Welcoming Schools National Advisory Board
Members of the Welcoming Schools National Advisory Board serve as key advisors in the development and implementation of the Welcoming Schools initiative and provide leadership in educating the broader educational community about the importance of supporting LGBT students and families.
________________________________________
Vivian Carlo
Associate Professor, Multicultural Education
Lesley University, School of Education
Vivian’s professional practice and research are centered in the fields of multicultural education, bilingual education, cultural diversity and social justice. As an associate professor in the School of Education at Lesley University, Vivian’s primary focus is multicultural introspective teacher preparation and the development of a culturally responsive educational professional practice.
As a multicultural and diversity consultant, Vivian has over 30 years experience working with both private and public organizations to deliver culturally competent services to children of all races, cultures and ages. Since 2001, she has been the primary multicultural adviser and educational consultant on various children’s projects and programs at WGBH-TV in Boston, including Zoom, Arthur, two children’s websites and the new and highly acclaimed, Postcards from Buster..
In addition to the Welcoming Schools National Advisory Board, Vivian also serves on the advisory board of Peacework Magazine, published by the American Friends Service Committee, and recently completed two elected terms on the Board of Directors of the National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME). She is also a founding member and past president of the Massachusetts Chapter of NAME. She holds a doctorate in Multicultural Education and Bilingual/Bicultural Education from Boston University and a master’s degree in Counseling and Psychology from Lesley University.
Aimee Gelnaw
Author, Trainer, Educator
Co-author, Making Room in the Circle
Kean University
Aimee Gelnaw has been working in the area of family diversity and especially focused on LGBT families for almost 20 years. As an early childhood educator, she has worked with children, parents, faculty and school administrators. Most recently, Aimee has served as faculty at Wheelock College in Boston and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro teaching a college course for early childhood education students entitled “Making Room in the Circle: Including LGBT Families in Early Childhood Settings.” Aimee developed and authored the companion text for this course with two other colleagues. Aimee co-authored Opening Doors: Lesbian and Gay Parents and Schools, conceived and coordinated writing of Opening More Doors: Creating Policy Change to Include Our Families and published an article in Exchange titled “Belonging: Including Children of Gay and Lesbian Parents – and ALL Children in Your Program.” A new chapter dedicated to diverse families with a focus on LGBT families and of which Aimee is a contributing author will appear in the upcoming revision of The Anti-Bias Curriculum: Tools to Empower Young Children, by Louise Derman-Sparks and published by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Aimee served as executive director of the Family Pride Coalition from 2001-2005 and has been an active contributor to the Welcoming Schools project of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. Aimee lives in Montclair, N.J. and is the mother of two children: Zack,23 and Dewey, 12.
Emily J. Harris
Executive Director, The Burnham Plan Centennial
Program Director, Chicago Metropolis 2020
Emily Harris is executive director of the Burnham Plan Centennial and the program director for early learning for Chicago Metropolis 2020.
From 2001 to 2007, Emily maintained a private consulting practice. She provided strategic planning, research, writing, organizational development and program and policy development services to non profit organizations and public agencies in a wide range of fields. As a consultant to Leadership Greater Chicago, Emily directed the Rockwell Leadership Network (Legacy Project), originated and wrote the LGC Connections newsletter and assisted with development of the website.
From 1990 to 2000, Emily was executive director of the Canal Corridor Association, founded by Openlands Project. She worked with leaders in five counties and more than forty municipalities to develop and implement heritage tourism, open space and historic preservation strategies along the I&M Canal from Chicago to LaSalle Peru. In collaboration with photographer Edward Ranney, she wrote the book and produced the exhibit Prairie Passage: The Illinois and Michigan Canal Corridor, published and exhibited in 1998. The book and exhibit were a central part of the I&M Canal Sesquicentennial Celebration.
Past positions include vice president, ActiveLife Retirement Communities; program director, Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois and architectural historian, Historic American Buildings Survey.
Emily received her M.A. in urban studies from the University of Chicago in 1981 and her B.A. with highest honors in history from Oberlin College in 1978. She has participated in facilitation training with the Institute of Cultural Affairs. She was a fellow of Leadership Greater Chicago and serves on a number of volunteer boards.
Scott Hirschfield
Director of Curriculum
Anti Defamation League
Scott Hirschfeld is the director of training and curriculum for the Anti-Defamation League, a leading provider of anti-bias and diversity education training programs and resources. Before joining the ADL, Scott was director of education for the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). Prior to his work in the non-profit sector, Scott was a classroom teacher and staff developer in the New York City public school system, during which time he earned a M.S. in elementary education and a M.Ed. in educational leadership from Bank Street College of Education.
Emmy Howe
Founding Member
Welcoming Schools Committee (2004)
Emmy Howe is one of the original authors of the Welcoming Schools Guide and a trainer for the pilot sites. Emmy taught elementary school for 15 years and was the family liaison from Cambridge Massachusetts Public School Department to the LGBT community for eight years. Last year she taught a course at Wheelock College about making elementary, early childhood and health care settings welcoming to LGBT families and people. She is currently director of CampOUT, a farm camp for kids from LGBTQ families and working on the development of Open View Farm Educational Center on a fiber farm in Conway, Mass. She has four daughters ages 22, 20, 12 and 12.
Dr. Sikivu Hutchinson
Senior Intergroup Specialist
Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission
Before joining the L.A. County Human Relations Commission, Dr. Sikivu Hutchinson was most recently chief of staff for Los Angeles Unified School Board member Genethia Hayes. She researched and provided analyses on issues before the school board, supervised the staff, served as community liaison and facilitated parent and community meetings.
Dr. Hutchinson has a doctorate in performance studies from New York University and a Bachelors of Art in anthropology from the University of California at Los Angeles. She has lectured on critical studies at California Institute of the Arts, where she developed and taught courses on ethnic studies and women's studies and has lectured on liberal studies at California State University Los Angeles. She also has developed and taught courses on racial identity and post modernism at Cal Arts, and has published several scholarly works on race and gender, including "Moving to the Center: Culturally Relevant Education and Student Agency in LAUSD," in California English, April 2002.
In her free time, Dr. Hutchinson is an avid long distance runner who loves New York, electric guitar and fiction. Her favorite authors include Toni Morrison, Don DeLillo, Joyce Carol Oates and Sherman Alexie.
Ruti Kadish
Program Director, Social Justice Fellowship
New Isreal Fund
Ruti Kadish, Ph.D. began her career in academia looking at ways to create educational models that are both accepting and welcoming of difference in general and LGBT people and families more specifically. Over the past seven years, Ruti has worked both professionally and as a volunteer in her children’s schools to create welcoming environments for all families and students. For the past few years she has taught a course on LGBT families at the University of Maryland, College Park. Recently, Ruti took a position at the New Israel Fund where she works on institutional grants and the organization’s Social Justice Fellowship program. Ruti lives in Takoma Park, Md. with her spouse and three sons.
Nicole Manganelli
Assistant Director
Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence
Nicole joined the Center staff in August 2003. She manages training activities and develops curriculum for Center programs. Nicole's vast training experience includes groups both large and small, with adults and students of all ages and backgrounds. Most recently, Nicole created the Center’s bullying prevention workshops for elementary students and co-authored a hate crime response and prevention guide for NGOs in Eastern Europe.
Previously, Nicole worked as a project coordinator and interim director of the Educator/Advocate Program at Everywoman’s Center, a rape crisis center serving Hampshire County, Mass. Nicole is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a B.A. in women’s studies.
Kathy Pillsbury
Founding Member
Welcoming Schools Committee (2004)
Kathy Pillsbury earned her master’s in public and private management from Yale University. She has served as a financial consultant and project manager for non-profit organizations including many years with Corporate Accountability International. Pillsbury is one of the original authors, primary editor and project manager for the Welcoming Schools project of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. She and her partner of 28 years, Cindy Marshall, have two children, Jeremy, 15 and Mikayla, 9.
Eric Pliner
Director, Research & Resource Center
New York City Department of Education
Eric Pliner is the director of the School & Youth Development Research & Resource Center with the New York City Department of Education, where he supervises research, information analysis and resource design related to youth development and school climate and safety. He is co-author of the National Health Education Standards and serves as an adjunct instructor at the Hunter College School of Education. Eric also maintains an active career as an author and playwright and is the creator of the Artist-Activist Institute, a social justice-related performance mentorship program for adolescents, coordinated by the NYC LGBT Community Center and Dance Theater Workshop.
Douglas Robinson
Former 1st Vice President
New York City Community School Board-District #2
Doug Robinson is a longtime advocate for children and education. He made New York City history as the first openly gay African American elected official by serving as vice president for eight years on the New York City Community School Board - District #2. He was a member of former Chancellor Ramon Cortines’ Curriculum Outcome committee and former co-chair of Center Kids, the family project of the LGBT Community Services Center. He was on the executive committee of the Citywide Leadership Parents Group where he spent many hours at the NYC Central Board of Education testifying in support of issues such as multicultural and HIV/AIDS education. Doug was a member of Mayor Dinkins’ Domestic Partnership Policy committee. In addition, he was a member of the NYC Child Welfare Administration task force on lesbian and gay youth in foster care.
Doug and his partner of more than 20 years are the proud parents of two sons who currently are in college.
Daniel P. Ryan
Executive Director/Principal
The Children’s School
Daniel P. Ryan has a doctorate in educational administration from the Teachers College, Columbia University as well as a master’s in educational administration from Harvard University. He taught elementary school for ten years in Winnetka, Ill.; Washington, D.C. and Ann Arbor, Mich. He also served six years as an elementary principal
in Hinsdale and Evanston, Ill.
Graciela Slesaransky-Poe
Director, Arcadia Annual Inclusion Institute
Assistant Professor, Special Education
Arcadia University
Graciela Slesaransky-Poe is assistant professor and the coordinator of the Special Education Program at Arcadia University, Pennsylvania. She is the co-founder and director of Arcadia’s Annual Inclusion Institute. Dr. Slesaransky-Poe has an extensive history of working with and advocating for the inclusion of people who have been historically marginalized, such as people with disabilities, people of diverse culturally and linguistic backgrounds and people with diverse gender identities and sexual orientations. Dr. Slesaransky-Poe is the mother of two children, one a seven year old boy with gender variance characteristics. She has spent the past few years learning about, advocating for and educating teachers, counselors and school administrators about how to support young kids with non-conforming gender behaviors in their schools.
Frieda Takamura
Washington Education Association and Co-Chair
Safe Schools Coalition
Frieda Takamura is the human and civil rights program coordinator with the Washington Education Association and co-chair of the Safe Schools Coalition. Takamura conducts and facilitates trainings throughout the state of Washington and nationally on LGBT issues. Her trainings focus on cultural competency and responsiveness, anti-bullying/harassment and community organizing. In addition to this work, Takamura works with families, groups and organizations, especially in communities of color, on broader issues that affect public schools.
