Aspire Public Schools Leadership Team
James Willcox, Chief Executive Officer
In 2009, James Willcox was named Aspire’s second Chief Executive Officer. Prior to his appointment as CEO, Mr. Willcox was Aspire’s Chief Operating Officer. Before joining Aspire, Mr. Willcox was the founding Chief Operating Officer for Education for Change, a nonprofit charter management organization founded to restart underperforming district schools within the Oakland Unified School District. Mr. Willcox has also served as a Principal at NewSchools Venture Fund, a philanthropic organization focused on starting organizations and supporting entrepreneurs focused on improving public schools nation-wide. Prior to NewSchools Mr. Willcox was a nonprofit consultant with the Bridgespan Group, and served as a U.S. Army officer for over seven years. He holds a B.S. from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and a M. Ed. and M.B.A from Stanford University.
Mike Barr, Chief Financial Officer
Mike Barr manages all of Aspire’s finance, accounting, and treasury functions. Mr. Barr has over 20 years experience of progressively senior positions in finance. Most recently, he was Vice President of Finance and Administration for Nightfire Software, a venture-backed telecommunications software company. Prior to that, he was Controller for Scient Corporation, where he established all finance and accounting policies and procedures as the company grew from $0 to $400 million in revenues and from 40 to over 1,900 employees, and led the company’s IPO and secondary offering in 1999. He has also served as Business Unit Controller at Electronic Data Systems. Mr. Barr is a Certified Management Accountant and received his B.S. in Financial Planning and Analysis from Oregon State University.
Roberta Benjamin, Area Superintendent - Los Angeles
Dr. Roberta Benjamin is a 35 year public school educator who has served in the Los Angeles Unified School District as a teacher, principal, district level leader and former head of the district’s charter schools division. Dr. Benjamin has worked extensively with school reform throughout Los Angeles, including programs at Elizabeth Street and Foshay Learning Centers. She also served as liaison between the Annenberg Foundation and the Los Angeles Unified School District. Dr. Benjamin is also an Associate Professor at Loyola Marymount University.
Elise Darwish, Chief Academic Officer
Elise Darwish has been an executive with Aspire Public Schools since its founding and currently serves as the Chief Academic Officer. In this role she supports principals, oversees research and development pertaining to curriculum, instruction, and assessment, and manages internal professional development programs. With over 21 years of experience in charter schools, traditional public schools and private schools, Ms. Darwish was a natural choice to design the Aspire education model and oversee its implementation. She began her teaching career as a kindergarten teacher in the inner city of Chicago; since then she has worked in the roles of teacher, mentor teacher, assistant principal, administrator and curriculum coordinator.
Prior to Aspire, Ms. Darwish was the Instructional Coordinator at the San Carlos Charter Learning Center, California’s first charter school and the nation’s second. During her tenure, the school grew from 3 grades to a full K-8 program with an extensive waiting list, and became internationally recognized for its innovation. Ms. Darwish also coordinated instructional technology for San Carlos School District, managed Net Day, implemented a Local Area Network, and a Wide Area Network. Ms. Darwish holds a Masters Degree in Educational Administration from San Francisco State University and a B.S. in Early Childhood Education from the University of Illinois.
Tatiana Epanchin, Area Superintendent - Bay Area
Tatiana Epanchin serves as Aspire's Bay Area Superintendent. Before joining the management team, Tatiana was the founding principal of Aspire ERES Academy in the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland. Previously, she served as principal of Monarch Academy in East Oakland. Under her leadership, the school increased student proficiency levels from 51% to 73% in math and 29% to 45% in language arts. In 2008, Monarch Academy was awarded the National Title I Distinguished School Award for closing the achievement gap, an honor bestowed upon only 1 out of every 9,600 schools in the state. Prior to becoming principal, Tatiana taught at Monarch Academy and served as Lead Teacher for the grades 6-8 Humanities Team at Aspire's Lionel Wilson College Preparatory Academy, where she was also a founding teacher. She began her teaching career with Teach for America in New Orleans where she taught middle school in the Ninth Ward. Tatiana is a New Leaders for New Schools National Fellow from the 2004 cohort. She has also been a social worker in Contra Costa County, working on intensive family preservation cases. She holds a BA in sociology, a MSW and a M.Ed.
Jonathan Faustine, Chief Operating Officer
Jonathan Faustine is responsible for all growth, operations, technology, facilities, marketing, strategic information systems and human resources functions as well as the overall functioning of the Home Office. In his career Mr. Faustine has managed and led strategy, business improvement and technology projects in many industries including High Tech, Retail and Government. He is an expert in project management and delivery.
Prior to joining Aspire he was the Chief Operating Officer/Chief Financial Officer at Leadership Public Schools. He was one of the Founding Trustees and Officers of the non-profit Bay School of San Francisco and is active in many community groups. In the business world, Mr. Faustine had his own firm where he served as a strategic consultant and executive coach to start-up CEOs. He was one of the founding executives of Comergent Technologies, Inc., the Chief Technology Officer of Robert Half International and an Associate Partner at Accenture.
Heather Kirkpatrick, Vice President of Education
Heather Kirkpatrick is the Vice President of Education at Aspire Public Schools. In this role she supports educators from recruitment as Residents or as first year teachers into Aspire's Induction program through promotion into roles such as Lead Teacher, Model Teacher, Mentor Teacher, Principal and Instructional Coach at Aspire. Heather began her teaching at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, New York. Prior to teaching, she worked for several years in organizational development at a non-profit serving indigent adults. She earned her B.A. from Barnard College, her Master's in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and her Ph.D. in Education at the Stanford University School of Education.
Mary Welch, Area Superintendent - Central Valley
Mary Welch was the Founding Principal of Aspire Public Schools' first campus in North Stockton in 1999, now known as Vincent Shalvey Academy, a recipient of the California Distinguished Schools Award in 2002. She was most recently the Founding Principal of Rosa Parks Academy, the 13th Aspire school and the first Aspire school within the Stockton Unified School District. Ms. Welch has been an educator for the past 33 years as both a teacher and an administrator. She has been a principal in the Lodi Unified School District and in the San Carlos School District, as wells as a district coordinator of special education. While a principal in San Carlos, her school became a California Distinguished School and a recipient of the Annenberg Torchbearer Award, given to exemplary leadership schools in the Bay Area. Ms. Welch holds a BA in Liberal Studies from Cal State Fullerton, a MA in Special Education from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Southern California.