{"id":11,"date":"2016-04-28T17:18:29","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T17:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/guildschoolsdotorg.wordpress.com\/?page_id=11"},"modified":"2025-07-11T14:00:31","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T14:00:31","slug":"who-we-are","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.guildschools.org\/?page_id=11","title":{"rendered":"People"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Board of Directors<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
\n

The Guild is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors<\/strong> whose members exemplify a deep commitment to educational excellence and represent expertise from multiple sectors, including expertise in charter school authorization principles and practices, best practices in teacher professional development and education, and organizational systems, compliance monitoring, metrics, management and strategic planning.<\/p>\n

Marcia Averbook<\/strong>\u00a0– Retired school teacher\u00a0and former\u00a0President\u00a0of the Bloomington Federation of Teachers. \u00a0Marcia served on the Executive Council of the\u00a0Minnesota Federation of Teachers and the NCATE Board of Examiners.<\/p>\n

Deborah Jiang-Stein<\/strong>\u00a0– Founder of the unPrison Project, a nonprofit working to empower and inspire incarcerated women and girls with\u00a0mentoring, tools for life after prison, and hope. Deborah is author of the memoir, Prison Baby.\u00a0Deborah is on the Minnesota Opera Board. Most recently, she has adapted her memoir for stage, and the unPrison\u00a0Podcast is in development and will air as a two-part series.\u00a0Deborah received a L\u2019Or\u00e9al Woman of Worth award, a McKnight S\/Hero Award, and is\u00a0also a graduate of The Women\u2019s Media Center Progressive Women\u2019s Voices, the nation\u2019s\u00a0premier media and leadership training program for women.<\/p>\n

Deirdre Kramer\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/strong>\u2013 President at DBK Consulting and Associate Professor at Hamline University. \u00a0Previously, Deirdre served as the Dean of the Graduate School of Education at Hamline University.<\/p>\n

Lynn Nordgren<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Lynn served for 40 years in Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) as an\u00a0Elementary teacher in Special Ed, General Ed, and Gifted Education.\u00a0She holds a B.S in Teaching and Masters degree in Experiential\u00a0Education\/Professional Development. During her time in MPS, she also\u00a0became a Teacher on Special Assignment to help create and coordinate\u00a0the implementation of a peer assistance and review\/peer coaching\u00a0process, the Achievement of Tenure process, and Standards of Effective\u00a0Instruction. She facilitated an alternative compensation program for\u00a0teachers centered on in-depth, peer reviewed classroom action research\u00a0to improve professional practice while embedding peer coaching in the\u00a0process. Lynn has provided numerous professional development trainings\u00a0across the District, State, and country while also serving on many\u00a0District and Union committees – both locally and nationally. In the\u00a0last eight years of her career, Lynn was voted in as the Minneapolis\u00a0Teachers Union President and negotiated progressive contracts for\u00a0students and teachers. Student success has always been and continues\u00a0to be at the heart of everything she does in education. In her spare\u00a0time, Lynn has been a lifelong volunteer to support and lift the\u00a0underserved and oppressed within the community especially in an effort\u00a0to undo the embedded racism, sexism, and classism embedded within our\u00a0society.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Louise Sundin<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 A\u00a0career ninth grade English teacher, served 25 years as a national vice-president of the American Federation of Teachers and 22 years as president of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, Local\u00a059.\u00a0 Negotiated 11 nationally-recognized professional contracts for MPS educators. Continuing her service to education, Sundin is a\u00a012-year Trustee of the MN State Colleges and Universities System and a public member on the MN Board of School Administrators, appointed to both positions by governors Pawlenty and Dayton. Founding leader of the Teacher Union Reform Network and co-director of Great Lakes TURN.\u00a0 Helped shape teacher education through her work on the Board of NCATE and the Holmes Partnership as well as 8 years creating teacher assessments on ETS Teacher Program Council.<\/p>\n

David Dorn<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 David Dorn served for 25 years as the International Director of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). In this capacity, he directed the work of the AFT in support for teachers unions and human and trade union democracy in a range of countries around the world. He also coordinated the union\u2019s participation in the International Federation of Free Teachers’ Union (IFFTU) and, consequently, with the Education International (EI). Prior to his work with the AFT, he served as the project director for the (IFFTU) in Brussels, Belgium. He began his international career as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru and later served as Executive Director of the US Youth Council and as an extension lecturer with Georgetown University\u2019s International Labor Program. Since his retirement from the AFT, he worked as a senior consultant to the EI focused on education development projects in the Middle East and was a bilingual (Spanish\/English) volunteer TA and substitute teacher at the Oyster Adams bilingual middle school in Washington, DC. He has published numerous articles and working papers on international education and union and human rights issues.<\/p>\n

Joan Arbisi Little, Ed.D.<\/span><\/strong> \u2013\u00a0Before joining the Guild Board, Joan served as a teacher, program director, and administrator in district, charter and private schools for 35 years. As the former executive director at Career Pathways public charter secondary school in St. Paul, Joan supported a diverse and creative teacher-led staff. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

The MN Guild’s Conflict of Interest Policy can be viewed here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MDE-APPROVED A.7 Board Approved COI Policy<\/a>Download<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Board of Directors The Guild is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors whose members exemplify a deep commitment to educational excellence and represent expertise…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":45,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-11","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guildschools.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guildschools.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guildschools.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guildschools.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guildschools.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.guildschools.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":757,"href":"https:\/\/www.guildschools.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11\/revisions\/757"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guildschools.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/45"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guildschools.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}