Meet the OG: Charter Leaders 1.0 Share All!

Irene Sumida and Joe Lucente established Fenton Avenue Charter School in 1993. In 2005, Mrs. Sumida became the Director of the school, and under her leadership, the Fenton Primary Center opened on July 1, 2008. On May 1, 2012, Santa Monica Boulevard Community Charter School was divested to the Fenton Charter Public Schools, the charter management organization established to continue the growth of the Fenton schools. Mrs. Sumida served as the Executive Director of the CMO, which opened two new schools in August 2015: Fenton Charter Leadership Academy and Fenton STEM Academy. She continues to serve as the Executive Advisor.

Dr. Jacqueline Elliot is the co-founder of Partnerships to Uplift Communities (PUC Schools) and President & CEO of PUC National. She's been dedicated to school reform since 1986 when she became a public-school teacher in Pacoima. In 1999, she founded the first startup charter school in the San Fernando Valley, Community Charter Middle School, the first school in what grew to become the network of 14 PUC schools serving two high need communities in Los Angeles. Dr. Elliot is also the author of Passionate Warrior: My Charter School Journey, a memoir that chronicles her journey in public school reform.

Joe Lucente is a pioneer in the charter school movement having led the conversion of Fenton Avenue Elementary in 1993. Once considered one of the worst elementary schools in LAUSD, Fenton Avenue Charter School became a California Distinguished School and a national model of a successful conversion charter school honored by the White House, U.S. Congress and California Legislature. Joe served as President of the California Network of Educational Charters (CANEC), the predecessor of the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA). Joe serves as Chairman of the Board of Fenton Charter Public Schools that operates five charter schools authorized by LAUSD.

Toby Bornstein is the Founder of the Multicultural Learning Center (MLC) and served as its Executive Director for 12 years prior to retiring and leaving the school in the hands of co-founder and daughter Gayle Nadler. Toby was instrumental in laying the groundwork for MLC in addition to establishing the footprint of the charter school movement in Los Angeles. Prior to developing a charter school, Toby was involved with national reform initiatives and working with secondary mathematics teachers as part of a national Ford Foundation project establishing models for industry-school partnerships.

As the Founding Principal of Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Los Angeles, Dr. Chan has pushed the limits of education and social innovation for more than 50 years as a school leader, policy maker and the founder of the first conversion charter school in the nation. She turned “crack houses” to school houses and transformed the high-poverty neighborhood into an educational and economic corridor. Dr. Chan was an adjunct professor at CSUN and UCLA, a member of the California State Board of Education. Currently she is the President of the Los Angeles County Board of Education.