TBLS as the top public high school in New York State.
Jason has significant experience as a board member with multiple non-profit organizations. Jason is a founding trustee of The IBIS Group. He also has served on the boards of The Princeton Blairstown Center and New Leaders. Currently, Jason is a trustee of Annie Wright Schools, an International Baccalaureate (IB) School located in Tacoma, WA, and a member of the School Advisory Council at All Saints School, the largest Catholic elementary school in Oregon.
Jason holds an A.B. in History from Princeton and an M.Ed. from Temple.
Jason and his wife, Christy, live in Portland, Oregon with their son, Alston.
Dr. Dawn Brooks DeCosta, Trustee
Dr. Dawn Brooks DeCosta serves as the Deputy Superintendent of a public-school district in Harlem, NYC, serving 23 schools with approximately 9,300 students in grades K-12. Dawn began her service of teaching 25 years ago and worked as a teacher for the NYC DOE teaching in Harlem, NYC for 16 years and served as Principal of Thurgood Marshall Academy Lower School (TMALS) for over 10 years.
She received her EdD in Educational Leadership from Teachers College, Columbia University, an M.S. in Fine Art Education from Queens College, and a B.S. in Education from St. John’s University. She is the author of several published papers and an award-winning principal. She is the recipient of the 2015 Marvin Mauer Spotlight Award from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence for integrating the RULER program and is also a Cahn Fellow with Teachers College, Columbia University. She is married, has 4 children and two grandchildren.
Dr. Teri Lawler, Trustee
Dr. Teri Lawler is the Education Associate, Trauma-Informed Practices and Social and Emotional Learning School Support Services Work Group at the Delaware Department of Education. Teri was named Delaware School Psychologist of the Year in 2010. Her leadership and children’s mental health advocacy has been recognized by the National Association of School Psychologists, the National Education Association, and the Wilmington (DE) Chapter of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women. She presents regularly at the Trauma- Informed Schools Conference, National Youth At-Risk Conference, and the National Conference on School Mental Health.
Teri is a founding member of Delaware’s Compassionate Schools Learning Collaborative and the Compassionate Schools Test Lab. She is a charter member of the Wilmington Community Advisory Council for Youth Gun Violence Prevention and supporter of Trauma Matters Delaware. She serves on the Redding Consortium’s Workgroup on Social Determinants of Health, and the ACEs Subcommittee of the Governor’s Family Services Cabinet Council. In 2017, she completed the Child Trauma Academy’s certification in the Neuro-sequential Model of Education (NME), a brain-based healing framework for addressing developmental trauma. In November 2018, Teri joined the Delaware Department of Education to lead the implementation of trauma-informed practices and social and emotional leaning. In June 2022, she was honored by Governor John Carney with the Compassionate Champion Award for leadership excellence in state government. A native Virginian, Teri is a graduate of Hampton University, University of Delaware, and Wilmington University.
John Longley, Trustee
John Longley is the CEO of SageView Advisory Group. Previously, he served as president of the Western Region at Boston Private until it was acquired by SVB in 2021. In that role, John was responsible for the leadership and oversight of all West Coast activities.
John has more than 25 years of experience in the financial services industry. Before joining Boston Private, he was the CEO and cofounder of Dobot, a fintech company that developed personal finance applications (acquired by Fifth Third Bank in 2018). Before that, John served as managing director and head of Private Wealth at BlackRock iShares, where he led the distribution of iShares ETF products and services to leading broker dealers, national and regional banks and independent advisory firms across the US. Under his leadership, iShares achieved dramatic growth in both assets and revenue. He also spent 17 years at Citigroup, where he eventually served as CEO of Citi Private Bank North America.
John holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Swarthmore College. Currently, he’s a trustee of the Ross School District in Marin County, where he previously served as president.
Maria Neira, Trustee
Maria Neira, an elementary school bilingual teacher who rose through the ranks of union leadership to become a nationally recognized expert on educational issues, was vice president of New York State United Teachers representing more than 600,000 members. She led the union’s statewide initiatives and was the frontline advocate for educational policy.
Maria was appointed by President Obama to serve on the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. She also served on the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Advisory Council. Maria was a member of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and the founding publisher of Educator’s Voice. She is the recipient of several leadership awards.
Maria is passionate about amplifying the voices of educators, students, and families.
Dr. Robert Pianta, Trustee
Robert Pianta, PhD, is the Batten Bicentennial Professor of Early Childhood Education, Professor of Psychology, and founding director of the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning at the University of Virginia. Dr. Pianta‘s research and policy interests focus on the intersection of education and human development. Dr. Pianta has led research and development on measurement tool and interventions that help teachers interact with students more effectively and that are used widely in the United States and around the world.
Dr. Pianta received a BS and an MA in Special Education from the University of Connecticut and a PhD in Psychology from the University of Minnesota. He began his career as a special education teacher and joined the University of Virginia faculty in 1986. He is past Editor of the Journal of School Psychology and associate editor for AERA Open. An internationally recognized expert in both early childhood education and K-12 teaching and learning, Dr. Pianta regularly consults with federal agencies, foundations, universities, and governments. He was named a Fellow of the American Education Research Association and received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Minnesota in 2016. Dr. Pianta served as Dean of the UVA School of Education of Human Development from 2007-2022 and remains a member of the faculty.
Dr. Sally Shaywitz, Trustee
Dr. Shaywitz is the Audrey G. Ratner Professor in Learning Development at Yale University and Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity. She is a world- renowned scientist and dedicated, compassionate physician who is devoted to bringing ground-breaking scientific advances to benefit dyslexic children and adults. In addition to over 250 scientific articles and chapters, Dr. Shaywitz is the author of the award-winning, best-selling book Overcoming Dyslexia now in a completely revised and updated second edition (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2020).
Dr. Shaywitz’s honors include: an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine within the National Academies; the Liberty Science Center 2019 Genius Award in recognition of her pioneering work in advancing our understanding of dyslexia; a 2018 profile in the Scientists at Work section of the New York Times. She has been a featured speaker at the GoogleX conference on the Future of Reading, as well as the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. She has served on the Congressionally-mandated National Reading Panel and the Committee to Prevent Reading Difficulties in Young Children of the National Research Council and, by Presidential appointment (President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama) on the National Board of the Institute for Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education and on the Advisory Council of the National Institute of Neurological Disease and Stroke (NINDS). From 2016-2018 she served on the California Department of Education Dyslexia Work Group. For many years she has served as a Trustee for the Park-Century School in Culver City, California.
Dr. James Tanton, Trustee
Dr. James Tanton earned his PhD in mathematics from Princeton University. He is an author, a consultant, an ambassador for the Mathematical Association of America in Washington, DC, chair of the Advisory Council for the National Museum of Mathematics, and a founder of the global Math Project, an initiative to transform the entire world’s perception of what mathematics can and should be. The Global Math Project has reached more than one million students and teachers worldwide. James has taught mathematics at both the university and high school levels. He advises on curriculum, consults with teachers, and gives demonstration classes, lectures, and professional development sessions across the globe. James is also the recipient of a Joint Policy Board for Mathematics communication award for 2020.