»View Video

Chris Korsmo
Executive Director

As a first generation college graduate, Chris knows first hand the transformative power of education to lift families out of poverty. While in college, she earned a double major in education and sociology and spent the early years of her professional life teaching and coaching. For some inexplicable reason, Chris thought it would be more fun to pick fights with the man, and turned her attention to advocacy.

After fifteen years in the reproductive rights movement, Chris now considers herself a post-feminist and uses the word “girl” the way most folks use “hello.” In 2007, thought she’d used every euphemism for the reproductive system and that it was time to leave D.C. for a place where her vote counted. Her family made a cross country pilgrimage to reconnect with Chris’ roots in education. Chris values personal choice which is why she wants to build a public education system that gives students the foundation they need to make their own choices about their future. Every child should have the option for post-secondary education if they choose - and the system should be built to make that possible. Chris can get downright ornery about this.

When she is not advocating for an education system that lifts our children’s future, Chris can be found wrestling with her son, Max, chasing down her two dogs and cooking with her partner. She enjoys sports, music, travel and an occasional three-layer chocolate cake.
top

»View Video

Bonnie Beukema
Deputy Director

From an early age, Bonnie’s education, volunteer work, and travel throughout Europe, China, and Africa led her to see issues of poverty, socioeconomic development, and education as inextricably linked. After obtaining her BA from SOAS, University of London and MS from the London School of Economics, she returned to Washington state to successfully defend long-time education champion, Rep. Helen Sommers in her 2004 re-election campaign.

Following a brief period in local political consulting, she joined LEV as a policy analyst in 2005 and directed research for the Citizens’ Report Card. One part wonk and two parts activist, Bonnie’s broad commitment to education is based on a downright dogged belief that educational opportunity for all must be by design, not by luck.

In her spare time, she travels to offbeat destinations, campaigns for issues she’s passionate about, serves on the board of Denise Louie Education Center, and explores the Cascades with her best friend, a little Corgi called Vilo.
top

Heather Cope
Policy Analyst

Heather experienced first-hand the educational inequity hurting many of today’s kids while teaching middle school social studies in the Bronx. A former journalist—and mostly still one at heart—she wanted to expose the problems in education and work to impact more than the students in her classroom, which lead her to an education reform think tank in Washington, D.C. While in D.C., Heather learned about national education issues, but knew real change in education would occur at the state level, bringing her back home to Washington State. Not a stranger to advocacy, Heather was a founding board member, and later co-chair, of a youth advocacy non-profit in her hometown.

Heather holds a BA in communications and political science from the University of Washington and a MS for Teachers from Pace University. When she’s not trying to save the world one K-12 system at a time, Heather enjoys immersing herself in foreign cultures (domestic and international), watching historical dramas and quoting Monty Python sketches. Still a practicing teacher, she routinely administers lessons on correct hyphen use to coworkers.
top

Michael Itti
Public Affairs Coordinator

Michael works to empower ordinary people with the knowledge they need to improve the quality of life in their community and state. Through e-mail, social networks, and the media, he communicates to education advocates about ways they can take action to strengthen Washington’s public schools. Prior to joining LEV Foundation, he managed a Washington State House campaign in 2004 and worked with lawmakers in Olympia as a communications specialist for two legislative sessions. Michael graduated from George Washington University with a BA in business administration and minor in political science.

top

»View Video

Lisa Macfarlane
Director of External Affairs

After cutting her political teeth volunteering on school levy campaigns, Lisa has spent the last dozen years working on public education issues in Washington State.  She led the movement to pass I-728, which voters overwhelmingly approved in 2000 and then she co founded the League of Education Voters and LEV Foundation.  Lisa has worked tirelessly on Seattle’s last 7 school levy campaigns and she is the past president of Schools First, Seattle’s on-going levy committee.

 

Before finding her calling in the politics of school funding and school reform, Lisa spent 15 years working in the juvenile justice system in correctional, wilderness, and legal settings.  Her first job out of college was a VISTA volunteer in a maximum security juvenile correctional facility in Columbia, South Carolina.  Lisa then spent 3 years staffing wagon trains and wilderness camps for court-referred youth during which time she rode a mule across the country.  After law school in Chicago, Lisa moved to Seattle to work as a staff attorney for the Public Defender Association.  She practiced primarily in juvenile court.

Lisa’s husband, Ross, is also a recovering attorney.  They both crave outdoor adventures.  They have 2 teenagers and their former exchange student from Uzbekistan is back living with them and going to college here. 

top

Melinda Mann
Development Director

top

»View Video

Kelly Munn
State Field Director

Kelly has been a dedicated education advocate for over ten years. She moved from San Francisco nearly twenty years ago to manage Sales training at Microsoft. When her first child was three, she decided to stay home with him and in a few years two more joined him.

As her children entered the Issaquah school system, Kelly found it impossible to watch from the sidelines. She joined the PTSA and volunteered to work on a fundraiser for her children’s school where her ideas helped raise the income above the previous year’s level. Although pleased with the results of her fundraising efforts, she quickly realized that the financial needs of the school went well beyond what they could raise at a Walk-A-Thon. The Issaquah School District had repeatedly failed to pass its bond & levy so Kelly became active in first supporting, and then co-chairing, the school bond & levy campaigns in her school district. Those campaigns were successful and brought much-needed funding to the district.

In addition to fund raising, Kelly also served as the legislative representative for her PTA. As she became more familiar with the inner mysteries of the legislature, she didn’t even know what legislative district she lived in. Kelly began to see that to really make a difference, education advocates need to speak directly to the state. Working through her local PTA, Kelly helped education advocates in her community to better understand education funding and to find their voices so they could be heard by their legislature.

Kelly’s work with the PTA on the local, district, and state level has been honored with several Golden Acorns and the rarely-awarded recognition as Outstanding Advocate in Washington State. Along the way, she also achieved the Crystal Level of Leadership in the Washington State PTA’s Leadership Academy. In her spare time, Kelly tap dances, and has belonged to a book club for over 14 years.
top

»View Video

Frank Ordway
Regional Director, NW Washington

Frank has always been committed to community service. Over the past 23 years, he has been a managing staff or board member with domestic and international organizations focusing on sustainable economic development, strategic technology use, social services, energy, transportation, domestic violence and the environment.

The commom theme thoughout all this work has been empowering people. And there is no more effective way to empower people, strengthen our communities and our economy than an effective education system. This is why Frank is so dedicated to the work of the League of Education Voters.

He is currently on the board of Bellingham’s Downtown Renaissance Network and Board Chair of Stone Soup, an organization that serves women and children in rural areas of Washington State through sustainable economic development and job training programs. He also serves on two commissions for the City of Bellingham. He is also an adjunct faculty member at the Evan’s School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington.

As Project Leader for the Public Health and Technology Leadership Program at the UW, he has led technology planning and implementation projects for HIV/AIDS clinic networks in Uganda, Mozambique and Ethiopia.

He received his Masters Degree in Public Affairs from the Evans School at the University of Washington and his Bachelors in Political Science from the University of Oregon.

Frank lives in Bellingham with his wife Rachel and two children, Dylan and Olivia.
top

»View Video

George Scarola
Legislative Director

George Scarola is the League of Education Voters Legislative Policy Director. A former teacher, George has been a citizen activist for the past 15 years on school funding measures, locally and statewide. Professionally, George has led a number of campaigns for ballot measures and candidates and worked as a senior aide to Speaker of Washington’s House of Representatives.
top