Best Board Meeting Ever: 2024 Edition

the administrator, and district leader in Philadelphia, Hawai`i, and Southern California. Andrew holds a Bachelor’s degree from Notre Dame, a Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and was a Teach For America corps member. He currently serves as the Chair of the Native American Alumni Board of Notre Dame.

Based in Los Angeles, Greta is the leader of Procopio’s Education practice group. She provides legal counsel to both classroom and nonclassroom-based schools on a variety of issues. Greta advises on new charters, renewals, material revisions, changes in the law, school policies, contracts, independent study, authorizer relations, Brown Act, Public Records Act, conflicts of interest, funding, student matters, admissions, and more. Greta represents schools of all sizes, and has worked with numerous charter networks on strategic partnerships, resource sharing, and governance. She provides regular trainings on charter school topics, and is actively engaged in school issues and policy.

Julie Ashby Umansky serves as the California Charter Schools Association VP of Legal Advocacy. In that capacity, she manages CCSA’s legal advocacy efforts and funding programs, and advises on various collective legal advocacy strategies statewide. Prior to joining CCSA, Julie worked as a senior counsel at the national law firm Foley & Lardner. Julie advised charter schools, school districts and charter school management organizations on the variety of issues facing the charter school movement. Julie served eight years on the board of the High Tech High charter schools.

Merrick focuses his practice on advising charter schools on a variety of issues regarding governance, contracts, conflicts of interest, real property acquisition, the Ralph M. Brown Act, and the California Public Records Act. He regularly advises charter school clients on entity formation, planning, and relations with charter authorizers, and also assists with new charter submissions, appeals, revocation proceedings, and renewals at all levels. Merrick also has experience assisting with various phases of civil litigation and appeals.