October 03, 2009
Board Bios and Photos 2009-2010
Board Bios and Photos
PRESIDIO HILL SCHOOL
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
2009 - 2010
SCOTT DUYAN, head of school, comes to the board with a wealth of independent and progressive school experience. Prior to Presidio Hill, he was the founding head of Blue Oak School, an independent and progressive K-8 school in Napa, California, which opened in 2001. In building a school literally from the ground up – collaborating with architects and builders, creating a school ethos, hiring faculty and staff, developing a curriculum with teachers, setting policies, supporting professional development and evaluation systems, budgeting and fundraising, marketing and welcoming families – there is no area of running a school in which Scott does not have extensive hands-on experience.
Before Blue Oak, he served as lower school head of the Catlin Gabel School in Portland, Oregon, a highly regarded independent progressive school, for thirteen years. He also has served as the founding middle school principal at the American School in Japan in Tokyo as well as taught at the International School of Stavanger, Norway and the Inter-Community School of Zurich, Switzerland, giving Scott a very global perspective in this increasingly interdependent and collaborative world in which our children live. Scott holds his bachelor's degree from UCLA and a Master's degree from the University of Northern Colorado, and he has done additional post-graduate work in education at both UC Irvine and Lewis and Clark College.
AUDREY YEE is the mom of Sam Steiner (Class of 2015) and serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees. A fifth generation Californian on both sides of her family, Audrey graduated from U.C. Berkeley and Boston College Law School and practiced estate planning, tax law and charitable gift planning for several years, during which time she met her husband Mike. After stints with the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund and Save-the-Redwoods League, Audrey now works for the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy in Fort Mason. She has served on several nonprofit boards and executive committees. Audrey, Mike and Sam enjoy travel, hiking, reading, games, cultural arts, sports, and visiting with grandparents and cousins.
GRACE ANGEL is an artist, a painter, a poet and a photographer. One way that she hopes to make a difference at Presidio Hill School is by investing her time helping ensure that PHS continues its mission to educate human beings not just students. She believes in PHS’ most fundamental principle – that to question, to investigate, to explore is the path to knowledge and that we must raise our children to be aware of the world and their responsibilities to it. This is the education she wants for her daughters Ilise (Class of 2016) and Isabella (Class of 2014). Volunteering in numerous school activities, leading admission tours, and serving as room parent have enriched, re-affirmed and deepened Grace’s belief in PHS. She is committed to having the school open to all children regardless of economic, social, religious and cultural background. These are among the reasons why Grace has been deeply involved in the school’s fundraising and community building events like Art for Kids Sake Auction. She served as the Auction Committee chair for the past three years and continues to lead the community’s fundraising efforts. Grace hopes to build on the success of the auction while keeping to the school’s core values. In addition to her background as an artist, Grace is the Events and Conference Manager at Semphonic. She currently serves on the board’s Development Committee.
JILL CHASE has been a parent at Presidio Hill School since 1995. She has an older son, Keil, who graduated from PHS (Class of 2005) and is a senior at Lowell High School, and her younger son, Trey, currently a second grader, started kindergarten at PHS in the fall of 2005. She has worked on the Development Committee for eight years (co-chairing for three years), and has worked on the Annual Fund campaign for eight years (co-chairing for 2 years). Additionally, she has been a room parent for many years and enjoys being a part of the Parent Association. Away from PHS, she is a small animal veterinarian. She has been in practice for 22 years—self-employed for the past 16 years—working full-time, and she is honored to care for many PHS families’ and staffs’ wonderful pets.
Continue reading "Board Bios and Photos 2009-2010"
February 03, 2009
Joining the PHS Board 2-3-2008
February 3, 2009
Dear PHS Community Members:
Each year at this time, the Presidio Hill School Board of Trustees begins the process of renewing its membership for the coming school year. The trustees committee of the board is charged with promoting membership and seeking out candidates whose skills and experience support the board’s current practices and future plans.
The trustees committee analyzes current board composition in conjunction with the board’s near- and long-term plans to identify areas of need within the board’s membership. The ideal board envisioned by the committee meets those needs while comprising a balanced blend reflective of the diversity of the school community.
The names of candidates to the board come from a variety of sources—teachers, administrators, current board members, and interested, involved parents who would like to be considered. Once candidates are identified, they are interviewed and may be asked if they are interested in serving on the board or joining one of its committees as a non-trustee member. Through this process, the trustees committee is able to identify candidates to recommend to the board and the community. Final candidates are submitted for nomination, and the community is notified in advance of the election at the spring corporation meeting.
If you know of someone who you believe has qualities that would be useful for the board, or if you yourself are interested in being considered for possible nomination, please contact any member of the trustees committee or any member of the board. Submission of a name does not guarantee nomination, but it is the essential first step. And of course, if you have any questions about the board or the nominating process, please feel free to contact any member of the trustees committee.
Respectfully,
Trustees Committee
Noel Kaufman, chair
Helle Rytkonen
Jennifer Franklin
Jill Chase
Manolo Santana
Continue reading "Joining the PHS Board 2-3-2008"
October 02, 2008
Friday Letter now resides in the Community Section
The Friday Letters for the school year 2008-2009 now reside in the Community section of our website. You will need to log in to gain access to this portion of our website. Please call or email us for more information.
August 14, 2008
Interim Director Announcement
August 13, 2008
Dear PHS Community Members,
I am so pleased to send this letter on behalf of the Board of Trustees announcing the appointment of Susan Andrews as Interim Director for the upcoming academic year. Susan knows our school well, having served as Director of the school for sixteen years and a Board member for the past eight years. As you will glean from her letter, Susan is a forward-looking individual who will lead the school with grace, maturity, and a deep knowledge of schools in general and ours in particular.
The Board acted quickly this summer to convene an interim director search committee and to hire a search consultant. The interim director search committee, with the input of the search consultant, developed criteria for the interim director and the priorities for the school in the coming year. Susan Andrews emerged as a possible candidate, and in evaluating her it became clear that she was the most qualified candidate we could hope for. We, on the Board, feel extremely fortunate that Susan has agreed to take a leave from her otherwise demanding work schedule in order to assume the Interim Director position.
I first met Susan, over five years ago when I traveled to pick up my then 2nd grader, Jacob, from the Camp Valley of the Moon overnight (he is now entering 8th grade). I was struck by her wisdom, thoughtfulness, patience, insight, humor, and her deep love of children and our school (why else would she choose to spend a night on a thin mattress on a bunk bed). My positive first impression has been enhanced by the dedication, strategic thinking and intellect she has demonstrated as a board member. Welcome, Susan! We are thrilled to have you assume this leadership role!
The Board is also pleased to inform you that we have retained Clay Stites, a consultant with the nationally known search firm Resource Group 175. Clay will be working to help the school recruit and hire a long term Director to begin in the 2009–2010 academic year. He will also provide counsel to the Board and Susan during this transition year. In addition, he will work into the next academic year to support a smooth and successful transition with a new Director.
Clay was a school Head for twenty years and has been a search consultant for the past eleven years. He comes highly recommended and knows Bay Area schools well, having done numerous successful head searches for schools in Northern California.
We, on the Board, recognize that the community may have questions about this transition year and the process the school will follow to hire a new permanent Director. For that reason, we are planning a coffee talk from 5:00–5:45pm on September 16th and from 8:00–8:45am on September 17th at which Board members and Clay will be available to answer questions as we look ahead. We look forward to seeing you in the fall.
Sincerely,
Anne Regenstein
Chair, Board of Trustees
August 13, 2008
Dear Presidio Hill School Community,
The PHS Board of Directors has asked me, and I have agreed, to take on the Interim Head position during the 2008–2009 school year, as we conduct a guided head search and, most importantly, continue our esteemed program under the seasoned management of our administrative team and highly qualified and diverse faculty. Honored to step into this role for one year, I greet you with an understanding of the school’s past as well as an investment in its future.
Some of you may know me; many don’t. Currently an eight-year community member of the Presidio Hill School Board, I was the PHS director from 1980 until 1996. I retired to give my full attention to a diagnosis of advanced non-Hodgkins lymphoma. After some pretty amazing attention from modern medicine, I have survived cancer-free.
During the period since my retirement and cancer treatments, I served as interim director of Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley, helped start Oak Hill School for students with autism and other developmental differences, and taken on partnership in the family business, Buddy Rhodes Artisan Concrete, as Vice President of Marketing. I have served on the Board of Trustees of San Francisco School, as well as Oak Hill School, and I remain on the Board of the Eva Gunther Foundation, Chez Panisse Foundation and, though my role will be changing, Presidio Hill School. While I am no magician, I do have experience relevant to our community, and the will to put it to good use.
I view my assignment this year as an opportunity to help move the school forward in preparation for new leadership, as well as to support current operations while providing loving care and guidance to a school community that has undergone many transitions in the last 12 years. Despite our disruptions in leadership, many of those transitions have been very positive: the new building, the growth of the middle school, development of a strong administrative structure, extensive technology enhancement, and the development of a cadre of youthful new teachers to partner with the core of wise veterans.
I believe that we can look forward to this newest transition together with the support of a strong Board, the aforementioned excellent teachers and administrators, and the guidance of Clay Stites, our expert independent school search consultant. The parents and students that make up the current Presidio Hill community are as active and inspired as ever, and I come back to full-time immersion in the PHS family confident in our powers. Presidio Hill School is in its 90th year; crises have come and gone, and we have survived and prospered throughout the continuum. Our history buoys us. We are charged with both respecting it and learning from it as we move forward. We are participants in an amazing educational practice. I look forward to this exciting and remarkable time to work together.
Best wishes,
Susan Andrews
Interim Director
