The Board of Trustees

Friend of TBS

Allison, an attorney and Adjunct Professor at UC Hastings, is serving her second year as a TBS Board member. Allison’s 5th grader has been a student at TBS since preschool (Eugenia!).

What Matters in Education is:
support to encourage and inspire lifelong learning.

Originally from Chicago, IL, where he attended the Francis W. Parker School, Andy Singer is a parent of twin boys in 6th grade at TBS and lives with his family in the Rockridge neighborhood in Oakland.

Andy has a BA in Government from Hamilton College and an MBA from the University of Maryland, Robert H. Smith School of Business. He has worked in the high-tech industry for more than 25 years, serving in leadership positions in large public companies and venture-backed startups. He is currently the Vice President of Marketing for a cyber security startup company.

Since moving to Oakland in 2007, Andy has served in several volunteer leadership positions. From 2007 to 2009, he served as the District 1 representative to the City of Oakland Budget Advisory Committee. In 2015, when his children entered kindergarten at Chabot Elementary, part of the Oakland Unified School District, he served four years on the Chabot Elementary PTA Board of Directors. Andy served as the Vice-Chair of the Annual Fund campaign from 2015 to 2017 and then as Vice President of Fundraising
from 2017 to 2019. From 2020 to 2021, Andy, selected by the Oakland Unified School District Board of Directors, served as the District 1 representative to the Equitable Enrollment Working Group, where he developed recommendations for revising the district’s enrollment policy. Andy joined the TBS Finance Committee in the Fall of 2021.

What Matters in Education is:
wonder.

Brian is an East Coast transplant from Mystic, CT and has lived in the Bay Area for 17 years. Brian produces and performs magic shows throughout the Bay Area as Brian Scott and runs the Bay Area School of Magic, which can be found in numerous East Bay after-school programs. Through his production company, Brian Scott Productions, Brian has been involved with fundraising on many levels and brings that experience to the TBS advancement committee. Brian’s son is currently in the middle school.

Originally from the Chicago Area, Carol has been living and working in the Bay Area since 2008. She completed her undergraduate studies at Indiana University in Clinical Laboratory Studies and completed graduate studies from Rosalind Franklin School of Medicine and Science in both Healthcare Management and Clinical Laboratory Sciences with a focus in Transfusion Medicine.

She has 35 years experience in laboratory medicine, and 20 years in medical education holding positions as department director, clinical rotation coordinator, and part time lecturer. 

Carol has also worked as an evaluator and application review committee member for the Accreditation Bureau of Health Education Schools for 20 years. Currently Carol is employed by Kaiser Permanente as the Assistant Laboratory Administrative Director, Laboratory Quality and Compliance at the Oakland campus. She recently gained Fellow status in 2019 with the American College of Healthcare Executives.

What Matters in Education is:
continually stoking each child’s natural curiosity by asking provocative and challenging questions, and encouraging exploration through trial and error.

Cathy Hunter has been an educator for over forty years; in the Bay Area she served as Upper School Head at Head-Royce School and as the founding head of San Francisco Friends School. Cathy is currently serving as a leadership search consultant with RG175, where she is particularly interested in advancing women and people of color into senior leadership positions. As Board Chair, Cathy helped the California Teacher Development Collaborative (CATDC) begin a branch in Southern California, expanding upon its impactful work in the Bay Area. CATDC programs now reach hundreds of educators each year.

Deborah Volk is a first generation American, raised up and down on the east coast, before making her way west in 2000. She has worked for defense contractors, non-profits, and startups before starting her own consulting company in 2006. This coincided perfectly with becoming a parent, in 2007. Her company focuses on helping companies deliver secure, identity-focused solutions that enhance business processes. As a result, Deborah is a privacy-conscious (some would even say paranoid) person who loves technology. She is an avid reader, enjoys strolling through Berkeley, and is a Warriors fan (but loves Basketball in most forms). Deborah been an active member of TBS since 2011, when her son started at the ECC in the Cedar classroom. Through the last 9 years she has hosted various pick-a-parties, participated in the Winter Festival, Fall cook-offs, classroom activities, and the Wrap Party. Deborah is excited about being a voice of a parent of a TBS student, representing this school that has such lofty ideals and the passion to try to reach them.

What Matters in Education is:
fostering a life-long love of learning; for without that, individual, community and global growth gets stunted.

Where are you based, and where have you lived?
I am from Brazil. I moved from Brazil to Miami. In 2011, we moved from Miami to the Bay Area. I am based in Richmond, California.

What brings you to the TBS Board and to the TBS community?
I felt part of a community when Noah joined TBS. The school focuses on educating the individual student rather than just imparting knowledge. I also liked the school's focus on social-emotional learning. I became part of the Board because I wanted to give back to the TBS community.

What is your relationship to TBS? Do you have kids attending TBS (currently, in the past, or potentially in the future)?
My son, Noah, is in eighth grade.

What are your areas of expertise or fields of study? Where did you study and why?
I attended college at the University of Miami. I got a Juris Doctor from the U.C. Berkeley School of Law. I used to manage a supply chain consultancy before attending law school.

I currently manage the Immigration Team of a nonprofit dedicated to making San Francisco the first city to provide universal access to free legal services.

What are your hobbies?
I love to run, hike, meditate, and nature.

What is your superpower?
My superpower is self-awareness.

Nancy Nagramada is an East Bay native and has served as the Head of Upper School at The San Francisco School since 2017. She is pleased to be a new community representative on the TBS Board, bringing her 25 years of experience with grades 4-12 to the table. Nancy also currently serves as a Board member for BATTI (Bay Area Teacher Training Institute).

What Matters in Education is:
honing the skill of creative problem solving in our students. The world needs flexible, nimble thinkers who are unafraid to approach challenges with a what-if attitude.

TBS Faculty Member

Sarah is a marketing professional focused on leading brand strategy for the education industry at Autodesk. As an evangelist, she speaks about the importance of bringing making, design and creativity into the classroom. This is Sarah's third year of the TBS Board of Trustees and has previously served as the Family Association lead for two years. She currently has a 3rd grader and a TBS alum attending TBS since the Early Childhood Campus. She also serves in volunteer roles for Big Brothers Big Sisters and CASA.

What Matters in Education is:
developing a natural curiosity to be a lifelong learner.

A TBS Board Member since 2016, Taryn is the current Director of Admissions at The Nueva School in Hillsborough/San Mateo, California (PK-12). She has achieved enrollment goals during two major campaigns: a middle school expansion and launching the new upper school. A Board member of the Bay Area Directors of Admissions and a steering committee member of the Bay Area Admissions Directors, she is engaged in the changing enrollment trends throughout the bay area. Taryn is a previous board member of People of Color in Independent Schools and worked for A Better Chance. She’s dedicated to equity and inclusion work within independent schools and beyond.

What Matters in Education is:
the opportunity to question, learn, grow, and dig deep in a safe and nurturing community.

Tim is currently working at the California Academy of Sciences as part of a team that designs and leads adult learning experiences to support educators who are interested in teaching Science more effectively and equitably. Prior to that, he worked as an educator serving students in urban settings at just about every level from K - graduate school. This work has included classroom teaching, teacher training, coaching, curriculum writing, administration, and professional development design.

What Matters in Education is:
the details. Good ideas are abundant. How they are brought to life can determine if, and for whom, they work.