Rich was born and raised in Osaka, Japan. Because English is his second language, as an educator he is particularly passionate about our students who are English Language learners. His career in education began as a High School English teacher and College Counselor in New York City, where he developed a passion for all things teaching and learning. After six years of teaching, Rich served as a principal in Denver Colorado, where his schools showed some of the strongest growth and performance in the state for African American and Latinx students. After leading schools, he served as the Chief Academic Officer for Uplift Education in the Dallas/Fort Worth region for 8 years and helped grow a system of charter schools serving 20,000 students. Rich moved to Oakland to join the LCPS family with his wife, who teaches 3rd grade at Laurel Elementary, and his two daughters.

Janelle Ruley has been an ardent charter rights advocate since 2007 and has assisted in the establishment or continued operation of hundreds of charter schools. Janelle’s primary focus is on charter establishment, renewal and revocation defense. She has represented charter schools in numerous venues, including before administrative agencies, the courts, school districts, county boards of education, and the State Board of Education. In her daily practice, Janelle regularly counsels’ clients regarding charter development, charter petition appeals, charter material revisions, drafting and revising MOUs, negotiations with chartering authorities, compliance with public transparency and open meeting laws and related policy development, as well as AB 1505 revisions to the Charter Schools Act, student admission and lottery requirements, charter school location requirements, Local Control and Accountability Plan issues, and a wide range of safe school issues. Janelle is a frequent presenter at CCSA-sponsored events, as well as the annual APLUS+ Conference, and a regular Brown Act trainer for charter school boards.

Heather knows what appeals to the media and how to find the human side of any piece. She is an expert at sorting through data to find interesting tidbits that can be parlayed into larger stories. Heather joined LC after eight years as an award-winning education reporter at the San Mateo Daily Journal. Heather brings her passion to support the work of those improving the future of today’s youth. Heather quickly rose through the ranks at LC, from Communications Manager to her current position as Vice President. She heads up much of LC’s national work, representing charter networks to nationally renowned teacher preparation organizations to foundations. Heather has helped her clients land prominent placements in NPR, USA Today, The San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times, Fast Company, Denver Post, EdSurge, The Mercury News, The Huffington Post and The Associated Press. Heather earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism with a minor in social science from San Francisco State University. She serves on the ChartHouse Public Schools board and is an avid volunteer for Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area.

Katherine Westerhold is a consultant with expertise in both PK-12 and higher education policy, research, and strategy. A primary focus of her work is supporting charter schools with charter renewal. Through this work, she has developed a toolkit of tools to help charter leaders tackle their renewals effectively, served as a coach and accountability partner to numerous school leaders during renewal, and provided tactical support to schools up for renewal. In addition to this, Katherine has led the design and implementation of new system-wide policy initiatives aimed at improving outcomes for students, and she has advised non-profit sector leaders on policy and entry into new geographic markets. Prior to consulting, Katherine served as Director of Policy and Government Affairs for Relay Graduate School of Education, a multi-state institution of higher education. In that capacity, she played a key role in launching five new sites across the country, securing public and private fundraising, obtaining regulatory approvals, building community partnerships, establishing new site operations, and designing sustainable financial models for new campuses. Katherine also led the Relay’s advocacy strategy, identifying policy issues of importance for the institution, and leading the institution’s advocacy and outreach at both the federal and state levels. Prior to her time at Relay, Katherine worked with the New Jersey and Louisiana Departments of Education. In New Jersey, Katherine played a key role in the design and roll-out of the State’s new teacher evaluation system. In Louisiana, she served as Chief of Staff for the Office of Talent, designing and implementing a variety of educator-focused initiatives, focusing largely on the design, integration and roll-out of the district-facing teacher evaluation data system used to collect data from districts and report outcomes. Katherine started her career with The New Teacher Project, supporting school improvement in post-Katrina New Orleans.