BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Julia Schachter is a documentary film maker who has worked on two projects exploring the issues of urban education and youth. She produced the Peabody Award winning PBS documentary, The First Year, and Color Straight Up which was nominated for an Academy Award.
Julia has experience in non-profit organization and an interest in the arts and education.
A long time Los Angeles resident, she lives in Highland Park and is the mother of two children.

 

 

Elspeth Paul is an attorney with Dignity Health (formerly Catholic Healthcare West). Her expertise is in the areas of business transactions, tax-exemption, California Brown Act compliance, patient privacy and real property transactions. She received her J.D. from U.C. Berkeley, Boalt Hall and her bachelor’s degree in literature from Brandeis University, graduating summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa with a minor in Law, Medicine and Ethics. She attended Waldorf schools including the Lexington Waldorf School (Massachusetts), Hawthorne Valley School (New York) and the Rudolf Steiner Schule (Munich, Germany.) Elspeth was named an “Outstanding Young Healthcare Lawyer” by Nightingale’s and a “Rising Star” in Healthcare Law by Los Angeles Magazine.

Elspeth serves on the boards of the California Society for Healthcare Attorneys, Ocean Charter School (a Waldorf-inspired public charter school in Los Angeles) and the advisory board for the Waldorf High School of Massachusetts Bay. Elspeth lives in Los Angeles with her husband, two young daughters and an orange-tabby cat.

 

Ed Eadon retired from an Air Force as a Colonel after a career in meteorology and the space environment and has been involved in education as his second career.  He served as the Administrative Director of the Highland Hall Waldorf School in Northridge from 2002-2008. He received his Waldorf training at Sunbridge College. In 2009, he joined Green Dot Public Schools and taught two years at the Animo Locke ACE Academy, earning his CA Teaching Credential while there. He is married to composer Anne LeBaron and has a daughter at Berkeley.

Ed believes that the charter school movement provides the opportunity to take Waldorf teaching from a ‘best kept secret’ in education only available in private schools to the public sphere.  Successful public Waldorf schools can both transform public education and help students become confident, remarkable human beings.

Jenna Kamp has a Masters in Teaching from Seattle University and has been educating urban students for over twelve years in charter high schools around Southern California. Jenna is deeply inspired by the charter school movement and alternative approaches to public education, believing that the factory-style, test-frenzied environment of typical American schools offers limited opportunities for the diverse learning needs of American schoolchildren. Therefore, she has co-developed and/or taught in three public charter high schools around LA, and is proud and excited to be on the Board of El Rio. Jenna continues to teach full time, as well as receive and provide professional development in the areas of mentorship, peer coaching, English language learners, reading improvement, differentiated instruction, and content area literacy to best support and raise student achievement.

Kirsten Schaffer has been with Outfest for ten years, first serving as Director of Programming and then as Deputy Director before being appointed Executive Director in 2009. Prior to Outfest, Kirsten was the Co-Executive Director of the Seattle Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. She also managed a law office that specialized in American Indian and Family law and she ran a high-end catering and special events company. Kirsten has extensive experience in film programming, small business management and arts administration. She currently lives with her partner of 13 years, their 2 year-old daughter and three dogs in Highland Park, Los Angeles. She was named one of Power-up’s Top 10 Women in Show Business and she received the Women in Business Award from Senator Liu.

Glenn Spreen has over 25 years experience in a broad range of Corporate finance planning and analysis roles and controllerships in the for profit sector with several Fortune 500 companies.  Most recently he was Vice-President Global Finance Operations for Vivendi Universal, where he was responsible for Sarbanes Oxley compliance and managing strategic initiatives across core finance processes to improve efficacy, controls and costs.  Glenn has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering with highest honor from Georgia Institute of Technology and an M. B. A. from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.  Glenn also serves as a pro-bono consultant with the Taproot Foundation in Los Angeles and is inspired to become a part of our urban education transformation.

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