Meet the Faculty & Staff
Our faculty are distinguished, award-winning, passionate educators. All faculty members have extensive experience teaching, mentoring teachers and providing professional development for schools and districts.
We're currently updating this page. About fifteen faculty and staff members still need to be added...and no one ever wants their photo taken! Please check back regularly as we will have more bios posted weekly and, eventually, we'll snag their photos.
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 Lynn Cevallos - Founder, President & CEO
Lynn Cevallos has served as a math teacher and math coach in public, private and alternative schools in Massachusetts, Florida and California for nearly two decades. She earned her Bachelor’s Degrees in Mathematics and Secondary Education from Boston College and is currently a doctoral candidate in UCLA’s Educational Leadership Program (2013 anticipated graduation). Her desire to contribute to reforms in public education led to leadership roles in mathematics education, government, higher education, K-12, non-profit, and corporations. Her lifelong passion is improving college access for all students.
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 Dr. Pedro Cevallos - Co-Founder
Dr. Pedro Cevallos has worked to increase student achievement in many different capacities with school districts in Florida, Pennsylvania and California for more than a dozen years. He holds a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from UCLA, a MS in Curriculum & Instruction from Penn State and a BS in Social Studies Education from Florida International University. Dr. Cevallos is the author of “Charter School Scale-Up: Managing Fidelity and Adaptation” and is a widely sought out public speaker in the areas of Professional Development, Charter school scale-up, Educational Business Development, Educational Entrepreneurship, and Educational Consulting.
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Pat Ellis - Writing, English Language-Arts
Mrs. Ellis has worked as an educator for over four decades, teaching middle and high school students as well as mentoring teachers in LAUSD and at UCLA. She holds a Master's Degree in reading education and has completed post graduate work in the California Writing Project at both USC and UCLA. She was active professionally, holding positions on state and local boards as a representative and as president. She served as a reader scoring AP English exams. Her students have won numerous writing awards, both locally and nationally. She loves to read and look to established authors as models and motivators for writing.
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Joanna Exacoustos - English/Language Arts & Study Skills
"Mrs. X" has more than 40 years in the classroom working with middle school, high school, college students and teachers. She has primarily been an English teacher, but has also taught U.S. History, Speech and Drama. Writing is her passion. She has written a manual on preparing for the SAT as well as a guide for Language Arts teachers to familiarize them with current research in Vocabulary and reading comprehension. She has been the Associate Director of the South basin Writing Project for 10 years.
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Anne Maben - Environmental and Biological Sciences; Science Fair
Anne Maben has been an educator in public and private schools from elementary through college for the past 30 years. With a B.A. in English and an M.S. in marine biology, she has won awards for her excellence in teaching AP Biology and AP Environmental Science courses and served as the AP Science Coach at the LA County Office of Education. A long-time member of the LA County Science Fair Advisory Board, Ms. Maben loves mentoring students' research projects. She brings great enthusiasm, dedication and a nurturing spirit to help support student success.
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Monica Gonzales - English, Language Arts, English Language Development, College Counseling
Monica has been an educator for fifteen years. She earned her B.A. in English Literature from UCLA and her Master's in Educational Management from the University of LaVerne. She started teaching in the Hacienda La Puente English department where she expanded the literature selection for grade 10, implemented benchmarks, and served as the AVID coordinator. Monica received additional training in English language learning strategies and is passionate about teaching English Learners.
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Kate Merrill - Mathematics
Kate Merrill has taught mathematics at public, non-profit, and charter schools in North Carolina and New Mexico, and was a founding member of a charter school serving at-risk teens in Albuquerque, NM. Before moving to Los Angeles with her family, she served as an administrator, curriculum specialist, and AVID coordinator at the middle school level in North Carolina. She holds Masters degrees in Mathematics Education and Educational Leadership. Ms. Merrill is currently a doctoral candidate in UCLA's Educational Leadership Program.
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Dr. Jane Berman - Mathematics
Dr. Jane Berman has served as a mathematics educator and leader for more than two decades in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). As a math teacher, she has worked with elementary, middle and high school students. As an educational leader, Dr. Berman has supervised, coached and led professional development for teachers in the second largest school district in the nation. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Sonoma State University, a Master's in Education Administration from Cal State Northridge and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from California Lutheran University. Dr. Berman’s specialties include: professional development, utilizing data to inform instruction and strategic mathematics interventions.
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Reyna Conrado - Spanish
Mrs. Conrado is a native Spanish speaker with a passion for teaching. She holds a B.A. and M.A. in Spanish and has been teaching Spanish 2, 3 and AP at La Serna High School for many years, where she also serves as the department chair. Mrs. Conrado's passion is contagious; even the most timid students will be speaking Spanish in her presence within minutes.
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Linda Ide - College Counseling
Linda Ide has had a twenty-five year career teaching in high school and college. She has a B.A. in history and taught United States AP History and supervised the college guidance center at La Serna High School. After completing her M.S. in Counseling, Linda became a high school Guidance Counselor and taught in the M. S. in Counseling Program at the University of La Verne. Her career focus has been guiding young people into higher education and she loves working with teenagers.
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Martin "Marty" Romero - Mathematics
Marty has been a mathematics educator for 18 years. He earned a B.S. in math from UCLA and M.S. from CSULA also in Math. His interests include the use of hand held technologies to improve student performance. Marty's career includes being a math coach at Roosevelt H.S, department chair while teaching at Anneberg H.S, as well as authoring several units of math instruction. He has received several honors as a distinguished teacher and regularly speaks at regional and national conferences. He is presently woking on his PhD. in urban school planning at UCLA.
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Mohammed Ilyas - Physics
Mohammed earned his California Teaching Credential and is currently a member of the faculty at Sonora High School in Fullerton. He teaches physics, honors, and IB. His career spans several continents. He has worked in Pakistan and Nigeria. His skills include teaching through activity based lessons. His use of the thematic approach to learning has allowed him to set up and manage laboratories and individual curriculum. Mohammed has a Masters in physics and has authored four books which guide students to achieve the highest level of work in physics.
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Je'nell Griffin - College Counseling
Je'nell earned a B.A. in Social Science from San Diego State University and Master's from the University of Georgia. Her talents for organizing, planning, and carrying out student centered college goals are extensive. At Cal State Fullerton, Je'nell provided daily advisement for 18 groups of students. She has desgined educational workshops and overseen the day to day management of 23 fraternities and sororities at the University of California, Los Angeles. In addition, she has authored several publications focused on reaching goals and academic success.
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