Joanne Lauck Hobbs, M.S. has a Masters of Science in Psychology and a community college teaching credential in the subject as well as a digital media credential for K-12. She is a published, award-winning author (The Voice of the Infinite in the Small, Shambhala, 2002) photographer, teacher, environmental educator and international lecturer. She is also the founder and Executive Director of Catalyst for Youth, a public charity and educational California 501 (c) 3 corporation. She currently teaches at Broadway Continuation High School and the Art Institute of Sunnyvale. and when she is not teaching or mentoring teenagers and young adults, she is working on a book applying the metaphors of new science to how students grow and thrive entitled Teaching at the Edge of Chaos: Tending Youth
on Fire.

Marcy Lauck, M.A. Organizational Development, is Supervisor of Continuous Improvement Programs in San Jose Unified School District and associate of Education for the Future (California State University at Chico), Marcy supports the implementation of strategic institutional change and data-based quality management processes throughout the district. Her responsibilities include the development, administration and expansion of the district's School Recognition Program, the district’s data warehouse initiative, annual School Climate Surveys (45,000 surveys per year) as well as support for the district's Baldrige initiative and the annual districtwide Community Conversations. As the district’s schools focus on student achievement, assess their progress and document their successes, Marcy helps them create coherent processes at every level and prepares them for the California Distinguished School and the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program. Under her leadership in the past five years, 29 SJUSD schools have been named as California Distinguished Schools and 11 as National Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence.

Susan Collins, M.A. Special Education and Specialist degree in Administration was born and raised in Florida, married 23 years, and mother of two sons. For the last five years she has been a BTSA support provider/mentor (Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment program that provides support and guidance to beginning teachers to be successful and to clear their credentials) and for two years she has been  training teachers in the district to become support providers for BTSA. Honors include "Teacher of the Year" 1993 and "Best Practice" awardee by the state of Florida for Marketing and Education program that she developed for high school special education students. She is an avid racquetball, golf, bowling, co ed softball, hiking and mountain biking enthusiast and coached high school softball for six years, special olympics for two years, and managed the Almaden Little League for eight years.

Marilyn Pitman Waite is an educator, sculptress, and writer. Her community focus is the prevention of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Damage for which she helped create a Task Force in Santa Clara County, California, dedicated to that cause. She has created several series or bodies of work: Mother & Child, Storytellers, Children, and abstracts, one of which was a commission for a biotechnology company in Italy. Her writing has focused on family stories and a memoir, and her poetry touches on her daily observations of the simple and esoteric. “Sculpting and my creative projects nourish my soul and give me energy and vision for my work in the world”. My mission statement is “Creativity Heals the Abused Soul”.

Marilyn also created and directs The Santa Clara County Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Task Force whose mission is to raise the community’s capacity to prevent, identify and address damage from prenatal alcohol and drug exposure. Their goals are to heighten awareness through information dissemination, to educate and train professionals about FASD and to support those whose family members are suffering from Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders. (See FASD program funded by a March of Dimes grant.)

Glenn Harris has a Master's degree in educational counseling, and credentials in Special Education, Educational Counseling, and multiple subjects. Glenn has worked with at risk children and teens for 25 years and has been a mentor and an advocate for community building. He has helped create a new charter school for at risk high school students– Pathfinder High School– and currently works as a special education teacher at Braham High School