Staff Bios

Staff

Anna Bean is Teachers Unite's Campaign Coordinator. She received her Masters in Social Work from Hunter College, where she has spent the past two years studying community organizing, planning, and development while working on city and state-wide campaigns in her field work at Queens Community House and Make the Road New York. After graduating from the New School's Eugene Lang College in 2008, Anna pursued a career in media, producing videos for advocacy groups and writing for third-wave feminist BUST Magazine while organizing around reproductive justice issues in New York City. Working in two public high schools with Make the Road awakened Anna's passion for education justice and ending the school-to-prison pipeline. She coordinates Teachers Unite's members' restorative justice practice development and activity with the Dignity in Schools Campaign-NY.

Sally Lee is the founding Executive Director of Teachers Unite. A native New Yorker and daughter of a proud public employee union member, she has been working in education and in the nonprofit sector for most of her life.  After graduating from Wesleyan University with a BA in African American Studies and American Studies and Bank Street College with an M.S.Ed. in Early Childhood and Elementary Education, Sally taught 5th/6th grade for two years in a Lower East Side public school. There she became passionate about the idea of starting an organization that would support and sustain teachers committed to social justice activism while energizing them to be active in their union. An early member of NYCoRE (New York Collective of Radical Educators) for many years, she saw a need for an institution that could support the leadership development of teacher activists who were trying to make real change in education and society. As a Program Associate at the Union Square Awards, she learned about the landscape of grassroots social justice organizations in New York City, and was inspired to start Teachers Unite as a way to augment the voice of educators looking to support the larger social movement.

Board of Directors

Lisa Donlan has been a NYC public school parent since 1995 and has served on various PTAs, School Leadership Teams, her District Community Education Council, and District Leadership Team.
In these roles she has worked to support families and educators to participate in decision-making at the school and community levels, by organizing public meetings, hearing, forums and trainings for parents and community members. As president of the CEC for District One she has authored policy proposals and analysis and organized issues-related campaigns including advocating for equitable admissions policies, most currently through the Community Controlled Choice Project. A member of the Grassroots Education Movement, she contributed to the film "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman." Donlan has an MBA and MA in French Studies from Penn State University.

Daniel "Herm" Jerome is the Director of Student Life at Banana Kelly High School in the Bronx where he coordinates a restorative justice program. Daniel was a founding member of the New York Collective of Radical Educators.

Hiram Rivera is the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Student Union.  He has almost 10 years experience in the field of organizing and youth organizing. He most recently served as Youth Organizing Coordinator at the Urban Youth Collaborative in New York City, where he provided strategic and technical support to the community organizations that make up the UYC, as well coordinating the city-wide campaigns to reform the NYC public school system.

Lois Weiner is a professor of education at New Jersey City University, where she coordinates a Master's degree in Urban Education for experienced teachers. She has published widely on urban teacher education, school reform, and teacher unionism and is a past president of the Special Interest Group on teachers' work and teachers unions of the American Educational Research Association. She taught high school for 15 years, in California and New York, and was an activist in the teachers union.  Currently she is a member of the New Politics editorial board and maintains a website (www.loisweiner.org) with information about the global project to de-professionalize teaching.

Funding

Teachers Unite relies on membership dues, donations and foundation grants.

We are grateful for the foundations that have supported our work over the years including:

Ben & Jerry's Foundation

Donors Education Collaborative

Left Tilt Fund

Mertz Gilmore Foundation

North Star Fund

Peace Development Fund

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Sparkplug Foundation

Yip Harburg Foundation