Mandy Smith • Board Chair
As a 6th grade ELA and history teacher, Mandy Smith does more than facilitate learning, write rubrics, and grade projects. She also hosts chess club, leads identity work and mindfulness, builds classroom community using restorative circles, and makes space for students to Explore their Own Passion in her elective class. Students will tell you Ms. Smith’s classes are difficult, but she is also nice and fun so it’s okay.
In addition to her professional life, she is married to the love of her life, a mom to two school-aged boys, and an outgoing wanderluster at heart.
Javier Guzman • Treasurer
Javier Guzman has served youth for nearly three decades in multiple capacities, including after-school director, middle and high school teacher, literacy coordinator, assistant principal, principal of Big Picture Learning schools in New York City and Los Angeles, and now as Regional Director for Big Picture Learning (BPL).
Javier has led the growth of Big Picture Learning schools and BPL-inspired schools in California, beginning with just six schools in 2016 to over forty in 2021. Specifically, this has led to schools, small districts, and county offices of education to institute internships/apprenticeships/mentoring experiences and other out-of-school learning as well a range of instructional practices connected to BPL’s distinguishers. At the core of his work is the belief that every student has talents and passions that need to be nurtured and cultivated and that the more we listen to students, the more we realize that education must change.
Currently, Javier works with districts and schools across the Southwest to help transform learning for students furthest from opportunity and disengaged from school. He leads the Upstream Collaborative, an effort to redesign alternative education schools in California for equity and student success.
Javier also serves as the Director of Program Strategy and Convenings for the Deeper Learning Equity Fellowship, a partnership between Internationals Network and Big Picture Learning and funded by the generous support of several foundations.
Robert Redd • Secretary
Robert is a 25+ year veteran of the entertainment business. He has played key roles in the development of numerous brands including, Cubevision, Priority Records, and Lench Mob Productions. Robert has designed and managed successful marketing campaigns for dozens of music artists including Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Master P, Chingy, Westside Connection, Mack 10, Van Hunt and many others.
Through experience, he has developed a well-rounded skill set rooted in applying creative & practical common-sense strategies . Years of unique experiences, that only the entertainment business can provide, have made Robert Redd a versatile, capable and dependable executive.
Daniel “D Smoke” Farris
Farris grew up in a musical family with his mother, brothers, and cousin being gospel singers in Inglewood, California. D Smoke gained global notoriety as champion and undisputed breakout star of the inaugural season of Netflix's Rhythm + Flow. Since, the Inglewood rapper and multi-instrumentalist landed on Billboard's Top 10 Rap & Hip Hop Charts with his Inglewood High EP. In 2021, he was nominated for Best New Artist and his album, Black Habits, was nominated for Best Rap Album at the Grammy Awards.
He is a former Spanish teacher at Inglewood High School and was the first Studio Director at the High School for Recording Arts Los Angeles Pilot Program — as mentioned in Time Magazine — in 2018-19 and has been an active supporter of HSRA and 4 Learning ever since.
Bronwen Low
Bronwen Low is an associate professor in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education at McGill University. She has been leading and participating in research, knowledge dissemination, and program and curriculum development projects with a primary focus on how to understand and build bridges between youths’ passions and meaningful life pathways. This work attends to socially marginalized young people underserved by traditional schooling models.
Her books are Community-based Media Pedagogies: Listening in the Commons (Routledge, 2017), with Chloe Brushwood Rose and Paula Salvio; Slam school: Learning through Conflict in the Hip-Hop and Spoken Word classroom (Stanford, 2011); and Reading Youth Writing: “New” Literacies, Cultural Studies and Education (Lang, 2008) with Michael Hoechsmann.
Linda Nathan
Linda prepares school and nonprofit leaders to transform education and community-based organizations. As one of the founding directors of the Perrone-Sizer Institute, she continues to lead the program and teach professionals to champion equity and racial justice, integrate artistic and design thinking, and engage youth and families. She also provides consulting services for several of Hale’s clients. Previously, she served as the executive director of the Center for Artistry and Scholarship and founded Boston Arts Academy—the city’s first public high school for the visual and performing arts—where she also served as headmaster.
An adjunct lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a professor at Cambridge College, she’s a passionate teacher and author of two books: The Hardest Questions Aren’t on the Test and When Grit Isn’t Enough. When she isn’t in the classroom, you’ll find her tending to her garden or crafting teapots in her ceramics studio. Linda earned a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley; an M.Ed. in Educational Administration from Antioch College; an M.A. in Theatre from Emerson College; and an Ed.D. from Harvard University.