Board/Advisors

Kate Tindle, Board Chair

Board member since 1999
Senior Program Associate, Synergy Enterprises, Inc. 
As a child of a military family, Kate Tindle moved around every three years, being exposed to new communities and schools throughout her K-12 experience. This mobility fostered an awareness of how people can make others feel different and marginalized. Before her father was drafted into the military, Kate’s father worked at hanging wallpaper and pumping gasoline. Her mother, with five children, was a stay-at-home mom until cancer took her at an early age, when Kate was seven. Kate’s mother’s family, Irish immigrants from Cork to Baltimore, also shared a blue-collar background of plumbers, salesmen, and secretaries. This family background, coupled with transient school experiences, fostered in Kate a desire to make a difference by pursuing teaching in high needs schools as her career. She tried to foster a sense of activism in her seventh grade students by teaching biology through the lens of how human behavior can impact living things and how political and legal action can help save environments. Kate eventually moved into preparing graduate students at George Washington University to teach in high-needs urban schools and currently works for educational reform at Synergy Enterprises, Inc. In 2012, Kate contributed a chapter to the book, White Women Getting Real about Race: Their Stories about What They Learned Teaching in Diverse Classrooms.

Carrie Ellis

Board member since 2003
Senior Managing Director, People, Leadership, and Experience – Teach For America
Carrie L. Ellis is a graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta, GA where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. Following her undergraduate studies, Carrie moved to California to teach middle school English and Mass Media in Los Angeles through Teach For America. Her teaching experience inspired Carrie to pursue a Master’s degree in Communication Management from the University of Southern California, where she concentrated in Educational Children’s Media. After graduation, Carrie went to Washington, D.C. where she worked for several years in different capacities on the national staff of Teach For America. In 2005, Carrie joined the staff of KaBOOM! as the Director of Project Management. KaBOOM! is the national nonprofit that creates playspaces through the participation and leadership of communities. During her seven years with KaBOOM!, Carrie’s team oversaw the planning and installation of over 1,400 community-built playspaces throughout North America.  Carrie returned to staff with Teach For America in 2013 where she coaches managers on retaining the organization’s strong and diverse staff, ensuring positive staff engagement, consistently building the diversity of the team, and supporting excellent staff performance.

Melba Conway

Board member since 2013
Retired Classroom Teacher, Curriculum Specialist, Education Consultant
Melba Conway spent more than forty years in education and in 2013 retired as a classroom teacher from the Arlington County Public Schools. She holds bachelors and master’s degrees from the University of Arizona and began her extensive career teaching middle and high school in the Tucson Unified School District. In addition to teaching reading and social studies, Melba is proud to be one among the pioneers of what became Tuscon’s noted Mexican American Studies program as a teacher of Chicano and African American History and Literature. Her experience includes developing culturally based curricula for K-12 classrooms and a background in Cultural Competency and Literary Therapy. A progressive educator who advocates for teaching social justice and people’s history, Melba was thrilled to join the board of Teaching for Change and noted that she has used Teaching for Change’s resources – including the book catalog that predated our current webstore - for many years.

Darryl McDuffie

Board member since 1996
Resource Teacher, Special Education, Thomas W. Pyle Middle School
When Darryl J. McDuffie began working as an intern with Teaching for Change in 1995, he had no idea that he would eventually become a board member. It has been an affiliation that transformed his practice and continues to invigorate his passion for education. Currently, Darryl coordinates services students with emotional and behavioral disabilities for Montgomery County Public Schools. He started his career in education with the D.C. public schools and has worked for public and independent schools in the Washington metropolitan area. His areas of concentration are English, urban education, special education and professional development. Darryl earned a BA in English and Communications from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey and a Master’s in Secondary Education from George Washington University.

Don Murray

Board member since 2011
Retired from city government. Appointed Chair of the Humanities Council of Washington, D.C.
Don Murray has been active in local politics for many years. He is the father of Alana Murray, co-editor of  Putting the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching and the son of  Donald Gaines Murray, who de-segregated the University of Maryland Law School in 1935.

Gita Rao, Board Treasurer

Board member since 2007
Portfolio Manager, The Non-Profit Finance Fund

Sheldon Scott

Board member since 2011
General Manager, Restaurant Marvin, and performance artist
A native of Pawley’s Island, SC, received his BS in Psychology from Francis Marion University in Florence, SC. He began his career in Social Work as a Unit Director for the Boys & Girls Club of Horry County. Upon moving to the Washington D.C. area, he joined a private practice, specializing in Mental Health, Substance Abuse and Sex-Offender Treatment at Northern Virginia Counseling Group. After this four-year stint as a psychotherapist, he began studying and performing as an actor, storyteller and writer. He’s an acclaimed performer, who also serves on the board of Youth Pride Day, D.C. ; Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner, 1A03; and the regional manager for Restaurant Marvin.

Nzinga Tull, Board Vice Chair

Board member since 2008.
Chief Systems Engineer Aerospace Engineering Division, Jackson and Tull
Nzinga Tull is a native Washingtonian, a graduate of the D.C. public school system and Spelman College, and a systems engineer with her family’s engineering firm, Jackson and Tull. She has been working with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Mission Operations Team since July 1998, supporting on-orbit activities and anomaly investigation as well as three Servicing Missions. She has represented the HST various public forums, including 60 Minutes (CBS), Behind Closed Doors with Joan Lunden (A&E Network), and the HST 15th Anniversary Symposium. Nzinga believes deeply that broad access to progressive publications and to rigorous, culturally relevant, student-centered K-12 public education are critical for healthy communities.  When she isn’t wearing her “engineer” or “education advocate” hats, she enjoys studying and performing dance with KanKouran West African Dance Company. She also enjoys spontaneous dance-offs with friends and eating chocolate.

Former Board Members

• Trish Ahern, Center for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA)
• Naomi Ayala
• Denise Bello
• Patricia Bradford Charles, Herbert Flowers High School
• Marcy Fink Campos, American University
• Margarita Chamorro, Prime DC
• Connie Chubb, American University
• Donald Clausen
• Bonny Cochran
• Michael Cohen, New York University
• Sheila Coleman-Castells
• Kenneth Danford, North Star Teens
• Carmen Davila, AARP
• Kathy Davin, Key Elementary Schools, Arlington Public Schools
• Hilda Diaz
• Mike Finley
• Evie Frankl
• Sue Goodwin, NPR
• Sharon Grevious
• Sally Harriston
• Damien Heath
• Aida Heredia
• Rebecca Shulman Herz
• Marlene Hoffman
• Alicia Horton,  Thrive DC
• Leah Holmes-Bonilla
• Etta Johnson, Arlington Public Schools
• Irene Leon, Cypress Hills Community School/PS 89
• Catherine Long, Montgomery County Public Schools-Office of Staff Development
• Joann Malone, Blair High School
• Edgardo Menvielle, Children’s Hospital
• E. Ethelbert Miller
• Francisco Millet
• Samuel Miranda
• Marie Moll, Latin American Youth Center
• Derrick Posey, Pullen Middle School, Prince George’s County Public Schools
• Susan Randall, Kenmore Middle School
• Katherine Rawson
• Richard Reinhard, photographer
• Carol Robledo
• Kevin Rocap, Project LEARN
• Roland Roebuck, DC Department of Human Services
• Sandra Rogers-Green, Arlington Public Schools
• Ila Supriya Roy, Montgomery County Social Services
• Paulette Saunders, For the Love of Children (FLOC)
• Andy Shallal,  Busboys and Poets
• Renee Hausman Shea, Bowie State University
• Hilary Stern-Sanchez, Seattle Literacy Project
• Ruth Tamaroff, Tamohara Imports
• Lynda Tredway
• Marian Urquilla, Columbia Heights/Shaw Family Support Coll
• Pedro “PJ” Urquilla
• Jenice Leilani View, George Mason University and Teaching for Change
• Rebecca Villarreal, AARP Illinois
• MaryAnne White
• Barbara Wien
• Sheryl Winarick