Maria is the Teach Plus Boston Executive Director. Maria first joined Teach Plus as a Boston Teaching Policy Fellow in 2007. During the Fellowship, Maria focused on her interest in empowering teachers to lead turnaround efforts for underperforming schools. She was a lead writer of Ready for the Next Challenge, which became the T3 Initiative in three of Boston’s turnaround schools. Maria has been an invited panelist and speaker at the Learning Forward summer conference, the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Measures of Effective Teaching teacher panel.

Maria taught in Boston Public Schools for six years. Her path into the classroom was through the Boston Teacher Residency. Prior to that, Maria received an Ed.M. in education policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a B.A. summa cum laude from Colby College. As a teacher, Maria was an active participant in school-based leadership such as the Instructional Leadership Team, Data Team, School Site Council, and Personnel Subcommittee. In 2006, Maria co-founded and led the Boston Teacher Action Network through the Boston Plan for Excellence. She is actively in touch with many former students, who inspire her every day.

Prior to joining Teach Plus in February 2012, Marisa Suescun spent a dozen years working on behalf of public education equity through many avenues: she has taught students, trained teachers, coached youth leaders, facilitated organizations, and fostered community partnerships. A member of the first cohort of NYC Teaching Fellows, Marisa taught elementary school at PS 63 in the Bronx, then worked for the NYC Teaching Fellows, training and supporting new teachers and leading the organization’s first professional conference. In 2005-2006, Marisa completed the Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs in Saint Louis. She then served as Assistant Director of the Exploring Leadership program at the Coro New York Leadership Center, where she trained high school students as they learned about education policy, developed civic leadership skills, and mobilized their peers to improve their schools.

Marisa currently serves on the Founders Group and Curriculum Committee of Active Minds Institute (which will open a public charter school in Saint Louis), and the working board of Together We Can (which operates Las Vegas’ only community garden). Marisa has facilitated staff of Together We Can and other organizations in strategic planning processes. She has taught SAT preparation in New York, and ESL in Ecuador and Las Vegas. A published writer, Marisa has reported on education, film, food, art, and lifestyle for New York Family Magazine, Education Update, and other publications. Marisa holds a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies from Wesleyan University, and a Masters of Education from City College of New York.

Lisa Lineweaver, Ed.M., currently serves as the Director of Accelerated Improvement for the Blackstone. A former 5th grade teacher and previous program director at the Boston Plan for Excellence, Ms. Lineweaver is a proven inquiry facilitator and data coach. She has worked in many BPS schools and taught four-semester series of graduate courses to teacher teams which contributed to substantial gains in student learning over a three-year period. In the 2010-11 school year, Ms. Lineweaver is responsible for training and coaching the T3 teacher-leaders to build their teams’ capacity to rapidly and systematically improve the quality of instruction through data-based inquiry and RTI.

Katie is a T3 coach at Orchard Gardens, leading the school’s teacher teams in implementing turnaround strategies. While working for T3 and Orchard Gardens, she is also completing her doctoral study at the Boston University Graduate School of Education, with a degree expected in 2012. Katie’s past teaching experience includes fifth and sixth grade reading and writing at the Boston’s Epiphany School as well as middle and upper English at the SEED Public Charter School in Washington DC. Katie holds a Master’s degree in Education from the Boston University Graduate School of Education as well as a BA from Harvard.

Toby N. Romer has served in numerous roles in the Boston Public Schools (BPS) over the past 15 years. He is currently Director of Professional Development and Data Inquiry at Orchard Gardens K-8 School, where his role includes supporting the T3 teachers. Previously, he was a facilitator for the Accelerating Improvement through Inquiry (AI2), a grant from the Carnegie Foundation run by the BPS and the Boston Plan for Excellence, where he supported teachers’ and school leaders’ efforts to improve the achievement of struggling students. From 2004 to 2009, he served as headmaster of Brighton High School, a large, diverse urban high school. At Brighton High, he led the re-organization of the school’s small learning communities, created extended learning times, focused resources on struggling learners, fostered strong community partnerships, and actively developed teacher leadership structures. Under his tenure, the school was recognized by the Mass Insight Education and Research Institute as a Vanguard School, selected as a BPS Strategic Practice and Effective Practice School, and named as one of the top 1500 high schools in the nation by US News and World Report. He holds an A.B. in Social Studies and Education and an M.Ed. in School Administration from Harvard University.

Jamie is the Dean of Curriculum and Instruction (English, Social Studies, and PEPA) at UP Academy. Previously, Jamie taught reading and writing at James M. Singleton Charter and New Orleans College Prep in the Recovery School District. Prior to teaching, Jamie worked in consulting for Collective Next, Inc. and monitored the large-scale implementation of Reading First in Kentucky elementary schools. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy and Post-Bachelor's Teacher Certification from the University of Kentucky.

Jesse is the Dean of Curriculum and Instruction(Math and Science)at UP Academy. For the 2010-2011 academic year, Jesse has worked as the Academic Achievement Manager for Math and Scholar Support at Unlocking Potential. Before that, Jesse was the Director of Curriculum and Assessment at Orchard Gardens K-8 Pilot School, a Boston Public School. There, she supported teachers to implement data-driven instruction, developed tutoring programs, and ran new teacher support. Jesse was previously the Dean of Support Services at Boston Preparatory Charter Public School, a high performing charter school in Boston. Jesse also has taught high school math in San Jose, CA and 5th and 6th grade math in New York City through Teach For America. She earned her BA from Oberlin College, her M.Ed. in History from Boston College, and her Ed.M. in School Leadership from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Dr. Chad Leith is Director of the English Language Acquisition Program at the Dearborn Middle School, where he supports T3 teachers in leading the school’s turnaround efforts. After serving as a Peace Corps teacher trainer in Cape Verde from 1994 to 1996, Chad joined the Boston Public Schools, where he has worked as a classroom teacher, bilingual assessment specialist, and district-wide instructional coach. He has frequently collaborated with the Massachusetts Department of Education to provide training in sheltered content instruction to middle and high school teachers. In addition to his work with Teach Plus, Chad is an adjunct faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he lectures as part of the Teacher Education Program. He holds an Ed.M. in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from Boston University and earned both his A.B. in Government and his Ed.D. in Culture, Communities, and Education from Harvard University.

Karen Loughran is the T3 Turnaround Coach at the Trotter Elementary School, leading teams of teachers to use data to improve instruction. Previously, she was the Site Director for the Boston Teacher Residency. She supported resident teachers and mentor teachers as they focused on curriculum development and instructional strategies that promote student achievement. Prior to that, she was a Small Learning Community Leader at Charlestown High School, a large diverse urban high school. In this role, she organized and facilitated common planning time, student support, data analysis, and a variety of strategies that promoted student achievement. She taught middle school and high school for ten years, including teaching math and language arts. She earned a Master’s degree in Education from Harvard University where she focused on school leadership, urban school reform, and using data to improve instruction.